Page 90 of Enchantment of Silver and Sea
“Answer me. It doesn’t make sense, does it?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but all that came out was a garbled noise. I shook my head.
“Right. It doesn’t make sense. All the time I put in with your family…I mean, fuck me, all that time I spent with two little girls, trying to stay close, keep tabs on you, get you ready for that next step…and damn if it all hasn’t gone to waste. First with your mother, then Irene, and now you.” The whites of Leon’s eyes were visible the whole way around now. His jaw shifted from one side to the other, teeth scraping between his words. “Even now, we’re all supposed to bow before you, Maila. Our almighty Conductor. Our great weapon. Maila wants to workin the Library? Let her. Maila wants to learn all about magic down in the basement? Let her! After all, she’s a twenty-year-old girl. No, even better! Ten years old, when we first assigned you to the Library. A little girl needs to know the secrets of our city, right? So she can run off and share them later in life with some Stranger boy she’s fucking? But even that’s forgivable. Anything goes when it comes to Maila Gray.”
I stole a glance in Kieran’s direction. That split second told me that he saw what was happening and was scrambling to get to us. But Zander, either oblivious or fine with what was happening, used the opportunity to land a punch that made Kieran’s head snap back with an audible crack.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you!”
Leon’s scream shattered any ounce of resistance that was left in me. I collapsed onto the ground, my chest heaving with sobs.
“That’s what I thought!” His face was contorted in rage now. “A coward. A meek, sniveling little girl. You’re not some great weapon. Your mother, your father, your sister…they had that fire. They were fighters until the bitter end. UntilIput an end to them. But you. What a fucking joke.”
He threw his head from side to side, cracking his neck. Rolling his shoulders. Gun still trained on Nya. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears, and I knew because I knew her that they weren’t for herself.
“A few others on The Council—Addis and that insufferable prick Cato—seem to think you’re worth keeping around, no matter what shit you pull,” Leon snarled. “So unfortunately for me, I have to rescue your ass from this mess you’ve gotten yourself into, and take you back to them. But before I do…Ithink it’s important for you to understand that your behavior has consequences.”
He was grinning then, his teeth a menacing slash of white across his demented face. He ground the barrel of the Immobilizer into the side of Nya’s head, making her grit her teeth.
No, no, no, no.
It couldn’t be happening again. I had relived this so many times. I had turned it over and over and over and over. Played out every possible scenario. Every possible way that I could have saved Irene, but didn’t.
Leon’s face was absolutely glowing as he savored my realization of what was about to happen. “They say if you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. Maybe you’ll think about that the next time you want to take up with someone like this one here or choose to get fucked by some delinquent.” He tossed his head to the side, in Kieran’s direction.
And then time screeched to halt.
Leon’s finger moved for the trigger.
Nya tilted her chin upward. Ready. Accepting.
I lunged.
Not only with the strength of Larimar’s magic. With the strength of all that was in me, all that had been simmering beneath the surface for ten long years. That living, breathing thing that had consumed me. Left me drowning in unbearable grief. The thing that now said I would not endure this again.
I crashed into the two of them so hard that Leon lost his grip on Nya’s shoulder. So hard that Nya lost her footing, falling onto her back.
A gurgle erupted from Leon’s throat, breath and blood and everything in him strangled by the spear of ice that pierced straight through him, goring the front of his neck and chest and splintering out his back like some obscene icy growth.
Larimar…forgive me.
Leon’s blue eyes, just as cold as the ice that now skewered him, flashed with what could only have been the terror of certain death.
And then there was a boom. A flash of light.
Leon’s last fuck-you, to me and to us all, as he pulled the trigger.
In that moment, that last fraction of a second, I let my gaze drift beyond his gun. Beyond the arm that held it in position. I let my gaze drift across the grass to the silver eyes that I already knew were trained on me. And I let my own eyes fill with everything that I felt for him. Everything that he meant to me. Even as his own widened in horror.
There was an instant of pain. Scalding, clawing, all-consuming pain. Pain that tore me in two. Pain that became everything I was, all that was left of me.
And then this time, truly…
There was nothing.
CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE
I was floating on water. Crisp, cool water. Clear as the air. Clear as the sky overhead, a cloudless arctic blue. I dragged my hands through the pristine liquid ever so slowly. There was nothing above me. There was nothing below me. It was just me, drifting on the surface of sunshine itself.
