Page 141 of These Divided Shores
But Teo wasn’t a child anymore, Lu realized with a heartbreaking cry. He was a soldier, as she had been, a weapon Tom had stripped of all innocence.
Defensors made a ring around her and Vex, blocking the battle from the platform. Kari was outside the ring, fighting to get in, her face livid at the sight of Tom and his gun.
Lu had two pistols at her thighs, pouches of explosiveand dangerous plants in her pockets. Could the Incris move her faster than bullets?
“Adeluna,” Tom said. He didn’t lower his gun from Teo, but his face softened as he looked down at her. “You will understand. It shouldn’t have come to this, but—”
Tom cocked the gun. Teo sobbed, trying to stay immobile, his eyes pinched shut.
The world dissolved.
Lu held her hands out, aching and empty and more scared than she’d ever been in her life. “Stop,” she tried. “Just let him go.”
Tears welled in Tom’s eyes.Tears.“Teo, you have to give in,” Tom told him. He shook the gun against Teo’s skin. “I know you have magic. Youhaveto have magic in you. Too much is at stake. I’ve given everything, I’ve doneeverything—please, Pious God, please let him have magic. Don’t make me do this, Teo.Prove yourself.”
Tom looked back at Lu and smiled through his tears. “Everything’s falling apart, isn’t it? My king forbade me to affect you while you were working on his potion, but I’ll make you better after this, I promise. You won’t remember it. I can fix us again, I’ll fix everything—”
Again.The Menesia he had used on her.
Air knotted in Lu’s throat. Vex said something to her, reassurances, but she saw only Teo, who managed to open his eyes.
When he saw her, every tight muscle released in sorrow.“Lu, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry—”
“Teo, it’s all right,” she told him.“Teo—look at me—it’ll be—”
Tom shook his head, a violent lurch. “No!Teo—you have to do this. You have to be a good boy, you have to be strong. You don’t understand what I did to protect you.Try, Teo. Try to use magic.”
“He doesn’t have magic,” Lu said. Her voice shook. “It’s over, Tom. Let him go. Elazar already took the vial I made, anyway. You don’t need Teo anymore.”
“I didn’t intend to sacrifice you,” Tom blubbered. “I never intended to sacrifice either of you. You were meant to give Ibarra information in the safe house, not resist him to the point of torture. But when you did, when I saw the lengths the Pious God went to with the tools offered up to him... I couldn’t stomach my children being used like that. I’ve sacrificed everything else. I have been loyal in every other way. I was wrong to keep him secret, wasn’t I? I was wrong, Pious God forgive me—”
Lu had guessed, days ago, that Tom had given her Menesia to make her forget his involvement with Bianca and Annalisa, and to cover up Teo’s role in Elazar’s plans. Rage overwhelmed her now. She had never been more of a weapon than she was in that moment, and she would have charged the platform if not for Vex’s hands on her arm.
“Who is he?” Lu demanded.
She knew, though. She knew in the way Tom sobbedand begged Teo to try, he didn’t want to kill him, but he couldn’t fail the Eminence King, and people must believe that he was Elazar’s son. They would believe if the Pious God blessed Teo with powers.
But Teo wasn’t Elazar’s son. He was Tom’s.
A trumpet. There was a pause in the fighting, a gulp of breath, and Lu dared glance back.
Elazar had joined the attack.
She didn’t let herself watch him long. Resolve tasted like iron and blood, and Lu’s eyes scrambled to find a solution—
“Give it to me!”
The voice grabbed Lu. On the side of the platform, beyond a knot of clashing defensors and raiders, Jakes stood with a pistol aimed at Gunnar. Next to him, Ben had his hands out.
Lu had nothing but a wild, wicked hope.
She curled her fingers around a brown pod and pulled the Rhodofume from her pocket.
Guns fired. Her people, raiders, Grace Lorayans, were dying. Elazar was here now, enhanced with permanent magic, and there was no way to escape this courtyard without death.
Lu breathed, and leveled, and looked at Jakes.
“That’s Bianca’s son!” she screamed. Then, louder, over the death cries, “Bianca’s son!”
