Lie and save yourself.
Don’t lie and lose yourself.
Yet suddenly, it wasn’t a lie anymore. I couldn’t save Justice. If I fought Jagger more, I would lose everything good hidden inside me. If I fought more, I wouldn’t be able to save anyone. Not Luvic. Not Finn. Not Griff. Not Justice. No one.
This was what he’d been warning me about when I woke up.
This was what he’d known when he looked at me as the Den ripped him away. He’d known I wouldn’t save him. He’d known I’d sacrifice him. He’d known I’d choose to leave him and never come back.
He’d known.
“Mari? Do you want to go after Justice?”
I curled in on myself and pictured Justice painting me the illusion of our cabin in the north. I pictured his smile. Not the one from the Den of Depravity, but the one he’d had when he put his arm over my shoulder and tugged me close. His somber, steady, world-weary, I’ve-got-you-don’t-worry smile.
“No,” I said, letting Justice go. “I don’t.”
“I didn’t think so. But . . . why the change of heart?”
I pressed my hand to the cold floor, trying to cool the burning in my blood. “It isn’t worth it.”
Jagger laughed, gloriously, wondrously amused. The pressure inside me vanished. The seeking roots and the stabbing of his will disappeared.
I nearly passed out at the absence of the pressure.
Then he leaned close, a vial in his hand. The contents glimmered sunset-red with flecks of golden pearlescence.
“Drink.”
He held it to my mouth, and I swallowed the bitter, copper-tinged contents. Within seconds, my skin knitted together, my bruises faded, the tip of my pointer reformed; everything was made whole. The healing pain burned, and then, just as suddenly, it was gone.
I was left lightheaded and exhausted.
“What do you say?”
I licked my dry lips. “Thank you.”
Jagger stared, his flat gaze amused. “By the way, I thought you’d like to know, Justice did feel our game. He’s in excruciating pain. More than you were, in fact. Hopefully, the depraved don’t kill him while he’s helpless. Perhaps next time you won’t play so long?”
I made a desperate, wounded-animal noise, and Jagger’s smile grew.
His blood nipped at my pain.
“Hear my will. You won’t rescue Justice. You won’t encourage anyone to rescue Justice. If he returns, you won’t admit you wanted to rescue him. If he asks, you will only tell him your final decision . . . that he wasn’t worth it. In the meantime, as I’m out a Knife . . .” He pressed his fingers together and sighed. “I meant to send him after a branch of Clarks in Newark tonight. Make it look like the Smiths killed them, but also, perhaps, maybe, the Bards. We’re sowing seeds of doubt, Mari. Seeds of doubt.”
Would he make me do it? Would I become Jagger’s assassin?
“Send in Griff.”
No.
Not Griff. He’d never hurt anyone. Not ever. It would break him. It would . . .
Jagger smiled. “It’s time he learn, don’t you think?”
Jagger waited, maybe wondering if I wanted to play his game again. Leave Justice even more injured than he already was.
I pulled myself to my feet, walked past Gerald’s cold body, and slipped over the slick stone wet with my blood.
