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I hit the ground with a thud and lay there, wherever there was, as the world pulled itself together around me. “Ugh.” Squeezing my eyes shut, I waited for the vertigo to ease. “If that’s how it was when we went from the basilica to the Velox, then I’m glad I was unconscious for it.”
“It wasn’t like that last time.” Jackie’s voice sounded dry and cracked. “I think she did it on purpose.”
I opened one eye and peeked at the night sky. Dark silhouettes of trees blotted out the stars. Rocks and tree roots jabbed my spine. I rolled over, intending to push myself to my feet, but stopped when my stomach lurched. “Where—” I paused as a sour burp worked its way up my throat. “Where are we?”
Jackie, who’d apparently recovered faster than me, stood and snapped his fingers, igniting a silvery ball of light over our heads. Its glow revealed that Clarice had transported us to the border of a forest growing along a steep cliff line that plummeted into the ocean. Angry waves crashed below, threatening to dash us against sharp rocks if we took a wrong step and fell over the edge.
Jackie tugged me to my feet, and I scrambled back, moving deeper into the woods. “Is this your rendezvous point?”
His silver light lit the scowl on his face, giving him a macabre expression. “Not quite. It’s farther north.” He pointed into the forest’s shadows. “That way.”
“How can you be sure?”
“The location is marked with a Magical indicator.” He tapped his temple. “I just have to follow its call. We need to move quickly to stay ahead of the Council. It won’t take them long to realize we’re no longer aboard the Velox.”
Jackie marched into the forest, carrying himself with confidence. I followed, grumbling under my breath. Here I was, finally home, and couldn’t properly celebrate my return. I’d come so far and yet still had such a long way to go.
Fallen brush and dried leaves crackled as we weaved through the woods. Despite Jackie’s Magical lamp, roots and rocks hid in the shadows, waiting to catch my feet and trip me. I stumbled often and snarled a string of steady curses under my breath.
“You should’ve chosen another alias when we first met.” Jackie smirked at me. “Grace was never very fitting for you.”
I ignored his jibe and changed the subject. “So what happens next? We meet up with your associates and return to Fallstaff, and you present me like a roast pig on a silver platter to Thibodaux? Shall I stuff an apple in my mouth first?”
He snorted. “I imagine you won’t go down without a fight. You’ll throw your thunder around, put on a good show, maybe even inflict some damage. But in the end you’ll lose.”
“And then what?”
He paused and glanced over his shoulder, eyes ablaze with cold, silvery flames. “Why, then, you’ll be mine.”
“You don’t care whether you have me willingly or not?” Bitter acid climbed my throat. “You care nothing about having my respect? My trust? My love?”
The muscles around his eyes tensed. “You could be my partner, Evelyn.”
“Or else be your slave?” I climbed over a fallen tree, eager to put distance between us. Jackie vaulted over the log with the grace of an acrobat, not willing to let me get ahead of him. “Why is your will the only one that matters? Why does what I want have no value or meaning? Why is my autonomy so easy for you to dismiss? I’m not a sword or a hammer. I’m not a tool or weapon to be used and discard at your whim. I’m a person with as much right to live her own life as you have.”
“None of us has a free will.” He glowered at me and plowed ahead through an awning of low-hanging brush. “There is only fate, and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you find peace.”
Anger turned my insides into fire, burning my heart, heating the iron to molten ore. “You’re doing this because you think you have no choice? No say? I’ve accepted that forces beyond my control exist, and they play an active role in my life. But if I thought those forces were unbreakable shackles rather than a swift current in a rushing river—a river that could be navigated, even rerouted over time—I might have fallen into the same trap as you.”
“What trap is that?” His tone was antagonistic and bitter, but still he marched on, determined to continue his path, both figuratively and literally.
I hurried to match his pace. “The trap of thinking you have no choice. Being fatalistic is a lot easier. I’ll give you that. It absolves your guilt. It lulls you into a false sense of righteousness and innocence. How can you be responsible for anything if you have no choice? No say? When things go badly, when you cause pain and harm, there’s always someone else, something else, to blame. How convenient. How easy for you.” I hocked a wad of phlegm from my throat and spat. “All that Magic. All that power, and yet you are so utterly, infuriatingly weak.”
