She regarded me for a long, terrible moment.
Then her lips curved.
“Very well,” she said. “You want your little shadow-boy freed? You want him cut from my path? Fine. Prove you are worth the trouble. Give me whatIwant, and I will put down the leash.”
“What you want,” I said slowly, “is power.”
“That is always true,” she said. “Specifically, I want the thing you are hiding. The thing Elira died to protect. The door I cannot open, no matter how I push.”
My chest went tight.
Dragons, the thought whispered.
The hidden wing.
The anchor in the cottage.
Everything the Academy had tucked away from greedy hands like hers.
Her eyes gleamed. “Did you think you could keep such creatures tucked behind your bedroom corridor forever, child? The moment you touched them, the worldshifted.I felt it.”
The shadows pressed harder against my invisible line.
Behind me, the tea shop door rattled, as if someone inside had just tried to yank it open and been stopped.
I didn’t look back.
“I’m not giving you anything,” I said.
The dragons…she was merely testing. She didn’t know.
Her smile sharpened. “I want access. To the hinges. To the Hollows, the Wards, the anchors you’ve so thoughtfully woken. You are the key for too many locks, Maeve Una Bellemore.Giveyourself to my circle, and I will release Gideon.”
The world narrowed to her face, her words, the cold promise in them.
Behind my thorns, my thoughts snarled.
Give myself.
To her circle.
To her path.
To the thing I’d just watched nearly crack the town.
My heart thudded in my ears.
“No,” I said.
Her expression didn’t change.
I realized, with a sick little lurch, that she’d never expected me to say yes.
This was just the opening move.
“Very well,” she said. “Then we continue to play.”
Shadows gathered behind her again, coiling, thickening, readying for something worse.
