“You’re a witch, Hector.” Father Tomin mouthed the third word, hyper-aware of the distracted humans around us. “You have the ability to achieve anything you want, and more so I’d wager.”
A lump formed in my throat at his last comment, and the way his knowing eyes lingered on me. It was as if those eyes alone had gouged through my skin, found a secret and exposed it.
“Go on then,” Father Tomin encouraged. “Send them a message. I can wait until you are satisfied they will not suspect a thing.”
I wasn’t one to turn my back on my greatest enemy, but the choice had been taken from me.
Although, I didn’t do it until I released Emon from his vow of silence, and gave him a new command.
“If you sense danger from him, you have my authority to tear into his neck.”
Emon’s scales brushed over my arm, coiling like a bracelet of iron.“You are in no danger from him, witchling. I can taste the man’s need for you. At least I am confident he will not kill you.”
As if that ominous reply was enough, I turned back to the barrier and looked across the crowd. It took a second to locate Romy, but like a compass needle turning to a magnetic draw, I found her. Her eyes were fixed to me, concern etched into her brow. She likely couldn’t see Father Tomin within the mass of bodies behind me, but she knew something had taken my attention.
As per Eleanor Letcombe’s grimoire, the rune Ansuz was the best for communication.
Keeping my eyes locked with Romy, I traced the mark out three times in my mind’s eye until the lines were bold. I didn’t know how it would work, except the rune was better for verbal communication.
I began to speak aloud, aware that when I did her eyes snapped to my mouth as if reading my lips. “Ear comms are down. Must be a blocker in the vicinity. I’m going to get to Kai’s location soon so we can stay in contact.”
Romy drew back, looking over towards the direction Kai was hidden as if she understood me. When she turned back to me, her lips moved, and a single word sang across the wind as if skipped across it like a stone upon a lake.
“Okay.” I could hear the hesitation in the word, but at the same time I knew that she trusted me explicitly. “Be quick.”
Clearing the rune from my mind’s eye, I forged all my command into what I told Emon next, all whilst I turned around to face Father Tomin again. Arms behind my back, Tomin didn’t notice the viper of darkness slip from out of my sleeve, drop to the ground and melt into the many shadows cast by the humans stood around.
“Are you ready?” he asked, tilting his head in a direction to his side. “There is a car waiting for us just over there.”
I nodded, taking a step towards him. “How do you trust that I haven’t just told Romy the truth about what is actually happening?”
Tomin’s smile faltered, although his eyes didn’t stop burning with a deep knowing. “Because if you are anything like your mother, you wouldn’t be so stupid.”
Fire bubbled beneath my skin at the second mention of her, all without the need for me to picture the symbol for the element. “You think highly of the woman you killed then?”
Tomin pouted. “I didn’t kill her, Hector. That was all Arwyn. Come on, you know this.”
Unseen hands squeezed around my throat, preventing me from breathing for a second. He said it so plainly, it chilled me to the core.
Tomin was right though. It was Arwyn who drove the athame into my mother’s body over and over, all to please the man who stood before me.
“I’ll take your silence as submission,” Tomin said. “So, shall we get a move on? If you want your friends to live longer than the next ten minutes, I need to give the command necessary for that. Once we are safely inside my car, I will call off the gunmen.”
I couldn’t tell if he was bluffing. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what you need from me.”
“Something I’m sure we both are going to agree on. Only nine minutes left to call off the attack, Hector.”
Bile burned my throat, before I spat on the ground at Tomin’s feet. “There is nothing about us that is even remotely aligned, Tomin.”
His head tilted to the side, large hands wringing together before him as he contemplated his reply. “What about destroying Bahmet? Is that not what you desire the most? Even more so than seeking revenge and killing me, I’d wager.”
Once again, the darkness inside of me leapt up and sent waves of disgust throughout me. “That’s a very bold assumption.”
“Eight minutes. And believe it or not, I do need you alive. Because without you, I will never be able to destroy Bahmet. Am I right, or wrong, Hector?”
I paused, tongue swelling to stop the admission from proving that his theory was right. Kai had suggested that Tomin wanted to destroy Bahmet, but I had to believe he was lying. Because otherwise it would prove that he had sent Arwyn into the Witch Trials like a lamb to the slaughter, all to obtain Bahmet and destroy him.
“If you want to destroy Bahmet, then you don’t need me.”
