Her voice doesn’t rise. It doesn’t need to. The wind carries it exactly where it belongs.
Nightshade smiles. It’s the kind of smile that has never learned restraint. “You’re late.”
“No,” she says mildly. “You are.”
Her gaze flicks across us, not counting, not assessing. Claiming. Then it settles on Nightshade, patient as a blade waiting for pressure.
“You’ve damaged my property,” she continues. “You’ve frightened my staff. You’ve made a mess on my roof.”
Bones laughs, sharp and ugly. “Yeah? Fucking sue us.”
She doesn’t look at him.
Her attention never leaves Nightshade.
“I told you,” she says, almost gently, “this wasn’t your kingdom.”
Her hand comes up.
Not dramatic. Not hurried.
Just…practiced.
The world tilts.
It hits me first – of course it does. The pain in my thigh spikes white-hot and then disappears entirely, like someone cut the wire instead of the signal. My knees fold without asking permission. The voices scream?—
—and then stutter.
Bones snarls, a sound ripped straight out of his chest, and stays on his feet through sheer refusal. I see his hands shake, muscles locking, teeth bared like he might bite the air itself.
Honey drops. Straight down. No sound.
Hatchet goes rigid, breath hitching once – just once – before gravity remembers him.
Snow swears, sharp and startled, and then his grin fractures as his legs give out beneath him.
Nightshade is still standing.
Of course he is. Even as my vision blurs I can see his defiance, his determination to win, to deny, to get to Kayla no matter the circumstances.
His eyes burn holes straight through her. He takes a step. Just one. Blood slicking his palm as he reaches?—
Seytan watches him like she’s been waiting for exactly this.
She tilts her head.
“Don’t,” Valentine says quietly. But to whom?
Nightshade doesn’t hear him.
Seytan presses the control again, ignoring him.
Something detonates behind my eyes. The roof stretches. The lights smear. I hear Donnelly laughing – loud, delighted,wrong– and Silas crying like he’s been dropped into deep water.
Nightshade finally drops to one knee.
Still conscious.
