Finn takes a step.
Xi raises his glowing blue eyes, they land right on mine. Locked. “You want a fight, girl? You think you’re in control here? You’re nothing but a baby.”
The other gods have noticed Xi’s confusion now. They’re not afraid though. They snicker, taunt him, laughing louder. I see the rage build inside Xi as he takes a step forward, outside the glowing circle at the edge of the stage that marks his place at midnight. “Shut down,” he says. Calmly, almost a whisper.
Fear spikes through me like a wave of sickness. Then the pain as his command becomes law inside Finn’s augmented brain. My heart stutters. My limbs seize. Spark drains out of me so fast I feel hollow.
“No!” Finn screams.
Xi turns, rage pasted all over his face. The other gods are relentless with their mocking insults, igniting his fury and turning it into wrath. “SHUT DOWN!” he commands again.
Finn pulls the spark out of me in a rushing stream as he attacks. But Xi is not his target—it’s the god to his right. He spins, covers the distance between himself and the god in two strides, slams his palm into the god’s shirtless, glowing chest,and a wave of lightning ignites his fake skin. The spark drain spikes inside me, burning down my spine as something hot, sharp, and unstoppable. All the lit-up switches on this god’s body flicker and go dark. He jerks, staggers—eyes dull and filled with confusion.
Then he folds backward over the stage edge like a broken hinge.
The other gods have caught on now—something is very, very wrong here. They are moving out of their positions on the clock, rushing at Finn.
I close my eyes, feel the force of spark inside me,pull on it—desperate to wring every last drop out of myself. Because this is it.
It’s over.
Either we play the Sweep card and wipe out this tower of gods, or we die.
Finn reacts down below. Himself again?
No. Never again. But in control?
As close as it gets, I guess.
While he fights, I pull, and pull, andpullon the spark. I’ve got a little left—Finn takes it all.
They drop, these gods. These stupid, petulant princes. They burn with the gift I hold inside me like a treasure. This power only I have now, this power they want so badly they will grow girls like pigs and harvest them like meat.
Carnage below me. Spark flying around the room like wild lightning.
Finn pauses, breathing so hard—so weak now, he stumbles to the side, barely keeping his balance. He drops to one knee, bodies of broken gods scattered all around him.
I’m exhausted and spent. The glass below me is cracked, but somehow, still holding.
Are they dead?
I’m just beginning to hope, desperate for this to be over because I’ve got nothing left to give—when a shape steps out of the shadows.
“Well done, my boy,” Xi says, as a slow clap echoes through the large room. “You’ve exceeded my highest expectations.”
A sob leaks out of me as a sizzle of spark. The last of my power gone as the jaws of defeat clamp down with sharp teeth. He’s still here. The others are all dead, and he’s still here. The only god who really needed to die, alive.
Finn, still on one knee, does not rise. He doesn’t even turn his head to acknowledge the god. Just presses one hand into the black-glass floor, bracing himself as he attempts to recover.
“I didn’t expect you to be so willful,” Xi says.
At first, I think he’s talking to Finn. But when he raises his head so his eyes can meet mine, it’s pretty clear he’s not. He’s talking to me.
“Just a baby, you are. But so,sodesperate to break free. I almost had you, didn’t I? You liked it, didn’t you? All the girls I bring up here are the same, and you are no different, Jasina Bell. You’re all a bunch of little down-city whores who grew up with nothing but big dreams of pretty dresses, and accounts filled with coin, and lazy days where your every whim is satisfied.”
Finn gets to his feet, but he doesn’t look the least bit recovered. He’s gasping for breath, hunched over, barely able to stand. And he’s pulling on me.
Looking for spark that isn’t there.
