Page 259 of Lady of Ashes

“What has happened?” Talwyn demanded, stepping to the table and picking up one of the keys, turning it over in her hand.

“She closed them all,” Alaric murmured under his breath, unable to believe she had pulled this off. That she had indeed played him. She hadn’t left that amulet by accident. She had wanted him to have it. Wanted him to have all of them. Wanted him to have Talwyn shift them into the keys.

Because she had altered them. These keys weren’t going to get him into Avonleya.

He moved forward, picking up a key himself. Mikale did the same.

And Tarek.

He could see it then. The tiny Blood Mark at the top of the key, where the god’s symbol still held its form. This one was Falein’s, goddess of cleverness and wisdom.

How ?tting.

“She not only closed all the godsdamn rifts, she sealed the realms,” Balam bellowed. He spun, pointing an accusing ?nger at Alaric. “How many times did I tell you to quit playing with her? How many times did I tell you to keep her locked up? You insisted you had her under control. That she answered to you and only you, despite her proving time and again you have never owned that girl.”

Balam swiped up another key. The points at the end pricked his skin, blood immediately welling. This key was Temural’s, god of the wild and untamed. The god the Shifters tended to worship.

“Not only did she just prevent us from opening more rifts to bring in more forces, she lowered the wards keeping the Witches and Shifters contained. In one fell swoop, she just changed everything.” He tossed the key back down on the table.

He stalked for the door, pausing beside Alaric. “You deserve every ounce of wrath Achaz will bring down upon your head for this.”

Then Balam was storming out of the council room.

Silence fell in the room, but it was soon interrupted by slow, psychotic laughter. The laughter grew and grew. Alaric turned to face Nuri Halloway.

“Nothing about this is funny, you insane bloodsucker,” Mikale snapped, chucking the key he was holding at her. She didn’t even?inch when it cut a gash along her temple. “You are bound to us. If we go down, you go down with us.”

“Oh, I always knew I would burn beside you for what I did,” Nuri replied through her laughter.

“Then why the fuck are you laughing?” Mikale demanded.

“Because it is funny,” she replied, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world.

“How?” he asked incredulously.

Her honey-colored eyes slid to Alaric. “Because you created a weapon to start and end a war, and in the end, it will only serve to destroy you.”

Alaric’s ?st tightened around the key he still held. He could feel it cutting deeper and deeper into his skin as his ?st clenched tighter and tighter, blood beginning to drip to the ?oor at his feet.

If Scarlett wanted a war, then she had just started one.

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