“Absolutely not,” Sesto stated. His laugh reverberated in the resulting silence.
Even a few hours ago, Jesstin would have shared Sesto’s alarm, but he doubted even the strongest predator could penetrate the state he was in now. “Outside.”
“Jess.”
“She knows I am a sword taller than her and have a short temper.” Jesstin walked out. He didn’t let her speak first, didn’t even wait for the door to latch. “Lose the wounded-bird look. You even think of using your conniving, magical little cunt on me, whatever happens next will be in self-defense.”
“Yes, I did do those things,” Lexsea replied. Her hands were looped behind her back. She nodded behind her as if to say, See? I’m being a good girl. “But you’re stubborn and pigheaded, and Ryquin could see you’d take some time coming around—time we didn’t have. He needed me to plant the seeds in your mind, which I could only do when you were distracted by my... other behavior.”
“I know he killed Elloven. You deny it, they’ll be your last words.”
Lexsea cast a patient smile beyond him. “You came out here to listen to what I have to say, so why not listen?”
Jesstin flicked the safety open.
“Wait, wait! Goodness.” Lexsea thrust her hands out and fell back. She finally had the good sense to look scared. “Death isn’t the end for Aelloven. I... I was late coming here because I snuck into the flesh tenders’ and stole her body before they could prepare her for the lumens and the flames. Because once they do that?—”
“You touched... You stole my El...” Jesstin’s throat pinched. He crushed his fist between his teeth with a bracing grunt. He had to let the bitch finish. He had to know what she knew.
“Because even you can’t walk into Infinita Mori and just wish her back to life! Her soul is in your hands, but what would she come back to if her body has been turned to ash? If part of her soul is trapped in a lumen hanging in someone’s window?”
“Where? Where is it?”
“I’ll take you there.” She lifted her hands. “I’ll take you there.”
“No. You’ll take Sesto, and he’ll take possession of her body.”
“It needs to be preserved just so?—”
“Then you’ll tell him exactly, explicitly, how.”
“The magic it requires?—”
He pulled his sword free and swung the heavy steel up to her chin, which started quivering. “Can you or can you not do what I’ve asked? Yes or no?”
Lexsea’s nods were tight and terrified. “Yes, I can,” she whispered. “My magic...” She flinched and tried to back away, but he nudged her chin higher with the flat end. “Will be needed, and it’s yours. I will do anything you need. We can take her wherever... Please, Jesstin, can you lower this thing? I can’t think.”
Jesstin returned his steel to his side, but he didn’t sheath it, not this time. He couldn’t know if she was bullshitting him, but her death belonged to him, whether it was now or later. “Finish.”
“We can take her to this place... a cabin. It’s where Ryquin believes the door he needs will open in our world. It belongs to me, actually. I inherited it from Tansea’s mother, and it’s mine to use however I please. The door Ryquin needs is the door you need to bring her home. We’d keep her body there, safe and protected, and when you return with her, she would look... she’d look just as you remembered her before the swords came.”
“Ryquin isn’t going anywhere near her or the cabin.”
“I can promise he never will, not until the very last moment, when it’s time for him to pass through.”
“How will I make you keep that promise if I’m down there?”
“The others...” She nodded at the croft. “Sesto and Taven.”
“You could just kill them when I’m gone.”
“If I killed them, you’d never open the door. If anyone killed them, you’d never open the door. You hold all the power here, all of it. Sesto and Taven will be the most protected individuals in this realm.”
“As long as I’m on your side,” Jesstin said.
“We’d never know if you weren’t.”
“I’m not.” He scoffed. “But if you do what you just said, you and your brother will live until I get back.”
