“Oh, but she’s not the one you care about, is she—not the one you protect. I saw you, of course,touchher.” Cobon looked as if he’d just bitten into a lemon. “Resilient, that one…downright un-charmable—” he gulped some air “—of course, you interrupted me on the balcony—and she shut me out of her mind anyway. Tell me, how will you control her?”
“I will not control her,” Asher said slowly.
Cobon leaned back, drawing a deep, cleansing breath and letting it out with a smile.
“I hate it when you ignore me.”
“I ignore your madness.”
“It’s not mad to dispose of a few wretches, is it?”
“The girl was no wretch. You took a life before its time, brother. Again.”
Cobon shrugged.
“Maybe, but only just. Call it an act of mercy—collateral damage, if you like,” he reasoned. “And you’re the only one who cares.”
“The others grow intolerantof your—”
“The others grow desperate,” Cobon spat. “And in their desperation, they grow more tolerant. This place…” He brought his hands to his head and clenched them into fists. “This place is driving us all mad. We don’t belong here, Asher, we have to go home!”
Asher searched Cobon’s eyes, and Cobon let him.
“You were there, Asher. You saw them all, watching and waiting.”
Cobon looked him up and down.
“Even you stood by as I ripped her apart.”
Asher dropped his eyes. He had stood by and done little more than watch as the girl endured unspeakable atrocities. She’d cried out several times and once even looked Asher dead in the eyes.
And he’d looked away, ashamed.
He hadn’t looked again until it was over, until her final thoughts evaporated. She’d projected quite a beautiful image as she’d suffered, of dancing with her little sister, and he had thoroughly enjoyed it.
That bothered him.
“Why do you linger here?” Asher asked.
Cobon frowned. “I’ve lost my rock,” he said, kicking the ground. “I’ve looked for it everywhere. I even tore those two buffoons apart, but I just can’t find it.”
Asher knew perfectly well where the black stone was. After a doorway into the Aetherdidn’topen, Cobon had flown into a rage and flung his precious rock onto the cemetery grass. Asher had seen it, and he had very stealthily taken it. The rock was in his pocket, and he wasn’t about to tell Cobon that.
“Your experiment failed,” Asher said flatly. “The passage is shut. Your rock is finished.”
Cobon shook his head.
“No…no, I’d know if it were finished. I can still…” Cobon raised his shoulders. “…feel it, I just can’t find it.”
Asher returned to gazing at Holly’s grave.
“And you?” asked Cobon. “Why do you linger? Amused by your female? You do so adore your pets,” Cobon said, frowning. “I might have claimed dear Hailey for my own, you know, but…” Asher squinted, and Cobon continued with some hesitation “…well, what good is a human who won’t obey?”
Cobon tapped his chin then waved his arm at the rose in Asher’s hand. “For the girl?”
“For her suffering,” Asher said simply.
“You are brave. I don’t think this one killed Adalwolf.” He flung his hand toward Holly. “Not much fight in her at all.”
