Arati is glaring down at me as I scowl up at her. We’re alone in a grandiose golden room. Her crown of fire is taller than before, her golden eyes blazing with fury.
“You dare try your hand at tormenting us with the same irritating tactics you used on your mortal matches? It won’t work. We’regods, Maven. You cannot reject this fate.”
“I can and I have.”
“You will cease this nonsense. I told you, your future here is final.”
“Not to be a bitch, but…” Memory Me pauses and hums. “Oh, wait. That’s exactly the fucking point. I won’t stop ruining your Paradise until you tell me how to return to my quintet.”
Arati’s powerful gaze grows more wrathful before she straightens, considering me with a slowly cooling temper as though an idea is forming in her head. “Very well.”
Surprise rocks me in this memory, but I try not to show how taken aback I am to have won this contest of wills.
Instead, I lift my chin. “Great. Then tell me.”
“I will, on one condition. If you want to return to your fate-given matches so desperately, it will come at a price you already know well. You must first…”
Her voice slurs, fading and distorting as I slowly rise out of these memories.
“Snowdrop?” Everett checks softly.
Coming back to the present, I realize I’m still standing in a barren, grayscale city street as those memories settle into place in my head. More ghosts are drifting into this area, but I've cleared enough that I'm ready to get back inside and figure out how the fuck I can use this power to get my matches out of Syntyche’s spell.
“I’m fine,” I assure my concerned elemental. “Come on.”
I turn back toward the temple just in time to see four people emerge from an alleyway several yards away. Everett immediately steps in front of me, blocking their view of me and my view of them. Frost spreads out from where my elemental stands, a visible warning as he stares down the newcomers.
The tense silence implodes with the deep, gruff laughter of a man. “Well, well! What are the odds of this? If it isn’t the pretty boy. But you’re not so pretty anymore now, are ya, Little Frost?”
I notice Everett’s fists clench at his sides, prickling with ice fractals.
“EverettFrost?” a young woman’s voice realizes, glowing with awe.
“Must be a lucky day for us,” a second male voice agrees. “Clearly, you didn’t realize that Arati’s sealed high temple is within the safe haven owned and operated by—” His voice cuts off. “Holy shit. Look, the temple door is open!”
“What? How?” the girl demands.
Footsteps sound as she moves toward the temple. I tense, not wanting her anywhere near my two vulnerable matches. Before I can step around Everett, a gunshot cracks through the air, leaving my ears ringing as the girl screams—but only in alarm, not pain.
Douglas only fired a warning shot.
Not much fun, but it did the job.
Everett’s voice is simultaneously lethal and diplomatic. “I’m not here for trouble. We’ll be gone soon, so turn around and forget you ever saw me.”
“Ah, come on, Little Frost. You know that’s not how this is gonna go,” the first man laughs. “You know they’ve been wanting to see you—probably’ll want to see your new face, too. Tell your friend in the temple to come out, and we’ll take you to safety, nice and easy.”
I wonder why Everett hasn’t frozen them all solid already. When he shifts slightly, obviously agitated as he adjusts his coat sleeve repeatedly, I can see around him and barely glimpse a shielding spell in place around the legacies, thanks to the female caster.
The one reasoning with Everett is a bald, burly elemental with fire dancing on his fingertips. The fourth legacy with them is a fae woman with pointed ears and long luminescent purple hair. Her attention drops to me in this fleeting second, and her eyes grow huge.
She points. “T—that’s thetelum!That’s Maven Oakley!”
“What?” the second man barks, trying to see past Everett. “Impossible. Everyone knows that bitch is dead!”
The fact that everyone knows my name is still fucking weird. I grip my knife more firmly. Since I’ve already been spotted, it’s better to get this over with quickly so I can get back inside to help my matches.
I step out from behind Everett. He swears under his breath as I pin the hostile legacies with the same look that used to make challengers in Amadeus’s arena forfeit before the fight began.
