He held his hands out. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He blinked, then narrowed his eyes. “I’m telling you the truth.”
“Just like in the stone.”
He stood up and towered over me. “Yes. Just like in the stone. I’m on your side here.”
“I don’t think you are. I don’t think you have ever been on my side.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“I know you’re holding my sister’s soul hostage.”
“I’ve told you—”
“I heard you.”
There is nothing more I want than to keep her soul.
Nothing more. Not even me.
I pushed the pain of that away.
“What we’re going to do now is the smart thing. The thing we should have done a long time ago.”
He shook his head. “I’ve been in Ordinary for over a year now. I have been a model citizen. I have saved lives—Ben’s, Ryder’s, that family in front of the vortex. I have done everything you, or your sisters, have asked me to do, even when it was against my nature.”
“Then release Delaney’s soul,” Ryder said.
Bathin didn’t look his way. “I’ve told you, I can’t.”
Was that a lie? A demon lie? Maybe it didn’t even matter anymore.
“Well, I can’t let you keep it.”
“Myra,” Delaney said. “We don’t have to do this right now.”
“Then when?” I asked her.
She met my gaze. “I’m fine right now.”
Same old story.
Jean jogged into the room. “I can’t find her. Unless she’s microscopic?”
“She’s not microscopic,” Bathin said.
“Then she’s not here,” Jean said.
“Do you know where she is?” Delaney asked.
“No,” he said. “But I assume she’ll stay in Ordinary.”
“Why? What’s the point?” I asked.
“Ordinary is the point, Myra. It’s the whole point. The goal. The place the gods and Reeds forbid. It’s unattainable, and therefore, irresistible.”
