Chapter Thirty-Three

Jonas

The Corolla’s headlights sliced the coal-black darkness ahead, the shafts of light shuddering and jerking with every pothole we hit as we sped through the national park toward America Bay for the second time that day. The car’s cabin hummed with an uneasy silence. This trip had been Leo’s idea, his smartest move of the day. Or his dumbest; I hadn’t decided yet.

“You can stay in the car. I don’t expect you to go in with me,” I told him.

He didn’t take his eyes off the road as he answered. “You promised Cora you wouldn’t go in alone. I’m not going to make a liar out of you. I’ll be fine.”

Not if he repeated this morning’s performance. The memory of him standing among the rosewood and marble, pathetic in his inaction, flashed across my mind, and I debated arguing with him. But I left it alone. It was thanks to Leo that I wasn’t breaking my promise to Cora; with Leo there, I wasn’t going in alone. I figured guilt had pushed him to make the offer. I hadn’t dwelt on it; it was a way to do what I had to without betraying my word.

She’d be furious when she realized what I’d done, but hopefully by then it would all be over, the page torn out of that blasted book and with it all danger to her removed. She’d be safe. That’s all that matters—Cora safe. I’d deal with her anger once the danger to her life was nonexistent.

That was the easy part. The hard part would be convincing her my asshat response in the kitchen had been a lie. It had killed me, that lie, knowing she was willing to give us a chance, even if it was only to cover her with my Protection Charm.

She’d done well, though, masked her shattered look almost as soon as it appeared. Still, I’d always hate myself for putting that pain in her eyes.

My hand shot into my hair. I pulled, hard, wanting the sting to obliterate the injustice of it; I’d had no choice. Not when Beth’s life was on the line.

C4RL1N. I’d always assumed Mom’s car crash had been an accident, but could the Groth Maar have been involved? If so, how? The journals made it clear that the demons couldn’t kill a Guardian’s mate. Why would they even want her dead so long after she’d already married Dad and had Beth and me? It made no sense.

Beside me, Leo tugged on a section of seat belt near his neck. The light from the dashboard mottled his face a glow-stick green, making his pained expression more severe than it was.

“How’s your back?” I was still pissed off with him, but those cuts had looked damn painful.

“I’ll be fine,” he said, more to himself than to me. He tugged at the seat belt again, pulling the collar of his T-shirt away from his neck at the same time. Plain black tonight, no stupid slogan splashed across it. Shame Beth wasn’t here to appreciate it.

The Corolla slowed, and the halo-like haze of lights doming the treetops near the Groth Maar mansion drew my attention to something much darker than Leo’s T-shirt.

We climbed out of the car and retrieved the khopeshes from the boot. The stifling heat of the day was gone, but the humidity remained, pushing in on my skin, making me work harder for each breath. For a moment I questioned the wisdom of doing this tonight; I was tired and though the throb in my jaw was now more annoying than painful, it was a reminder I wasn’t completely healed. But if the prof was right, Elymas wouldn’t be, either. And he wouldn’t be expecting a visit this soon.

I led the way around the side of the building, and we crouched behind a scrub of bottlebrush.

“How do you want to do this?” Leo’s voice was steady, but he gripped the hilt of his khopesh so tightly his knuckles gleamed in the dark. I tipped my head at the far side of the mansion. “The library window. With any luck they won’t have boarded it up yet.” And if that failed, there was the cellar. They had no way of knowing that was how we got in this morning.

My guess paid off. The library window was as we’d left it: shattered, gaping open, small shards of glass jutting from sections of the frame like the jagged teeth of some nocturnal animal. Glass crunched beneath our soles as we stole under the broken window. Although light shone from other windows around the building, the library was seeped in ink-black darkness. There was just enough residual light for me to make out the slender shape of the lectern in the alcove—and to see there was nothing resting on top of it. No surprise there. Leaving the Book of Threads sitting by a broken window would have been stupid, something Elymas was definitely not.

