Griff gave a slow nod. “Hunted me like a wolf. Ran me. Bled me. Cut me with illusion. I think . . . I think he was toying with me.”
Next to me, Justice held frighteningly still, the knives in his palms.
I was still as well, but only because I couldn’t think. Finn did this? Finn? Denial pounded through me. I may do terrible things, but Finn never would. He was supposed to be the light in my dark.
“Toying with you?” Rou asked, clicking her tongue. “Did you change forms? Did you fight? Fly?”
Griff shook his head.
“Why not?” I asked, my voice hard.
Griff flinched. “Why not? He’s a conjurer. Alterra?—”
“The Smith,” Justice corrected.
He was right. Finn was the Smith now.
Griff nodded. “Before the Smith killed me . . . he told me to give Mari a message.”
Griff stared at me, his eyes bleeding to black again. A spidery itch crawled over my spine.
A message.
From the doorway, a rocklike laugh rolled through the room. The avalanche sound hit me, and I stiffened in response. The poisoned heat in my blood scalded my veins. I held still as pain twisted through me.
I curled my fingers into my palms and counted my breath.
One.
Two.
Three.
Jagger stepped into the room, crowding us closer. A drop of sweat trickled down my spine. He smiled down at me as if he knew the exact amount of hurt scraping through me and he delighted in it.
“I’m curious,” Jagger said, his voice laced with gloating humor. “What message did our delightful Smith send by way of your death?”
Jagger spoke to Griff but kept his flat gray gaze on me. He was waiting for my reaction. Would he see it in my expression, or would he feel it in my blood?
Hopefully neither.
I focused on the burning in my veins and made my face as smooth as rock.
“The Smith said”—Griff spoke in a low growl I’d never heard from him before—“to tell Mari he was going to kill everything and everyone she loved. Then he was going to slit her throat while she watched the world burn.”
A splash of surprise flooded me, followed closely by denial. Then, last and most potent . . . fear.
Jagger’s laugh rolled through the room, crashing over me and burying me in his glee. His sharp teeth glistened, and his eyes shone.
“This,” he said, laughing still, “is perfect. He hates you.” He wiped his eyes, tear-filled from poisonous mirth. “You killed him, and he hates you. You burned down his home, and he hates you even more. Oh, Mari. If only you knew. If only you realized. You would find it funny too.”
His blood nipped at me. It bit sharp-toothed into my heart, and I let it. I let Jagger taste the surprise and the confusion, but I kept the fear, the denial, and everything else hidden.
I looked at Justice. He was watching me. His expression asked, Do we kill Alterra? Send him to his final death? I looked away.
Outside, a sudden crack of thunder shook Hell Gate’s stone. Rou threw her hands over her ears. Justice lifted his arms as if about to throw both knives.
I spun toward the window, expecting an army of conjurers to descend.
