Romy did as I asked, pulling me off the stairs where I’d fallen. She offered me her body for leverage, wrapping a firm hand around my waist to steady me. My arm ached from where Verena’s first attempt to kill me left a deep cut. No doubt it was bleeding badly, but no one would notice considering I was mostly covered in Verena’s blood.
A blood-coated monster slithered up the stairs. I caught Emon out the corner of my eye, his once-black scales now crimson with Verena’s blood. His disgust ricocheted through my skull, followed by a quick complaint.
“Vile. Human blood is never as sweet as a witch.”
Human blood? “Impossible.”
“What is?” Romy asked a beat before Emon replied in my mind with,“See for yourself.”
I stumbled down a few steps to where Arwyn was hunched over Verena. Except it wasn’t Verena he held by the scruff oftheir cloak. It was a human. The same Hunter that I had burned on the pyre with not but hours before.
His chest rose and fell in rapid succession. Dark gore oozed from the torn flesh at his neck. Each inhale and exhale was wet, and harsh. Like Emon’s damage removed any hope for the human to fill his lungs with enough air.
When his eyes settled on me, his pathetic breathing became faster. Arwyn lifted the Hunter up from the step with a jolt, then thrust him into the wall he was partially slumped against. The crack of a skull sent a wave of discomfort through my bones.
“Who sent you!”
The Hunter wheezed out a word, so quiet that Arwyn had to lean in to catch it. We all heard Arwyn repeat the Hunter’s answer in contemplation. “Verena.Whydid she send you?”
He’d been sent here under some illusion. That much was clear.
The Hunter hissed something out of his paling lips. Whatever it was, Arwyn bristled. He let go of the Hunter, whose eyes rolled back into his head as death hastened its greedy devouring. I hadn’t heard it, but then whatever Arwyn had heard made him look up to me.
No. Not at me.
Arwyn’s wide eyes settled on Romy.
34
ARWYN
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the athame plunging towards Hector. His sharp intake of breath echoed in my ears, and there was no denying the look of defeat as he welcomed his end. And I felt hot with anger, like the gathering of warm air in a glass greenhouse. I was seconds from shattering. As my mind replayed everything that had happened, I could still feel the hot pump of fresh blood spatter on my knuckles. The song of the Hunter’s skull cracking into the wall until it shattered.
No one touched him. Not my aunt, not my father. Not a Hunter bathed in the neatly woven threads of an illusion.
I scolded myself for not noticing the magic. I’d stood back and allowed the Hunter to follow Hector to his doom, all without realising the truth of it.
I was a fool. No, I was The Fool, inked on a tarot card and displayed for all to see.
Love had made me blind, useless. I hated to give in to the taunting thoughts swirling in my mind, those spoken with my father’s voice. But I did. Because he was right after all. Love was a weakness, and I’d nearly lost Hector because of it.
“You’re overthinking,” Hector whispered, water sloshing around his naked body as he luxuriated in the tub of water. “Stop it before you give yourself a stroke.”
“That’s a bold accusation,” I said, leaning closer to him, fingers reaching into the bath and swirling the pink-tinted water. “How can you be so confident that you know what weighs on my mind?”
I was sat on a small stool, the legs screaming with displeasure beneath my weight. I’d set it beside the clawed bathtub that’d magically materialised in Hector’s hour of need. It must’ve been a while because the water was cold to the touch now, and yet Hector showed no signs of wanting to get out.
We were in a nondescript room on the top level of the conjured tavern. The walls were brown with age, wallpaper peeling in great streaks. A small window let in the dull evening light, exaggerating the gargantuan cobweb that stretched from ceiling to windowsill. Beside the bathtub, which I was confident hadn’t been here before, there was a single bed with rumpled sheets, a moth-eaten rug that I thought was once red, but now looked more like a murky orange.
All in all, this was no five-star hotel. But it was perfect, because it was ours for as long as the trials lasted. Or as long aswelasted in the trials.
Hector repositioned himself to sitting, drawing his knees up to his chest and resting his chin on them. He did so all without taking his eyes off me. “I know you, Arwyn. I can practically see the thoughts bashing in that big skull of yours. So, stop it. Don’t sit there and stew on what’s happened when, at the end of the day, it boils down to me being a stubborn prick.”
“I won’t sit here and let you speak about yourself like that.” I couldn’t conceal the bite in my tone. Hector noticed. He winced, eyes narrowing whilst his lips forged shut.
I reached for him, the pads of my fingers skimming up his leg. If I was a better person, I would’ve apologised. Instead, I said, “How’sitfeeling?”
“Sore,” Hector replied. “But at least the bleeding has stopped.”
