Silas studies Maven at length before speaking slowly, hesitantly. I can practically see the gears turning in his paranoid head.
"She has no heartbeat. She didn't earlier, either. And when I was trying to heal her of the poison, I found a bottle of nightshade root powder in one of her pockets. That substance is all but impossible to get—the Legacy Council has made it entirely illegal. Why would a human-raised atypical caster go to the trouble of getting that?"
The question hangs in the air as Pia finishes healing Maven and straightens. I stare at Maven hard until I see her chest rise and fall, and relief hits me so hard that I have to sit down on one of the other empty beds.
Thank the gods. She's breathing.
Silas rubs his jaw as he goes on. "The dagger we found in Headmaster Hearst's office was made of adamantine."
"So?" I ask.
"Do you know how rare that metal is? It's what the weapons of the most powerful shadow fiends that make it into the Divide are made out of. Legacies don't use adamantine, and no one in the mortal world knows how to forge it, so how did that dagger end up in that office?"
I pull a face, but Everett seems to be catching onto whatever I'm missing because he abruptly looks even paler than usual.
"You think that dagger is Maven's?"
"Who cares if it is?" I snap. "Look, maybe one of the anti-legacy cultists who raised her picked up the dagger in the Divide or something. It doesn't matter."
Silas glares at me. "Yes, it does. If Maven's weapon is from the Nether, she's on a mysterious mission, and she doesn't have a godsdamnedheartbeat…"
I stare at him long and hard. "What the fuck are you saying?"
"You know exactly what I'm saying."
Everett stares down at Maven again, his voice barely audible even by my standards. "Do you remember, years ago, when several humans were put to death by the Legacy Council?"
That had been huge news in the world of legacies because they kept why they did that classified. Even I heard about it and I was eight.
“Yeah, so? I don't see what that has to do with?—"
"It was because they claimed the Nether was taking in humans and keeping them alive."
He looks between the three of us meaningfully, and even Crypt frowns.
Immediately, I shake my head. "No. That doesn't make any fucking sense. Maven manifested as a caster a few weeks ago, and she's part of some kind of anti-legacy cult. She told us that herself."
Silas pins me with a look. "Did she, though? She never said it outright."
I open my mouth to argue and then hesitate, realizing he's right.
"Damn it. She was just trying to deter us again," Everett murmurs. "That's all she's tried to do since we met her. I should've figured that out sooner."
I'm still shaking my head in denial, but then certain things click into place. Maven being so technologically impaired. Her delight in anything macabre. The way she had stared wide-eyed at everything in that cozy little town in Pennsylvania like it was from an alien planet. How hell-bent she has been on pushing her matches away, trying to get us to appeal for another keeper, insisting that she was all wrong for us.
The momentary confusion that had been on her face when Crypt had asked if she was part of the anti-legacy movement, right before she nodded.
You guys have no fucking idea how bad it would be to be bound to me. I'm protecting you idiots.
I refuse to drag you four down with me.
I'm your enemy.
All her past words swim in my head until I cover my face. "Holy shit."
My mate is from the Nether.
8
