She’d eaten it up. Every word. Every touch. Every promise I’d whispered against her skin while she gasped my name like I was something holy instead of something that would end her.
The Phoenix. The creature destined to burn the world to ash. And she’d spread herself open for me like I wasn’t hunting her. Like she was safe in my arms instead of exactly where I needed her to be.
Trusting. Desperate. Mine to destroy.
Disgusting.
Not her, though Furies knew what kind of monster wore that pretty face and pretended to be human. But the ease of it all. How simple she’d made this. How perfectly she’d positioned herself for the kill.
I turned toward the inn, my steps measured and certain.
Syneca Black had to die.
And I was the only one who could do it.
Chapter 47
Syneca
If your own handwriting looks unfamiliar, check what you wrote yesterday. Someone’s been borrowing your mind while you sleep.
Aureth’s room was larger than mine, probably because there’d be less chance of her walking into furniture she couldn’t see. I sat on the edge of her bed, knee bouncing with impatience, while Pip did laps around the ceiling like a caffeinated hummingbird.
“They should be here by now,” I said for the third time.
“Patience is a virtue,” Aureth said serenely from her chair by the window.
“Patience is boring.” I pulled the vial of Vitoria’s blood from my pocket, turning it over in my hands. I was going to wait for Calder, but since he and Wickett were off doing Furies knew what, I went ahead and told the others about her confession. About needing to decide if we would break the oath or not. After there was distance between her and me again, once my body was no longer pulsing to kill her, I felt breaking the oath was, once again, my only option. There was just no world in which I wouldkill her. No matter her crimes, I loved her. Still, it wasn’t only my choice to make.
Pip zipped past my head for the dozenth time. “Where are they? Calder’s always punctual. And Wickett,” she paused mid-flight. “Well, Wickett’s usually wherever you are, so this is extra weird.”
Heat crept up my neck. “He’s not always?—”
“—He is,” Riot said from his chair near the floor to ceiling window.
“He absolutely is,” Pip agreed. “It’s like watching a very deadly puppy follow you around. Except the puppy can kill people with his bare hands and looks at you like?—”
“Can we focus?” I cut her off before she could finish that sentence. “They’re missing. That’s the problem. Not... whatever else you think you’re observing.”
“I observe everything.” Pip settled on my shoulder, smug. “It’s my job as the team’s eyes in the sky.”
“Your job is reconnaissance, not gossip.”
“Those are the same thing.”
They absolutely were not, but arguing would just encourage her.
The minutes crawled by. My knee bounced faster. Pip resumed her aerial circuits. Even Aureth’s serene expression started showing cracks of concern.
“Something’s wrong,” I said finally.
“Perhaps they got lost,” Aureth started.
Someone knocked.
Pip dove for the door. Wickett stepped inside, and relief flooded through me so fast it made me dizzy. Then I actually looked at him, and the relief curdled into something else.
He wouldn’t meet my eyes.
