“You do realize that there were so many possibilities before you arrived.” Her voice was cold and cutting. “I even toyed with luring your mother off her cruise ship and taunting her with a little shadow magic, but I knew she would be too frightened to play.” She turned around and her eyes fastened onto mine. “But you…”
I hated that her sentence didn’t need to be finished to know what she was implying.
“I’m not here to help your fantasies come true.”
A wicked grin flashed onto her face. “You sound just like your mother when she came here until she just…stopped talking.” Her cold, slender finger slithered under my chin as a sharpened nail pressed into my flesh, and she raised my gaze to look at hers. “But I have plans for you, Maeve. You were always meant to be the one who…”
My gaze sparked anger. “Who what?”
“Wanted to look past the obvious…wanted to seek the truth behind Gideon’s wants and desires. Wanted to believe there were other reasons for people’s actions. That, my deargranddaughter, is meant for a greater purpose than ushering students through an Academy.”
Nausea flooded me, but I refused to let her see it. I needed answers. It would be the only way we would end this once and for all. I needed to pretend I was curious.
The Priestess turned and continued down the corridor as if she hadn’t just pressed poison under my chin and called it a family conversation.
The compound had settled since everyone left, but settled didn’t mean peaceful. It meant watchful. It meant every stone knew I was here as I followed.
The floor beneath my boots held a faint vibration, low and steady, almost like the hum of the Academy when it was thinking. I couldn’t help but shake the thought that this place was also filled with some sort of energy, but who directed it? The Priestess alone?
But Shadowick’s compound definitely had a pulse. There was no denying it.
The corridor curved left and then right, but we hadn’t passed windows for several minutes. Had she already had enough of me and wanted to put me in the dungeon?
Celeste was safe.
Keegan had her.
My mom was alive.
My dad was with her.
I repeated that in my head until the words became a rhythm that kept me walking.
The Priestess glanced back at me, and I immediately hated that she looked amused.
“You are remarkably loud for someone saying nothing.” She laughed to herself, and my stomach knotted.
“Funny. I was thinking the same about you.” My retort didn’t exactly land how I’d hoped.
Her smile spread slowly. “I do enjoy you.”
I snorted in disgust. “I wish I could return the sentiment.”
She stopped and turned to face me. “You might someday.”
“I won’t.”
She continued walking. “You’re very certain for a woman who has only heard one side of history.”
There it was again.
The hook that could snag me into her web of lies. I followed quickly to catch up as she came upon a corridor that opened into a wide landing with three staircases.
One curved upward, one dropped sharply into darkness where blue sconces burned low and uneven, and the third stretched low, only a few steps down to a landing that led to iron doors.
My pulse pounded as I stared ahead. I recognized the doors from when I’d found Gideon. My shadow mark nudged me forward, but I remained still.
Her right brow lifted. “You remember this place.”