He stopped so abruptly I crashed against him. He grasped my shoulders and squeezed. The blaze in his eyes had turned hotter, angrier. Good. I was so tired of his cold indifference. Anger was the emotion of a real person, not a lifeless ice carving.
“Deny all you want, but our lives are intertwined, Evelyn. I’ve accepted it. I’m at peace with it. It’s my fate to fulfill this particular destiny.”
“But is it what you want?”
“What I want doesn’t matter.” He bared his teeth and clenched my shoulders tighter. “I lost everything, and wanting didn’t bring it back. Wanting never gave me a damned thing other than pain and heartache and an empty life with no meaning. Fate gave me purpose again.”
I knew he’d lost his parents at an early age, but I wondered what else had happened to cause him so much pain. To stoke so much anger. Why had I never taken the time to find out? I’d never tried to understand Jackie before and wondered if doing so would have made a difference. Would it have changed anything? “What happened that made you so hopeless?”
“You want me to tell you my sad story so you can feel sorry for me? No thanks. I don’t want your pity.”
“How can you have purpose when you’re nothing more than a puppet dancing at the end of Le Poing Fermé’s strings?”
He shoved me. I stumbled. My heel caught a root, and I fell, landing hard on my rear.
“I’m tired of your words, Evelyn. They’re meaningless. Empty.” He waved his hand. A hum filled the air.
Then faded away.
Perhaps he had meant to use his Magic to silence me. But it hadn’t worked.
I stood and brushed dirt from my pants while Jackie stared at me, not bothering to mask his astonishment. “What have you done, little goddess?” He slashed his hand between us again and snarled an angry word. Again the hum rose and faded. A flash of distress crossed his face. “This isn’t the first time my Magic hasn’t worked on you. What have you done?”
A devious smile played across my lips. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Jackie’s mouth opened, but before he could speak, an eerie red glow filled the darkness around us. The radiance illuminated Brigette’s face as she stepped into our path. Her smile was fiendish when she winked. “Funny meeting you here, huh?”
My shock at seeing her was so great, I lost my breath.
But when Gideon’s hulking figure emerged from the gloom behind her, my composure shattered.
Instant burning tears tumbled down my cheeks. My knees gave away, but he caught me. He held me close, folding himself around me. His voice rumbled in my ear as he chuckled. “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”
A storm of emotions battered against me, and I trembled. Until now, I hadn’t fully allowed myself to dwell on whether Gideon had survived and escaped the basilica. It hurt too much to think that he might’ve been trapped there—or worse. The relief of his presence overwhelmed me. Crushing. “We—” I swallowed. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”
His deep chuckle was a balm to soothe my ragged soul.
“What are you two doing here?” Jackie sneered. “How did you find us?”
“There was a magical signal planted not far from here,” Brigette said. “I figured it was a beacon of sorts, so I followed it, suspecting we might run into you. Looks like my instincts were right.”
“How did you get here, though? From Isolas.” I sneered at her. “I was certain you’d run away or that you’d be half-dead in a mordid den by now.”
“It was tempting. For a few minutes, I did think about running. But I decided I’d have a better chance with you than on my own. You’re a guaranteed source of income, and that’s not such an easy thing to come by.” She turned on her heel and marched away.
Gideon tugged me, and we stumbled awkwardly behind her, not willing to let go of each other.
“How we came to be here is quite a story. But it’s a long walk to Fallstaff, so we have plenty of time to tell it.” She crooked a finger.
Jackie’s back and shoulders snapped into a rigid posture, arms pinned to his sides as if he’d been tied up in rope. His eyes budged, and his jaw worked, but no words came out of his mouth. She twisted her hand, and Jackie marched forward like a clockwork tin soldier, driven by an invisible force.
“What are you doing to him?” I asked.
“Exactly what we planned.” Brigette waggled her eyebrows mischievously. “I’m making certain he won’t be a problem.”
“He’s not our only problem.”
Brigette glanced over her shoulder, brow puckered. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“The Council of Magic is hot on our heels. They chased us here. It won’t take them long to figure out where we are and find us.”
“Then perhaps we should walk and talk a bit faster.”
