Page 91 of When the Sky Breaks

Ansel was amused.

I was fuming.

“I still don’t understand why I have to do this,” Sorcha muttered as she reloaded the revolver she hated least for what felt like the hundredth time. “I got one of Iksura’s damn inquisitors out of our house with a spider. I don’t need a firearm.”

“Sorcha, we’re not having this conversation again,” I said.

She pushed anyway.

“I have my magic,” Sorcha mumbled, “I have my knife. I don’t see why . . .”

“So prove it,” I snapped, grabbing her wrist hard enough that she dropped the gun. Sorcha yelped. Tried to pull away.

“What the hell?” she hissed.

“Prove it,” I repeated, voice dropping a register. “You said you can get out of a tight spot with your magic and your knife. So do it.”

I liked to consider myself a patient person. Decades working for demanding nobles had certainly encouraged the skill. But she wouldn’t listen to me, wouldn’t listen to Ansel. And maybe she needed an object lesson to get the point home.

So a split second later I had Sorcha on the ground, swept her feet clean out from under her, and caught her so she wouldn’t jolt when her back hit the dirt. I was seated immovably on her hips with one hand pinning her right arm and the other braced beside her head. She wasn’t even struggling. She just looked stunned.

“I said prove it,” I nearly growled.

“Let me up,” Sorcha snarled back.

I just shook my head.

“I said let me up.” She was starting to get shrill now—a tone I’d never heard from her.

“Prove it, love,” I repeated.

“Get the hell off me.”

“Make me.”

And she tried. I watched her eyes glaze like they did when she accessed her power. Then heard the defeated sigh as a pigeon and half a dozen rats came into view.

“That’s it?” I raised an eyebrow.

“It’s not my fault we’re in the city,” Sorcha snapped.

“Adapt,” I said. “Get your knife.”

She pulled against my grip—no technique, useless. I had almost a hundred pounds and as many years of fight training in my favor.

“I said get your knife.”

She tried to reach with her free hand, but she couldn’t get the angle right. I twisted her right wrist, not hard, just enough to hurt, enough to make a point. Sorcha yelped.

“Get your knife,” I said. “Summon something. Prove it, love.”

“Fine,” Sorcha said through gritted teeth. “My plan didn’t work. Now get off me and give me the damn gun.”

I couldn’t help but crack a smile as I let her up. She shrugged off my attempt to help her to her feet then snatched the pistol from Ansel’s hands.

“Better luck this time, lass,” Ansel said.

She took a deep breath, leveled the revolver at the target, and finally hit it.