“Gally!” Ceri backed up, her arms wrapped around herself. The look of betrayal on her face went right to his gut and twisted. “You didn’t.”
“Not until the wizard triggers the spell.” A wave of burnt amber rose from him as he fluffed his lace in agitation. Annoyed, Al stomped to where his scrying mirror lay on the table, as Ceri had left it. “He may not.” Shoulders hunched, he sat down and pulled the mirror closer. He wouldn’t look at her.Ignore it, and it never happened.
Bare feet scuffing, Ceri retreated until her back hit the wall. “No. I can’t do that again. Gally. Please. Anything. I’ll do anything.”
Newt laughed, the cheerful sound striking Al as wrong in the tense air. Motions dangerously sensuous, she came to stand over the table and looked down. Nicolas Gregory Sparagmos looked back at them from the mirror, his focus distant as he thumbed through the pages of the book, oblivious to the fact that it had been spelled to serve as a two-way mirror—among other things.
Curious despite her fear, Ceri inched closer, too. “You made the book into a visual portal? Why?”
“Because revenge feels better when you can see it,” he muttered.
“Gally…”
Her voice was a thin whisper, and guilt finally pulled his eyes up. It might be hours before Nick damaged the book. But he would.
“Gally, you promised you’d release me.”
She was kneeling at his feet, her trembling hands on his knees. “I will,” he said brusquely. “You are being loaned. Nothing more. You still belong to me.”
Anger flickered, returning her to her original magnificence. “You don’t want me anymore. Admit it. I bore you.”
His eye twitched. In the mirror, Nicholas Gregory Sparagmos bit the end of a pencil and turned a page. “I do want you. But I could not repair the book and buy a curse from Newt without giving her something.”
Ceri gasped, jerking her touch from him. “You care more about your books than me!”
He was silent. Across from him, Newt cleared her throat and sat down.
“You are foul.” Ceri stood, pale and shaking. “Unclean and heartless. You know what she will do to me, and you’d rather have a book on your shelf!”
Al clenched his jaw, uncomfortable with Newt hearing all of this. “You have a fine enough touch to repair her memory, Ceri. It’s my fault that I taught you so well.”
“Your fault!” The elf backed up, horrified. “You want me to help repair her memory? She’s been made ignorant for a reason. Gally, you don’t know.”
“I do know!” he thundered, and across from him, Newt settled deeper into the cushions, one finger pulling the mirror closer as if they weren’t talking about her. “And if I deem it time for the demons to stop hiding in their caves and take back what’s ours, you will do what I tell you to do, and do it well! Newt led us to our freedom once before. It’s time for her to remember so she can do it again!”
Newt’s attention flicked up from the mirror. “I did?”
She had, and Al stood, suddenly nervous at the memory of what Newt was capable of when she had her back to the wall—and was pissed.
Ceri shook her head, eyes wide in fear. “You aren’t captive. I am.”
Anger pulsed through him. “Do I look free to you?” he shouted, and her head bowed to try to hide a trace of revenge-ridden satisfaction.
He was not free. None of them were, trapped within this hell created by the waste of a millennia-long war. It had been Ceri’s kin who had imprisoned them here, slipping the snare the demons had laid for them to escape to reality.
Perhaps this is a mistake…Al mused, drawn to her defiance, intrigued by what might lie under it. Elves were as powerful as demons when all things were equal. But nothing had been equal in several thousand years. “Newt—”
“Look! Look! He did it! He invoked the curse!” Newt crowed.
Hunched, Ceri backed away, terrified.
Al’s attention jerked to the mirror, where Nick was leafing through the pages in disbelief. The spell he’d triggered turned them to a blank nothing. “Dog-eared my book again, did you?” Al said, the warm glow of satisfaction finding him. “Use a damned sticky note like a respectable person.”
The vision through the mirror shifted wildly as Nick threw the blank book at the wall, the image settling to see Nick, now upside down as he stomped away.
Al chuckled and reached for his tea. “If you don’t know the value of a book, Nicky, you shouldn’t have any.”
Some days were better than others, and this felt like a large step closer to Rachel Mariana Morgan. And Nicholas Gregory Sparagmos? Well, it was doubtful that the little wizard would ever dog-ear another book again. In his experience, revenge was always worth the cost to realize it. Today proved it.
