And that felt a little too close to defeat to call it anything else.
I tucked my chin into my coat, my rage simmering. The Butchers might have won the battle, but the war was raging and I was still in it. I just needed to let the dust settle on Romania, then I’d be back.
And this time I’d settle for nothing less than destroying what they prized most.
21
POE
We madeMaeve stay in bed on New Year’s Eve. She said she was fine but her face was the color of a ripe plum, and she winced when she bent to rub it against Ray.
And it wasn’t just her face.
Her eyes were haunted, and she’d been having trouble keeping food down. She was trying too hard to convince us — and probably herself — that she was fine, but it was obvious she was a long way from fine, and we finally put our foot down and left her in my bed with Ray and the big TV.
We’d spent her first night back there, all of us piled in around Maeve, like we could retroactively protect her even though we all knew that was impossible. The only way to protect her now was to kill Ethan Todd, and I couldn’t wait for the moment when the light left his eyes forever.
I went to work making her breakfast, trying to think of things that might be easy on her stomach: oatmeal with a little butter, brown sugar, and milk; scrambled eggs, soft, the way she liked them. While I worked I thought about other ways we could make New Year’s Eve nice for her.
Nice and quiet. That was what she needed: to get her strength back, to feel safe again.
“That for Maeve?” Remy asked when he came into the kitchen from the gym.
It was a good sign that he was working out again. We’d barely slept over the past week, had barely eaten, and even Remy had fallen out of his maniacal health routines.
We hadn’t talked about our next steps vis-à-vis Ethan Todd, but whatever they ended up being, we need to bring our A game.
“Yeah.” I stirred the oatmeal, beginning to simmer in the saucepan, and contemplated adding banana.
“I could make her a smoothie,” Remy said.
Normally I would have told him to shove his smoothies up his ass, but it wasn’t a bad idea. Maeve was probably still dehydrated, even malnourished from the days Todd had kept her locked up in the dungeon under the castle.
My mind turned into a blank sheet of rage at the thought, and I realized I was gripping the pan’s handle so tight my knuckles had turned white. I probably needed to get into my studio, hammer away at some metal, feel it bend and twist under my hands.
“A smoothie’s not a bad idea.” I turned my attention to the eggs cooking in the skillet on another burner. I had the heat on low, and I’d scrambled them with water, the way Maeve had taught me.
Remy went to work pulling stuff from the fridge. “I’ll keep it alkaline, nothing acidic since her stomach’s been upset.”
“Whatever,” I muttered. I wasn’t in the mood for his nutritional bullshit.
He started loading stuff into the blender. “Think she’ll stay put?”
“Probably not.”
“We should stay in tonight.”
“No shit.” I turned off the heat on the stove and tipped the oatmeal into a waiting bowl.
He leaned against the counter and folded his arms over his chest. “You good?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Why?”
He shrugged. “You seem like something’s on your mind. I mean, I know we all have killing Todd on our mind, but is something else going on?”
I thought about the question while I stirred the eggs. I sprinkled them with sea salt and started the toast I’d put in the toaster.
Maeve had been eating a lot of toast.
