“Intelligence! You counted on stupidity!”
Maybe Hartgrave thought he could summon the gun if Kincaid was too angry to think clearly.
Or maybe Hartgrave was the one too angry to think clearly.
“I wanted you to be my successor,” Kincaid said in evident exasperation. “It’s not too late, Alexander. Come back.”
She gasped at the audacity.
Hartgrave fell back a step.“Never.”
A sound behind her warned that someone needed to pay attention to Shaw, as awful as watching her would be. However long she clung to life, she’d be dangerous.
Emily turned, bracing herself, and looked at the spot where the wizard had fallen.
Nothing there but blood on the floor.
She cast about for Shaw, frantic, and found her crawling to Crawford. Crawford, still lying flat on her back but now hammering with both hands on the shimmering air above her.
Not dead. Trapped. And probably just revived after passing out.
She wouldn’t have thought it possible to be both relieved and horrified, but it was a day full of surprises. What should she do? Cut through the bubble and make sure Shaw had no magic to free Crawford—giving Kincaid another opportunity to shoot?
She turned back to the men, hoping for a sign.
“—and I would eventually find someone else to recreate your work,” Kincaid said. “It’s in your own interest to come back. Yours and your friends.”
“And if I don’t?” Hartgrave’s voice went up several decibels. “What then? You’ll kill them?”
“What you do—and therefore what I do—is entirely up to you.”
She couldn’t look away. Something was about to happen, something bad. The men stared at each other, Hartgrave trembling with what she feared was unfeigned panic.
“There’s only one good way out of this mess you’ve made,” Kincaid said.
“Yes.” All the anger drained away. “No need to kill them. Just kill me.”
“No!” she shouted, thoughts of Crawford and Shaw driven from her mind. “Hartgrave,no!”
“I’m not going back,” he said to the stone-silent Kincaid. “If you’re so utterly confident you’re right and I’m not, kill me.”
“Really, now—”
“I realize I might be slightly more important to you than the average person you murder, so let me make this easy,” Hartgrave said, his flat tone as chilling as the words themselves.
He turned, exposing his back, leaving himself wholly vulnerable. He looked at her as she gasped and made an almost imperceptible motion with his head. A shake.No.
No, what?Don’t do anything, I’ve got this?She glanced at Kincaid, his expression turning grim, and back at Hartgrave, whose own face had gone so dull and deathlike that his shake of the head now seemed like goodbye.
Kincaid raised a hand toward Hartgrave. The gun wasn’t in it. He was going to use magic. Damning the consequences, she thrust herself against the bubble protecting her and burst through, intending to throw herself between them and trust her black aura to do its job well.
She was only partway there when Kincaid pulled the weapon from his holster and pointed it at her chest, wearing the faint smile of a man who’d just been given exactly what he wanted.
With his other hand, Kincaid put an imprisoning spell around Hartgrave. “I trust I have your cooperation now, Alexander?”
Three yards separated her from Kincaid, if that. Nowhere to run. Unless she ranathim and hoped he wouldn’t shoot before she could get her hands on him, but every single muscle in her body had seized up.
Kincaid cleared his throat. “I expect an immediate promise of help, or—”
