“If anyone knows what it’s like to have hands stained with blood, it’s me,” he growled. “Unless you wield the blade, your hands are clean.”
“That’s not how I see it!” I shouted. “You and I are not the same, Theron. We play by different rules. This is a line Iwill not cross.”
“And Calista knows that. That’s how she’ll trap you, Eira.”
“I am different from her,” I said firmly. “I will not stand by while innocent people are slaughtered, even if they are humans. And I will stand in the path of that blade every time, even if it kills me.”
Sorrow flared in his eyes, and his expression shifted, hisire melting into a look of pure devastation. “That’s what I’m afraid of, Eira. I’m afraid itwillkill you.”
“Is that so bad? It’s what you’ve wanted this whole time.”
He huffed a dry laugh and shook his head, running a hand through his hair. “If you think I still want you dead, then you haven’t been paying attention.”
I took in the exhaustion etched into his face, the weary despair and anxiety. The panic he’d endured… because of me. How he’d begged Lavinia to heal me and paid her handsomely for it.
I thought of his tender words as he’d touched my cheek after we’d gotten the children to safety.I couldn’t let you die, Eira.
My heart softened as I realized his words were true. He wasn’t the cold-blooded assassin I’d first met. The man who only looked out for himself. The hunter who followed orders.
He had saved my life and the lives of those children. He had defied the queen in front of dozens of witnesses.
He had stood by me. My actions had angered him, but he’d still stood by me.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry for what my choices have done to you. You… deserve to be free, Theron.”
He closed his eyes with a long sigh. “No, I don’t. I’ve been a fool. I deserve whatever the queen has in store for me.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Yes, I do. Do you know what my magic did?” He gestured to my chest where my wound had been.
I shook my head, my heart racing in anticipation.
“I’m a necromancer, Eira. A life weaver. I hold the threads of life and death in my hands.” He raised his palms and glared at them as if they were directly responsible for ourpredicament. “These hands that have only known death… have had the power to preserve lives this entire time. And I only used them to kill.”
A necromancer?My mouth opened, then closed as something clicked into place. “The Demon Fae.”
He frowned. “What?”
“Youkilled the Demon Fae.”
“Eira, what the hell are you?—”
“I slit its throat, but something strange happened just before I struck. You shouted, and the creature just… froze. It started making this odd choking sound, like it was suffocating. At the time, I didn’t think. I just acted while it was distracted. But I thinkyoutook its life before I did.”
He said nothing. His dark eyes grew distant as he considered my words. After a long, tense moment, he shook his head and looked at me with interest. “I don’t want to talk about my magic. I want to talk aboutyourmagic. How did you vanish like that?”
Panic shot through me, and I backed up a step.
“No, no, you don’t get to withdraw from me like that.” He drew closer, practically pinning me against the brick wall of the house next to us. “I told you about my powers. Now you tell me about yours. How did you do that? Is that how you fought the Demon Fae? By vanishing like that?”
I struggled to breathe evenly. I couldn’t reveal this about myself. Every instinct in me screamed to ignore him, to avoid answering the question.
But he had saved my life. He had risked everything.
I owed him this.
Slowly, I nodded. “That’s my fae magic. Yours is necromancy. Mine is… invisibility.”
