She clasped her hands behind her back. The gold cuffs were gone, which meant they’d never really held her in the first place. More lies. She gave me a soft smile.
For a second, she appeared to be a wise and patient woman who understood my pain. Who understood my life had just taken a corner I’d been barreling toward and trying to escape in equal measures.
“You are going to have to make the choice so many have before you. The choice that changes history. Are you willing to hurt someone you love to save someone you love?”
I didn’t know what to say. I knew the answer, what it had to be, what it should be, no matter how hard my heart was beating. “No one hurts my sister.”
She nodded, her eyes still soft, almost kind. “Are you willing to pay the price for her? To sacrifice for her?”
Was I willing to use the scissors to possibly hurt her soul while saving her? Even if it meant I would also hurt myself ? I think I’d always known the answer to that. But I’d promised Delaney I wouldn’t use them.
No Lone Rangering.
“I need a demon,” I said.
“To use the scissors?”
I nodded.
She tipped her head. “To spare yourself and your sister, yes. You need a demon. Are you going to ask me to do it?”
“Not now, no.”
“No?”
“You’re his mother. I’d never make you harm your own child.”
That surprised her. She blinked once, then just stared at me, expressionless. I’d never seen her so still. “You wouldn’t, would you? Not even for your sister’s soul.” She sounded incredulous.
“It’s not like I could trust you to follow through, anyway,” I said.
“You’d have to trust me.”
“And I don’t,” I said.
“And you don’t,” she agreed.
We stood there in silence for a full minute. Then she spoke. “So what will you do, Myra Reed?”
“I’m going to save my sister.”
She exhaled, and it was a mix of acceptance and maybe regret. “I have never doubted you would.”
Chapter 22
The problem was three fold.
One: How to keep Xtelle locked down, but close, in case I needed to use her. She was my Plan B, and killing or banishing her would mean I couldn’t use her if I needed her.
Two: How to summon a demon to use the scissors so I didn’t have to use my Plan B.
Three: How to stop caring if Bathin lived or died.
The easiest thing would be summoning a demon. I had the books. I had the incantations. I had the ingredients. All I had to do was go to the library, summon a minor demon I could bribe and control, then take it to stab Bathin, who was trapped in my living room.
But I couldn’t leave Xtelle in Ryder and Delaney’s kitchen.
I called Jean.
