I pulled the keepsake box off the top shelf in my office, drew it against my chest for a moment, the edges of wood digging in, the faint, lingering magic embedded into it when Odin had carved it humming like an old tune.
“Yourmotherhas been in Ordinary posing as a pink unicorn for two days, and you just now tell us?” Delaney asked.
“Yes,” he gritted out.
“Do you want to give me an explanation that will make me change my mind about kicking you—both of you—out of town?”
“I won’t make the lie worse by adding falsehoods to it. I didn’t know what was coming through the first vortex until we got there. When I saw her like this…”
This would end him. These scissors in this little box. I would end him. And pay a great price for doing so.
But Delaney’s soul would no longer be a pawn in a chess game we couldn’t see.
I took a deep breath, pushed my heartache away, and strode into the room.
“Time’s up, Bathin,” I said.
He lifted his head as if I’d just come into the room with a gun. His gaze fixated on the box cradled against my chest. He knew what it contained, even though I had never told him.
But then, I would think the only weapon that could force him to release the soul that allowed him to stay in Ordinary might be something he would always sense.
“Bathin,” Xtelle said. I heard it then, the motherly warning, protection for her son.
That was strange.
Or maybe it was just her saving her own neck. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen to her when I banished Bathin. She had lied about her nature. We didn’t allow that.
We had rules in Ordinary. Rules in place to keep not only the humans safe, but to also keep the supernaturals and deities safe. She had broken those rules by not only lying to us, but also by not signing a demon contract.
I was calm. Clearer headed than I had been in over a year. Since Delaney had traded her soul. Since Dad’s death.
“No,” Bathin said to his mother.
He stepped around the unicorn, closed the distance until he loomed in front of me. Everyone in the room shifted position.
“Myra,” Delaney warned.
“You don’t have the one book with the one page,” he murmured as if it were just he and I in the room. As if this was our second date and he was still trying to show me I could trust him.
“I don’t think I need it, do I?”
“You’ve been told you do.”
“By a demon?” I laughed, and it sounded alien to me, as if it were not even my voice or my mouth.
I was sort of floating above myself, numb, aware, sharp. Waiting for this to happen. Finally. Finally.
“What makes you think I would ever trust what a demon says?”
“You wouldn’t,” he said.
“What makes you think I would trust anything a demon does?”
“You wouldn’t,” he said.
“What makes you think you can use my sister’s soul, hersoul, Bathin, and just walk around while it tears and rips and bleeds like it’s nothing. Like it’snothing!” I was snarling by the end of it. Damn right I was snarling by the end of it.
“I can’t. I shouldn’t. I’m not.”
