“What is it?” he whispers.
“Later.”
Gods, I desperately miss our telepathic connection.
Alaric Frost stands, re-buttoning his expensive suit as he looks coldly down at me. “It’s a shame you couldn’t get past your pride and agree to such a mutually beneficial agreement,telum. Even more of a shame that such a potent weapon will meet its end here. What a waste.”
Everett bristles at how his father speaks about me like I’m not a person, but Daphne gives me the fakest smile in the world. It looks beautiful and classy like the rest of her, but there’s no getting past the nasty undertone.
“Yes, what a shame. No matter. I’ll be sure to have Reagan do your post-mortem makeup for your open casket viewing in a couple of days. That should please the press. But then, they’re already over the moon about this little scoop. They’re even broadcasting it outside our safe haven for anyone left out there watching.”
“Soon the entire world will see what a favor we’re doing them,” Alaric agrees, striding to the glass windows overlooking the gray city below. “Frosts have always understood howinfluential spectacles can be. And why not honor the gods while we’re at it? Arati will be very pleased.”
I don’t know why he’s talking about my aunt, but this entire interaction with Everett’s parents has been eye-opening. Everything my quintet has said about the Frosts is obviously true. How odd that such beautiful people can be so revolting, especially in the way they treat their son.
I wonder which is worse—growing up fending for yourself with no family at all, or growing up emotionally battered and manipulated by the people who should have been protecting you.
No wonder Everett was so standoffish and torn when I met him. No wonder he’s so fucking hard on himself. They taught him all that self-loathing. Constantly being in the public eye, continually being pressured to be perfect, his appearance picked apart, and every move he made held up in comparison to the Frost name, the verbal slights and social games…
My poor snow angel has gone through more than he’ll admit.
Not that I’m one to talk, but still. Fuck them.
I’m distracted by loathing the Frosts until Tattoo Face reemerges through the double doors and nods to Alaric Frost.
“Everything is ready, sir.”
“They’ve gathered?”
“Yes, sir.”
Alaric seems pleased before motioning at me. Tattoo Face doesn’t hesitate to throw me over his shoulder once again, and I fight back sudden nausea when his hand briefly touches the back of my bare neck. He starts walking back toward the elevator.
“Where are you taking her?” Everett demands.
He tries to rise to his feet despite the straitjacket, but he’s suddenly frozen to the sofa as Alaric waves a hand. “No, no, son. You’ll stay in here and watch the livestream of the trial with us. Gods spare us, we certainly can’t have that face of yours caughton camera until we find a way to fix it. It should be a quick proceeding anyway, but it’s better to stay out of the smoke—which is what I told the rest of my quintet, but gods help us, they wanted to have a front row seat.”
We’re being separated.
Shit.
Everett’s shouts of furious protest cut off as the doors of the elevator close. I can tell we’re descending, but my vision has blurred slightly. Even though Tattoo Face isn’t touching my neck anymore, my body is still breaking out into sweat as I steady my breathing.
My view is an upside-down shot of this jerk’s pants, but then the blue-haired ghost squats to smile and wave at me. She followed me into this elevator, along with a couple of other ghosts.
She tries communicating something to me with her hands, motioning from me to her and back, but I’m too dizzy and exhausted to piece it together before the elevator doors chime open.
The burly legacy carries me down a long hall before I’m suddenly set upright, facing revolving glass doors that lead outside. I squint through the glass, uneasiness running down my spine when I see all the people.
Two or three hundred well-dressed elite legacies and a few dozen humans wait on either side of the street, with a path cleared down the middle that lets me see something constructed in front of the steps leading up to Arati’s temple. They almost look like?—
Oh, shit.
Stakes. As in, the kind witches are burned at.
They clearly plan to burn me alive, but who is the other stake for?
The elite legacies and humans waiting outside watch the door eagerly, waiting for my emergence. The Frosts have obviously taken time to prepare this spectacle in the grayscale streets of Manhattan, because at the end of this aisle of onlookers in front of Arati’s temple is a full jury box, a robed judge at a podium, and a place for me to stand with cameras aimed at it.
