Page 10 of Iridian

“Not an insult, for Goddess’s sake. Just an observation. You are so very sensitive, Rosabel—so very, very sensitive. You take everything personally when you shouldn’t because nothing ever is.”

“Is that why, then?” I asked despite my better judgment. “Is that why you always choose Poppy, why you wanted Poppy to go on that mission for Hill?” Because Poppy could most definitely rearrange the narrative in her mind to suit her, to make things easier for herself. She’d admitted it to me herself, even though I’d never really noticed it. She had. “Is that why you could never stand me, didn’t love me, Grandmother? Because I can’t manipulate myself? Because I am notlike you?!”

Those fucking tears again—Goddess, I hated them so much. I hated that I was crying, and I hatedher,and I hatedme,and I hated the entire fucking world that was standing between me and Taland.

“Quite the contrary. It’s because you’re exactly like who I used to be that I don’t trust you.”

She could have slapped me, and I’d have been less surprised.

I amnothinglike you,I wanted to say because she must have lost her fucking mind if she thought I was going to just let her say that and get away with it, but Madeline suddenly stood up. Redfire magic danced on her fingertips as she raised one hand toward the doors on the other side of the room and the other at me.

Her magic let go of me all at once.

“They’re here.”

Chapter 4

Taland Tivoux

A few hours earlier

Whatever place this was, wherever they’d taken me to, Rosabel was not here, and that was pretty much all I needed to know.

I pushed the doors open at the same time and with all my strength, as if I hoped the sound of them slamming against the walls was going to do something—anything—to alleviate the anger and pain weighing my chest down. Not physical pain because I’d been healed, it seemed, but the pain of not knowing where she was. What had happened to her.Whyshe wasn’t with me, when it had been her who took me out.

I remembered it just fine, even though I’d had a foot in the grave—I remembered. She’d carried me, dragged me all the way out of that shit show by herself when she could barely stand on her own.

My stubborn little criminal.

And now she wasn’t here. I’d woken up in a small dark room all alone,withouther.

At the end of the narrow corridor outside that room were the others, and they all stopped speaking when I barged in. The doors did slam against the walls on either side, and it was definitely satisfying to hear the cracks as the handles dented them in, but the satisfaction didn’t last.

Aurelia and Kaid were sitting on a couch farthest to the left of the room, while Seth sat alone on the floor near a table with weapons on top of it, resting his elbows on his raised knees as he played with his feather. And on the other side, near a dark grey desk stood Zachary, Radock and Violet—one of the elder members of Selem, a Bluefire that could kill you twenty different ways with nothing but two pocketknives in her hands.

Or sheused towhen she wasn’t sixty years old, I guessed.

No Rosabel.

I stepped into the room as they watched me, some flinching, some concerned—Seth just looked bored as he rolled his eyes at my naked torso. I hadn’t taken the time to change or shower—I couldn’t have cared less.

“Bro—” Radock started at the same time as I said, “Where is she?”

They all knew who I was talking about. They could all see that she wasn’t here, but her bracelet was. It was right there in the middle of the grey desk’s shiny top. The bracelet, but not her.

“I imagine you’re feeling well, Taland,” said Aurelia as she stood up from the couch and fixed her leather jacket.

“‘Course he does, the bastard. After all those spells, the dead would feel great, too. Meanwhile, I can’t get any of you to do more onme,” Seth said. His voice was low, but the entire room heard it because of the silence.

The entire room ignored him, too.

Radock turned toward me with his hands in his pockets. “Glad to see you’re okay, Taland.”

I moved closer to him, to that desk. “Where is she?” I asked again, and he had to see that I was holding myself back from screaming my fucking guts out. I hoped he answered me before I did something stupid. My magic was at the ready, and that bracelet was right there. I didn’t even need a feather—or the pain that came with it. I’d already used that bracelet with Rosabel so I knew how easily I could best all of them here if it came to it.

“She’s home.”

I turned to Violet Asher while she crossed her arms in front of her chest. Since I was a kid, she’d always looked strange to me with her wavy hair that fell down to her hips and wrapped around her shoulders like a silver blanket—and she still looked almost exactly the same somehow.

---