“Oh, I can do far worse than kill you…”
Matthew the book worm did his best to fetch Hailey some helpful references from the stacks, but honestly, he was so gorged with tea, he moved more like Jabba the Hutt than a zinging inchworm, and it took him ten minutes to return withThe Banshee’s Guide to Handling a Soul, which read like bad furniture instructions.
Hailey slammed it shut. While she waited for Giselle, she returned to straightening and smoothing her crinkled notes. As she made her way through the pile, something strange caught her eye. There among the mound of windblown pages, she found a handwritten note and held it up. She recognized the print immediately…
Hailey clutched the note with both hands…the phrases…the metaphor…
Oh my God!
The rose…the lonely soul…the weeping cesspool…
She gasped.Hopes greatest fool!
Fin wasn’t insulting her—he was trying to talk to her—to tell her in a code that only she would know—a code he’d used before—he was begging for help!
Realizationhit her like a freight train.The rose… The sketch of her at Holly’s grave…
It wasn’t Asher who’d carried her home from Holly’s grave. It was Fin! All this time he was trying to tell her, and all this time, she was too stupid to get it.
She had to find him.
She pushed back from the table, but when she stood, her legs buckled, and she fell back into her chair. The room went black. Her breath caught in her throat; her ears filled with muffled silence. And she was falling, through the chair, through the floor, flailing her arms at the nothingness in desperation, anticipating—no dreading—the impact.
Then with a whole-body quake, she woke, and she was watching Asher and Fin from the shadows of Fin’s room again—just like she had in her premonition dream, only there was no haze, no mistaking the words they exchanged.
“Did it ever occur to you in all your cerebral-ness that Cobon lied to get you to do exactly what you’re doing? To kill Hailey?” said Fin.
“Hailey belongs to me. I will do what I please to her.”
Hailey’s stomach dropped. He sounded so cold.
"We had an agreement, Asher, don’t you remember? Hailey will choose who she wants to be with, and we will respect her choice,” he said firmly, but Asher was unmoved.
“I love her,” he told the Envoy. “And she loves me.”
Hailey’s breath caught.
“You think you love her, but you do not. Cobon uses you, Pádraig. You will drive her into despair, and you will destroy her.”
"No,” Fin said firmly. “Nobody is controlling me, Asher, I’m free.
Asher stepped toward him, a furious storm swirling in his eyes as they traced a path through the distance. “You will always be our slave,” he concluded. “Forever was the deal your parents made with Adalwolf, and forever you will obey."
“I’m not a slave to the Envoys anymore, Asher,” Fin said irritably.
“Are you so sure?”
Fin took a swing at him, but Asher caught his fist and held it.
"Perhaps you’d like to live this life with one hand,” he said, and he squeezed Fin’s fist until it collapsed with a sickening crunch.
Fin howled and fell to his knees.
“That’s more like it,” said Asher coolly, and Fin’s mutilated hand turned to dust in his grip. Asher brushed his hands together, and Fin gnashed his teeth.
“I won’t do it!” Fin cried out.
“Perhaps I’ll take your arm, then. You won’t heal from this, you know.” Asher’s voice was menacing, hateful, even.
