Page 73 of Her Dreadful Will
“Is this okay?” he asked. “Do you want to do this?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“It’s the quickest and safest way to get your radiance level back up. If you try to function on my energy for too long, it could mess with your powers. But you could also sunbathe for a few days, and recharge that way.”
She shook her head. “I can’t waste that kind of time. I have to run my store. Especially now that I’m getting more customers. Seems like the word has finally gotten around.”
“That’s good.” He turned away, looking straight ahead. “The town wouldn’t be the same without you.”
The satisfied tone of his voice triggered a suspicion in Soleil’s mind. “Wait a second—did you have anything to do with my new customers?”
“How could I?” He pushed the car into reverse. “I just cause destruction, remember?”
“No, seriously. Did you make that happen? With the flyers, and the word of mouth?”
His shrug was an admission in itself.
“How?” she gasped. “How’d you make the people actually show up? You can’t have that many tethers in play.”
“This wasn’t a tether thing. I designed the flyers, printed out a bunch of them, and then summoned a little chaos wind to spread them around town. I may or may not have incorporated a couple of coercion and avarice sigils into the design.” He shot her a tentative smile. “Maybe I have a future in marketing.”
How did he always manage to do this? Every time she was pissed at him for doing something sneaky and dastardly, he showed another side of himself—a likable side that sent warmth and light wriggling into her heart, softening it up again.
“Thank you,” she said. “For sending the customers, and for giving me your energy earlier. You must be feeling pretty low yourself.”
“I won’t lie—I wasn’t doing great. But I spent some time sucking the rot out of Florence’s garage, and that made me feel better.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah. I can consume chaos as easily as I create it. It’s a neverending cycle—in and out. Chaos fuels me, and I feed it. But I do like to recharge with moonlight occasionally, too. A balanced diet, you see, so the chaos doesn’t turn on its own master.”
“That could happen?”
“Who knows? We’re in uncharted waters, love. Here there be monsters.” He flashed her a grin, and she found herself smiling back. But she tried to rein in her joy, because no matter how charming Achan could be, he broke all the rules. Actually he stepped right over the rules and stood outside them as if they didn’t apply to him at all. As if he really was a god, unbound by human laws.
She couldn’t forget Zillah’s face, desiccating and peeling before her eyes. Couldn’t forget the casual way Achan held out his hand so the two dislodged teeth would drop into his palm.
She stole glances at him as he drove. His long, pale fingers, etched with leaves and dark symbols, drummed the steering wheel ceaselessly as he guided the car. After a few minutes she realized they had passed through town without encountering a single red light. Every one they’d glided through had been green.
“So you just use magic whenever you want, however you want,” she said abruptly.
“Of course.” He glanced at her. “That’s how it’s supposed to be.”
“No, it’s not. We have to show restraint with our gifts.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s not fair that we have these powers, while the humans don’t. It’s an unbalanced advantage.”
“So? People use their privilege for their own good all the time. Why shouldn’t we?”
“Well, we can, a little bit, but—”
“Just not in big, noticeable ways, right?” He scoffed. “Heaven forbid we should rise to our rightful place above the humans.”
“You despise them, don’t you?” she said. “You’ve hurt other humans, like you hurt Zillah. Haven’t you?”
“I have.” He turned onto the long, dark road leading out to Hatter’s Fall. Black shapeless bushes and spindly fences whisked by in the dark. “Does it scare you that I hurt people? Or are you scared because it doesn’t bother you as much as you think it should?”
