“You’re fucked up,” Douglas scowls. “I’m not killing off an entire cult just because you don’t like the idea of them near your keeper.”
Everett takes off his glasses again. “You said yourself that they’re obsessed with her. Obsession makes people dangerous.”
“No shit. Exhibit A,” the mercenary scoffs, gesturing at our entire quintet from the threshold where he still can’t enter.
“I’ll meet him,” Maven decides, standing from the table.
We all stand, too, our immediate protests echoing through the quintet bond as we talk over each other. But she cuts it all off with one firm look, and then she speaks telepathically to us.
The cult leader could be useful. I’m not turning down allies before we take down Amadeus.
Take down Amadeus? That leaves us all staring at her in surprise as she tells Asher Douglas we’ll be right out and shuts the door. By the time she turns back toward us, I’ve caught up.
“You’ve only said you returned for us. In truth, you want to kill the Entity?” I check.
Maven pulls a folded-up piece of paper out of her pocket and unfolds it, handing it to me to pass around as she confidently says, “I need to end him if we want any kind of permanent future together. Which I do.”
Crypt, Everett, Baelfire, and I gather around to get a good look at this list.
Crypt grins. “Written in crayon, as all good hit lists are.”
My attention slips to the end, and I nearly laugh. “Sangfluir, ‘rest in peace’ is a phrase typically used to describe the fate of someone who died.”
“Someone did,” she grins, gesturing at herself like it's funny.
Gods above.
Crypt coughs like he would laugh if the situation were different. Baelfire and I stare at her, and I’m positive that, like me, he’s considering the possibility that we mayactuallyneed to get her into therapy.
Everett pinches the bridge of his nose. “Nope. Too soon.”
Our reactions to her tasteless joke don't dampen her amusement. My blood blossom just grins wider as she folds the paper back up, giving us a brief glimpse of an intricate sketchof a map on the back before it disappears back into one of her hoodie pockets.
Then Maven grows serious. “Aside from protecting ourselves, defeating Amadeus will change everything for legacies and humans. The Nether can return to what it once was, and monsters wouldn’t try to flee into the mortal realm anymore. It would bring peace for everyone, but especially us.”
She briefly explains some of her most recently returned memories—everything Galene told her about how Amadeus came to be, and how that, in turn, brought about Maven herself.
When she finishes, she waits expectantly for us to agree or disagree about taking on Amadeus, but I’m distracted. Some of her wording makes me wonder if she believes…
“You are far more than a machination of the gods,ima sangfluir,” I murmur. “Tell me you know this.”
She looks away, quiet for a moment before she looks back at us with that beautifully fierce determination that is pure Maven.
“Maybe I was born for a purpose, but I don’t fucking care. No matter how I came to exist, I choose my own fate now. And I choose us. Killing Amadeus is just a fringe benefit and the best way to protect the legacies I love—” She sees our excited expressions and quickly tacks on, “to fuck.”
Such a stubborn ending to such a serious, beautiful statement draws surprised laughs from us. Baelfire wraps his arms around our keeper, spinning her around like a giddy fool.
“Stop being so fucking cute,” he groans, setting Maven down to kiss her forehead. “It’s making me hard.”
I roll my eyes. “Everything she does makes you hard, you oversexed lizard.”
“Like you’re any better, you horny bloodsucker,” Everett scoffs.
Crypt grins. “Now, now. Let’s not pretend any of our cocks aren’t utterly mesmerized by our lovely keeper.”
Baelfire shakes his head. “Way to word it. You say the weirdest fucking shit.”
“Him?”Everett gawks at Baelfire. “Seriously? Am I imagining the time you opened your big fat mouth to ask about the temperature of my sperm, or do you just have no self-awareness at all?”
