Page 108 of Foresyth Conservatory
I couldn’t reach him.
My heart shattered when he looked at me—gun loaded and cocked against his temple.
“I pray, Dahlia, that you turn out to be nothing like me,” he said, his fingers trembling.
At the sound of the gunshot, the world erupted into black. But not before I caught the glint of two green eyes, piercing through the shadows.
Chapter 35: Strength
I awoke to the sound of my own name.
“Dahlia!” someone was shouting, but the weight of sleep pinned me down, pressing on my bones and skin. Distantly, I thought how nice it would be to curl up on my side. But the tugging on my lips pulled me from my torpor.
“For Gods’ sake, Dahlia, wake up!” It was a man’s voice. The floor was shaking, or maybe it was just me. My lids lifted, and I saw Aspen’s eyes, swirling gold within green, like a snake encircling moss. He was wiping my lips, looking upset. “Thank Gods. I almost thought your lipstick routine hadn’t worked on you.”
“She saved me,” I muttered, but the words were tangled in my throat.
My mouth felt dry as I reached for it. The jelly of poison was gone, wiped clean. Where had the cotton gone? I turned to the side and realized I’d spat it out—or maybe someone had pulled it from my mouth. My senses returned like a fog clearing. Across the room, I saw the Meister restrained with Leone’s tie, just as planned. Leone, however, was slumped in his chair, a swollen eye marking his struggle.
“He wouldn’t hand over the Book,” Aspen explained with a shrug, pointing to the open Book lying beside Leone’s unconscious form. I almost smiled at the brute force of it.
“Sequoia’s vomiting, and I can’t find Nina anywhere.” Aspen’s eyes darted around. “You were right about her—she poisoned the cups.”
“What do you all think you’re doing?” the Meister snarled, his eyes glowing green, full of hatred. Recognition pierced me like an arrow. He had just been in my dream.
I rose, despite my shaking knees, frantically reaching for the Book. I needed to pull my words together, get him to confess for the switchbox recording.
“You were there,” I spat but my words slurred. “You were there when my father . . .”
The Meister’s eyes sparkled as he rose, the knot of the tie coming undone and falling by his hands. “You children—you thought you could possibly restrain me?” He raised his hand into the air, twisting his fingers into a claw.
Aspen crashed down to his knees beside me, pulling at the imaginary fingers around his neck.
“The cards—” he choked out, faltering. I dropped to catch him. His eyes were bulging, his bronzed skin turning a nauseating shade of red. Panic rose to a fever pitch as Aspen contorted in my arms.
My eyes cut to the Meister. One hand was still outstretched in the shape of a claw, and in the other he was holding a golden Skorn card. An image of a sword shimmered as realization dawned on me—the Meister was doing this. I needed to get the card out of his hand as quickly as possible.
“I can manipulate the very air around your throat. This kind of power is only a fraction of what the Shattered Mother will offer me once I’ve completed the elemental sacrifice,” the Meister exclaimed, curling his fingers.
I didn’t have time to think. I only had time to act. I charged across the room.
My legs stuck to the floor like sap, but I pushed through my grogginess, aiming with my shoulder. In the next breath, I felt my shoulder shattering as it made contact with the Meister. The card dropped out of his hand, and Aspen spurted into a coughing fit. It was relief enough that I could ignore the blast of pain radiating down my arm.
I used my good hand to swipe a dagger from my belt, bringing it up to the Meister’s face. I shifted my weight to firmly pin him to the floor, but his laugh rumbled through his chest, pushing me off.
“You are such a fool, girl. Your friends are dying tonight, and there’s nothing you can do,” he said, grasping onto my weight and tumbling me over. My dagger clattered next to us, and we both reached for it. He was faster and had it on my neck in the next heartbeat.
“You can’t kill me—” I said, panic biting my chest. “You need me,” I spat.
“You’re right that I need you alive,” he said, his scar across his eye glinting in the firelight. “But that doesn’t mean I can’thurtyou.”
The Meister drove the dagger toward me, but I used my hands to brace his arm. His face was contorted into a mask of revulsion, lips parted with saliva gathering in the crease of his lips. The floor started to vibrate. Or was it my hands shaking against his?
A resonant creak of wood sounded across the room. I spared only a fraction of a second to see Sequoia behind the great oak tree. She was . . .pushingit down?
“Dahlia, you have to move!” she yelled.
“I’m preoccupied,” I tried to say, but it only came out as a guttural scream. I fought to gain distance from the Meister,pressing the dagger further up in the air. His face contorted from anger to frustration, foam crusting his lips. His eyes were shining a liquid lime green as he drove the dagger down, now only a breath away from my throat.
