“I wouldn’t,” I answer.
He raises a brow. “I have a lot of hours down here to think.”
“Lucky you.”
“And I think that if you truly wanted him dead, you would have killed him by now.”
I think of the blood splattered across my boots, the axe strapped to my back, the unimaginable power of my metal arm, and the void that yawns in the center of me. “Have youconsidered that maybe I have? Where I go, bodies trail behind me. Maybe they’re all dead. Maybe I’m telling you lies to protect you.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because you wouldn’t care enough to lie.” He smiles and it looks stupid on his face, too wide, too many teeth. He’s slipping quickly.
“I don’t know why I bother trying to free you. You’re a pain in my ass.”
His eyes close and he chuckles to himself. “Because no one else will tolerate you.”
He’s right, of course.
His head lolls to the side.
“Tinman.” The witch’s voice slithers down the stairwell.
“I’m not done,” I shout back.
But a second later, my knees buckle and I sink to the stone floor as pain shoots across my chest. My arm locks up first. It’s always the first to go.
The witch might not have been the one to steal my heart, but she knows how to exploit the weakness.
“Best be going,” Gabriel says, his eyes still closed.
Before I lose all feeling, I scramble with my left arm, drinking back a capful of Oil. It’s no match for the magic of a Cardinal Witch, but she doesn’t want me dead. She just wants me to obey.
The drug warms my stomach, then creeps through my bloodstream. Feeling returns to my extremities, and I sigh.
Oil is like warm honey in your veins, like clouds in your head. Like everything will be all right and if it’s not, who cares?
I climb to my feet and sway a little.
“Get some rest, baby brother.”
He jolts himself awake. “There is nothing to do here but rest.”
“Then rest some more.”
He laughs again and his body sort of melts into itself and he slumps down the wall.
My high is already fading. “I’ll be back for you soon.”
“Mmmhm,” he says and curls into a ball on the stone floor. “Take your time.”
I snort and leave him to his temporary respite.
The witch meets me at the top of the stairs.
“You took too long.”
