“Do you? Because I knowyou. I’ve seen you despondent, struggling to remember your dreams. I watched the moment you went from wanting nothing but a brush of sunlight to realizing you deserved to try for it all. I can’t allow you to fall back into old habits now. I will not allow it.”
In response, Riselda’s revelation rattled from the dark where Lux had forced it. It wanted to be freed. To overwhelm her. Her impulse was to bury it deeper.
But instincttold her that wasn’t wise. That she had this boy—man, he’d correct—and he cared for her deeply. Would listen to anything she would tell him. He was opinionated, it was true, but not stubborn. Here was a person she could trust with everything she would otherwise shove into the darkest depths.
Lux drew a slow breath and cringed at its shaking. “That confession of hers felt like it wrecked something. Only, I’m not sure what yet, and I don’t have time to check. I knew I wasn’t born to my parents. But I never could have guessedthat.” Lux gestured wildly down the hall. “Whatever legacy her family has, I cannot survive being a part of it. I don’t wantto end up like her, but what if I have no choice?”
The quiet grew around them before Shaw spoke. “Even if your tendencies run the same, you always have a choice.Maybe it’ll be hard. Maybe more than that. But you know what it feels like to come out on the other side. And you can lean on me. I might not have worthwhile advice to give each time, but I promise to always listen. I swear I’ll never let you fall.”
Lux stared up at him, her lips parted, a confession of her own on her tongue. But something clanged from deep in the house, and it shook her enough that she said instead, “I should have helped Aline that day. I shouldn’t have left you to die.”
“I didn’t mind so much.” Shaw wrapped her up against him. Her ear lay perfectly positioned over his heart; the steady beat lulled her at once. He was so solid—and she did not mean onlyphysically. With his arms tensed and draped fully around her so she couldn’t so much as slouch, she understood just how strongly he stood by his declaration.
His loyalty to his family and those who’d been wronged, she had witnessed. She was blessed indeed to realize it applied to herself too.
“We’re not good enough. Not for anyone. Definitely not for him.”
Rotted nails snaked around Shaw’s bicep from behind.
Lux shuddered in his embrace.It isn’t real. It’s a nightmare. Only a nightmare.But the words rang hollow in wake of what she saw.
Half her face, sallow and decaying, peered around him.“Hear all that he promises to give us? What will we give him in return? Another Grimrook with greedy blood. We will only take. We will kill him a thousand ways. Wewill leave him with nothing!”
Lux gasped in pain and terror both, burying herself in Shaw’s chest.
“Devil below,” she whimpered. “I can’t do this.”
Shaw’s temple lowered to hers. “Do what?”
Lux’s eyes scrunched closed. She did know what it was like on the other side. Howfreeing. To be back in that wagon, a butterfly in her palm. She yearned for that contentment desperately. That excitement for the days ahead.
She wanted to believe Shaw—that she wasn’t broken. That she’d only ever been buried beneath the rubble of an unfair life. It had been easier to hope in her bedchamber, warm from the fire and the relief of seeing him. It was harder now, knowing such deep-rooted wickedness had also grown inside her since her conception. Though the nightmare plaguing her steps now was likely a twisted use of brilliance, it didn’t negate the fact hers still was wrong.
This rotting version of her had only ever regurgitated her own fears. Granted, they were much harsher and infinitely more terrifying when delivered this way, but they were still familiar. Was she good enough?
She didn’t know.
Lux’s jaw clenched, a desperate determination building again within. She must be through with allowing fears to stand in her way of finding out. If she was not good enough, it would be proven before the end of this, and if she was unsalvageably rotten—well, she’d sever Shaw free.
Before she rotted him too.
“Wemustbreakintothe vault,” she and Riselda said in unison.
Riselda stared at Lux afterward, a tilt to her lips. Meanwhile Lux withered inside and wished for something to purge the connection between them. Perhaps there were curses to sever familial ties…
“It is late,” continued Riselda. “We’ll need something to keep us going.” She spun away from them in the strange half-glass room and swished a decanter as delicately as a teacup. “How do you like my conservatory?” she asked.
Lux met Shaw’s narrowed eyes. His jaw tensed and he scowled down his nose at her. They’d argued.
He wanted them to leave Riselda behind.
Lux wanted that too, but couldn’t.
He’d contended they’d managed just fine as a pair in Ghadra.
She’d reminded him she had to leave him to torture, and the aftermath almost mentally murdered her.
She’d won—clearly. Because though he fumed, he couldn’t deny her final point: Riselda knew where the vault was. They did not. And time, she’d learned long ago, wasn’t something to be squandered.
