Suddenly, he reverses direction and comes right at us. I brace, but he jumps high into the air and slams into Canto. The blow he levels on the Siren makes my teeth ache, and Canto falls back, but Mei is there, driving him back, attacking with sharpened claws, ripping hair and skin off him, fighting him in a blur that is faster than anything we could manage.
I attack from the back, and Canto joins in.
When he breaks away from us, he finds the wall of Lirin, Reed, Brio, and Ronit, and he can’t get past them or through them.
Over and over, we dance, cutting him down piece by piece.
And it seems…too easy.
He breaks away and runs to the edge of the cliff.
“You can’t win. I will have you.”
Ronit laughs. “Go back where you came from, monster.”
Deux blinks black, black eyes, and I get this horrible sense of wrongness just for a moment. That he’s smiling at us, that he thinks he’s won.
“Do you want to make a deal?” he asks and then throws his head back and laughs.
His laugh is like all the wrong things in the world. My scales crawl, my whole self recoils. It’s a terrifying laugh.
He lunges at us, and we attack again, driving him back, this time to the edge of the cliff.
He screams at us and howls, desperate, scratching, clawing.
Then he tumbles off the cliff and falls onto the hard rocks below.
I go to the edge and look down, watching his body, making sure it doesn’t move.
His body lays there for a second before the ocean reaches out and snatches him from his spot, and he’s gone.
It’s over.
“He’s dead, Mei,” I say.
She turns to me. “Are you sure?”
“We saw his body. He’s dead,” Canto murmurs.
She throws herself into his arms, squeezing him hard. “He’s dead?”
“Yes, very much so.”
She laughs, and that sound. It’s so light and full of relief. It’s the sound of freedom.
I go to her but stay back because I don’t know. I’m not sure, and I don’t want her to feel it. It was too easy.
I walk back to the edge of the cliff and look down, but there’s nothing to be seen. I could go and check, but-
“Leaf, come on, we’re going to celebrate.”
I turn away, pushing the problem of Deux out of my mind. We won. He’s dead.
She’s safe.
That’s all that matters.
Chapter 34
