Page 24 of Curse of Darkness
If that fucking bitch thinks she’s going to use my—
“And she sings to me.” Amaya stares into the distance. “She used to sing me to sleep at night sometimes. When I was sad.” She closes her eyes. “She’s been singing me to sleep all week. If you would let yourself hear her, she’d sing to you too.”
“Amaya.” I force my voice to be calm and steady. “She’s not a friend. She wants to use me. She wants to—”
“She wants to be free,” she tells me firmly, those green eyes staring right through me. “I know. She wants to protect her people and—”
“The Old Ones are powerful and capricious. The last time they were freed they allied themselves with the unseelie, and marched south. Webarelywon.”
“She said the seelie killed her people and drove them from their lands, from their forests.” Amaya wears a mulish look. “And then you locked them all away in their prison worlds.”
You.
“I wasn’t even born yet.”
“Does it matter?” She slips off the parapet, and I recognize signs of an imminent retreat. “When you accept someone else’s truth, then you become an active participant in covering their crimes.”
That sounds infinitely wiser than a nine-year-old ought to be. “Did she say that to you?”
Color heats Amaya’s cheeks.Guilty.“Would it be so bad to set her free?” she whispers. “She’s always been there for me. She said she could be there for you too.”
A shudder runs through me. It’s not only Grimm who bears my fury. The Mother of Night knew one of us was going to die when we broke into the Black Keep.
She knewexactlywho was going to die.
Not me. Not her precious key to escape. She threw herself at me to protect me from the Horned One’s power before she vanished.
She could have done the same for him.
I won’t have her use my daughter to get what she wants.
It’s time to deal with the Mother of Night once and for all.
But first—
I reach out a hand. I want Amaya to know me. I want her trust. Only then can I protect her. “Thalia’s sent for dinner. It’s been a long day. Why don’t you join us?”
“What is it?”
“Roast venison. Your favorite.”
“How do you know I like it?”
“You asked for a third helping three nights ago.”
Amaya rolls a tongue over her teeth and then nods. But she takes my hand. “Okay.”
* * *
After I’ve tuckedAmaya in bed, I set foot within the Hallow that’s housed high in one of the towers in the castle, clasping the Crown of Shadows in both hands.
“Are you there?” I call.
There’s no answer; nothing but the sensation of a dark awareness turning in my direction.
It’s getting far too easy to step between worlds. My bare feet barely land on the solid stone floor of the Hallow, and between one blink and the next, I’m plunged into darkness.
Another world.
