Elyse relaxed at his reassurance. She twisted to face him, and their noses nearly brushed. “It’s not arrogance if you have the skill to prove it,” she quipped, one eyebrow raised in challenge.
Killian truly laughed then, and he planted his lips on hers. Elyse leaned into the kiss, and Killian accepted everything she offered him—all the pain and anxiety and doubt, but also the joy and laughter and love.
“Use that confidence,” he whispered against her mouth. “Find a way to defeat him.”
He closed his eyes and pressed his brow to hers. Her skin brushed his as she nodded gently.
If anyone—if any fucking person on the continent—was capable of finding a way to take down Lazarus, it was her. Killian’s brilliant, cunning, ruthless little witch, who had never backed down from anything.
“Mr. Southwick.”
A tentative voice carried from the garden. For a moment, Killian pretended he hadn’t heard it. He stayed with Elyse, sending her all the encouragement through their shared touch that he could.
“Mr. Southwick,” the voice came again, this time with some trepidation.
He opened his eyes to find a servant standing at the hedges. Her hands wrung together as she stared at them with a nervous expression.
“Your mother is here. She—”
Killian was on his feet in an instant, barreling toward the gardens. Elyse, gods bless her, was a half step behind him, urging him onward.
The back door was still open, and Killian crossed the threshold at full speed. He hurried down the corridor to the entrance hall, his footsteps pounding. Or maybe that was the sound of his heart ramming against his ribcage.
His mother stood at the end of the corridor, panting with her hands on her knees. Dah stood beside her with a frown on her face as she patted Mrs. Southwick’s back.
“Mum!” Killian called. “Are you okay?” He grasped her shoulders as he searched her for signs of injury.
Elyse took over for Dah, stroking soothing lines down his mother’s back. Manny and Sera came rushing into the hall as well.
“I’m fine,” Mrs. Southwick insisted, but Killian continued to assess her. His stomach was a torrent of panic. His mother’s face was ashen, her temples streaked with sweat, but that might have been from traveling.
“What’s going on?” he pressed. He needed an explanation, something to calm his nerves.
“The girls—they showed up at the palace,” she said through heavy breaths.
“What girls?” Killian demanded, furrowing his brows.
He looked over his mother’s shoulder to see two young women standing near the door. One with straight brown hair and downcast eyes, the other with freckles and lips that were always smiling. No one was smiling now, though.
“Nina,” he gasped. “Corin.”
Red lined both of their weary eyes. It was Corin who stepped forward. Her knees buckled, and Killian moved toward her, ready to catch her. But Nina was already there, wrapping her hands around Corin’s waist.
“It’s Privya,” she said. The words were so harrowing, spoken with such torment. Killian’s own knees buckled then, threatening to give out altogether.
“Where?” Elyse demanded. She touched Corin’s shoulder, coaxing the answer out of her.
“The clinic,” Corin uttered.
Before Killian could say anything else, Elyse grabbed his wrist, and the world evaded them.
Interlude
Everything was still.
Not even the breeze would grace the wasted land.
The sun was a faraway thing, distant beyond the treetops, trying to flee beneath the horizon as fast as it could.
