Amos howls, turning to aim at her—
Devyn kicks.
Even cuffed, even on his knees, his leg sweeps out and catches Amos in the head. The gun goes off—the sound is deafening in the narrow space, ricocheting off stone—
I grab the scissors as Amos staggers.
I turn to Amos just as he bumps into me, and somehow—
He stares at me in shock. “YOU—”
The scissors in my hands ends up buried deep in his stomach.
“Y-YOU—”
The blood gushing out of his middle is...
I don’t even know how to describe it.
I don’t even know how this happened.
And as Amos crumples to the stone floor, blood spreading beneath him like a dark halo, and a rusty pair of scissors sticking out of his stomach like a grotesque version of Excalibur waiting to return to its master—
Which is not me!
Because I...
I didn’t mean—
I wasn’t planning to—
“Bailey?”
I think...I think that’s my king’s voice.
“Bailey, look at me.”
I think that’s him walking toward me—
But I can’t be sure.
My vision is going blurry again.
Because I’m not really...
I’ve never been good with blood, and so...
I close my eyes in relief as the world goes blessedly dark.
WELL DONE, FAITHFULone.
The gently spoken words are what slowly draw me out of my slumber, and I find myself warmly cocooned in a velvet armchair, and my nose tickled by the cozy scent of old books, peppermint...and garlic cream cheese buns.
Yum.
That’s...the English translation for thenthgrowl that my stomach releases as I sit up, now wide awake, mostly confused, and absolutely starving.
I’m back in Hewhay’s reading nook, with a blanket draped over my legs that I don’t remember pulling on. My mind plays back the words I heard earlier—
