Page 140 of Born for Lace

He shakes his head slowly. “I can’t dull your awe. It’s too… Too remarkable, powerful, big.”

He uses the words I did when gazing dreamily at all The Cradle has to offer, the glowworms, the windmills…

I won’t let him do this. My swollen throat thickens, and my vision blurs behind tears. “Don’t you want to provide for me, Lagos?”

My words make him nod. “Yes.But I would rather be dead than the monster who tarnished the way you see this shiny world.”

“It won’t be shiny without you.” He stops and studies me again. Studies the desperation in my eyes. The tear that escapes. Studies my neck— I cover the swollen column, hiding the red finger marks and tender flesh I feel so acutely. His pupils dilate, swallowing pretty steel-coloured rings, leaving only darkness as he forces my hand away to expose the bruising.

“Death,” he says, “has always been the best place for a Shadow. It is what we are made of. I have to die. I can’t be alive and not be with you, little flower. And I can’t be with you.”

I panic. “There is no awe without you!” When I cup his cheeks, he closes his eyes, blocking me out. “You remember the farmhouse, right?”

He smiles. He actually smiles with his eyes closed, and the curve of his lips is so perfectly rested and raw. “You loved that house, didn’t you, little flower?”

“Yes.” I sob, smiling, too. “And remember the shelter underneath? Let’s go there. Let’s live there. Like we pretended that night.”

His eyes open. “Not safe.”

“They think we are dead.”

“Who?”

“The Trade.”

“It’s too risky.”

“It’s beendecades, brute, and that farm is still untouched. It’s ours! Don’t you see? We went a different way. We went west. They don’t go west. Spero and you and me, and our baby. The farmhouse is ours. I can feel it.”

“Our baby…”

I nod, tears rushing down my pink cheeks, leaving a pinching trail. “Yes. They took the coil out, Lagos.” My voice trembles with vulnerability. “And Tomar has sent a message to The Trade that we are dead. So, if we leave the last place they saw us, we can just disappear again.”

He rises to his full height, a towering seven-foot figure whose mere presence should instil terror in me and yet only draws me closer.

“It’s decided then?” A voice states from behind Lagos, slicing through the moment. In an instant, Lagos turns, tucking me behind him with a long, thick arm rippling with muscles designed for destruction.

“It’s okay,” I say, peering past him to see Robert in the doorway, holding a gun at eye level. “It’s Robert.”

Lagos is unnervingly rigid, the tendons and veins in his arms taut like steel cables. “This is my little flower! You understand, Common man?Mine.”

Robert lowers the pistol to his side and stares blankly at me.

“We are leaving,” I say to him, my voice shuddering at the sight of the gun.

Robert nods slowly. “I heard. I have always said you were free to leave. This isn’t a prison. It’s a sanctuary.”

“I know,” I breathe. “And it’s beautiful, but it’s not right for me. I don’t fit.”

“I cut part of your brain,” Robert mutters to Lagos, utter shock and wonder playing across his face. “But here you are, standing and impenetrable. We really don’t stand a chance against your kind, do we?”

“Are you waging a war, Common man?” Lagos’ voice seems even deeper in contrast to our company.

“No.” Robert shakes his head, dwarfed by the massive Xin De Shadow. “Least not yet.” They glare at each other. When Robert takes a step forward, Lagos growls and does the same.

“Easy.” Robert holds his hands up, one of them clutching the gun. “I just want to give this to her,” he says, offering the handle of the gun to me. “It’s a taser. Which sends an electrical pulse through the body. For him, Dahlia. Use it on him.”

I go to protest. “I don?—”

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