“That’s not what I meant. Get in the damn water before you pass out.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” my mother drawls.
“Godsdamn, you’re as annoying as Kelter.” Eli yanks her hair back even farther and lets go. Her face slams into the stone with a gratifying crack. Then his stern eyes are back on me. “In the water. Now, or I’ll force you.”
And the fact that he could, or would, doesn’t bother me. It’s that I’m losing the leverage I thought I had, and realizing there’s no sense in standing here with a knife pointed at him. Even if everything he said earlier is true. Even if he wants me dead. Because he could control my hand and drive the steel blade through my chest in an instant.
“Tell me, and I’ll get in.”
He takes command of my legs and moves me a step back, then another. But the look on my face, conquered and crushed, must be enough for him to reconsider. He relinquishes control. “I meant”—he glances at my open wound, glossy desperation in his eyes—“that you not being able to love me is the last thing I want.”
“How could—”
“Water.” He tips his head toward the healing pool of minerals.
Damn him. I drag myself to the ledge and slide in. The pain dissipates. Warmth surrounds me, a vibrating hug in the form of bloodied pink water. “How could that be when you clearlydon’twant me to?”
“I—” he stops, begging with every miserable muscle on his face not to continue.
Any remaining patience disintegrates. “You what?”
“I won’t let you love me.” He cringes.
“Yeah, I got that already.”
He retrieves the other knife and approaches the ledge of the spring, dragging the Centress by her hair. She moans, a nasally sound from the blood clotting in her nose, but it’s nowhere near how she would be bawling if she weren’t so accustomed to pain.
Then he slashes her biceps in two mindless swipes, rendering her arms useless, and returns his knee to her back. Blood spills over the ledge and into the water. She simply grinds her teeth and grunts while he wipes the knife on her dress with a sideways look at me. “Your body is not the only thing I can control.”
I shoot him a vicious glare. “What are you saying?”
“Ever, love,” my mother rasps, “don’t let him kill me.”
Her pathetic figure is flopped along the edge of the spring, her hair draped over her shoulder and dipping into the darkening water. I feel no mercy. None. Not even pity.
Only bitterness. And pain.
I point the knife at her, the metal handle cold in my palm despite the steam-filled room. “It should have been enough that you let Mallace tie me to a table and rip me open in search of magic. Or that you drugged babies and sent them to Caldera. Or sentmeaway because you couldn’t keep a god satisfied enough to stick around. Or that you ordered Eli and Kelter to be killed and tried to take my memories.” I gather my unraveling heartstrings and suck in a long breath. “But no, you had to plan to hand me off to my father’s enemy to be used at his leisure and killed. That’s what it took for me to truly let go of the mother I so badly wanted you to be.”
“You ungrateful child, you see everything backward. Killing you for your essence would have been my greatest accomplishment.”
I catch her black eyes, the emptiness in them. “What broke you?”
“Love,” she whispers, clearly aware of the death that awaits her. Her body relaxes.
I stick the blade into her upper arm like she did to me, above the slice Eli left behind. She barely flinches. It pushes through her skin easily, freeing a fresh stream of ruby red blood. But not enough—I want it to gush.
I hold the knife over her neck next, poised for a quick side entry. But I can’t do it. My hand is immobile. I pinch my eyes shut, thinking of all the reasons she should die before I reopen them. “Make me, Eli.”
“No.”
I press the tip of the blade closer. “Control me. Do it. Take control of my hand and kill her.”
“I can’t.”
My hand wavers, my voice too. “I need help.”