I slapped at a mosquito on my neck, secured my grip on the Sword of Absolom, and, ignoring the growing tightness in my gut, swung a leg through the glassless window frame. The icebox temperature of the place engulfed me within seconds. It seemed colder than this morning, so cold the sudden drop in warmth and humidity stung my eyeballs.

Cautiously, we slunk through the alcove, past the bare lectern and into the center of the marble room. We stood there, shoulders hunched, waiting for our eyes to adjust to the dark. Slowly, the hazy edges of bookcases and the fireplace began to materialize.

“Now what?” Leo’s hoarse whisper came from beside me.

Good question. The dark made searching the room difficult but not impossible, at least not with the help of the torch app on our phones. I had nothing concrete to go on, but something told me the Book of Threads was still here, still inside this room.

“We look. Start with the bookshelves. Elymas is arrogant enough to hide the book right under our noses.”

Resigned, Leo nodded and, swords in one hand and lit-up phones in the other, we turned for the bookshelves nearest us. The ridiculousness of the situation wasn’t lost on me. If I lived to tell this story, this was the part I’d laugh at. Yeah, right.

Unease scraped a sharp fingernail down my spine as we scanned the volumes in front of us—I couldn’t shake the feeling we were being watched. Remembering the cherub faces on the ceiling, I lifted my head and looked up. All that met me was a blanket of darkness.

It’s in your head. I shook said head and returned my eyes to the bookshelf. Beside me, Leo’s breath suddenly came a little faster than normal, almost as though he’d anticipated the familiar voice that drifted out of the gloom behind us.

“What one man sees as arrogance, Mr. Leander, another recognizes as confidence…and innate superiority.”

Leo and I spun around. At the same moment, flames flickered to life in the fireplace on the other side of the room, throwing a bloodred glow across the marble floor, up the walls and over the heavy wooden desk—the front of which Elymas leaned against. The left half of his face remained in shadow while the firelight cast an ever-moving haze on the right, enough to reveal a self-satisfied and, regardless of what the bastard said, arrogant smirk. Right there, I vowed to wipe that smirk off his Ken-doll face if it was the last thing I did on this earth.

Behind the desk, blanketed by the last of the shadows, movement drew my eye—Baptiste and Clay.

So much for our unexpected visit.

“I must commend you, though, Mr. Leander. What you seek is indeed right under your nose.” Elymas pushed away from the desk and moved aside, giving us an unobstructed view of what sat on it: The Book of Threads next to a gleaming, bronze-bladed khopesh much like the one Leo clutched in his trembling hands.

Everything in me tightened at the sight of the book.

So close. So damn close.

My gaze flitted between the book and the khopesh beside it, reminding me that Elymas wasn’t about to give me what I wanted without a fight.

Elymas rounded to the back of the desk, his movements fluid and sure, making me question if he felt any discomfort from the wounds Cora had inflicted on him earlier. What if the professor was wrong about Elymas’s healing rate, and he was already fully recovered? He’d been wrong about Elymas not expecting us to show up tonight, so maybe he was wrong about this, too. Shit. I needed him wounded, needed every advantage I could get.

I shifted from foot to foot and inched one hand down the hilt of the Sword of Absolom, sliding my fingers along the sharp blade. One cut and the advantage is mine.

At least I hoped it was.

Hands spread on either side of the Book of Threads as he leaned over his desk, Elymas ran his gaze along the khopesh in my grip, eyes halting when they reached where my fingers pressed against the edge of the blade. Did Elymas know I was aware of his weakness, this glitch in his supernatural firewall?

“You have something of mine that I’d like returned.” His violet gaze lingered on the Sword of Absolom in my hands for a moment longer before he shifted his pinprick pupils to my face.

The self-assured smirk on his face was a fuse to my anger. “So why don’t we trade?” My gaze flicked to the book on the desk, then straight back up at Elymas. I wasn’t stupid enough to take my eyes off him for long.

Head tilted and lips pursed, Elymas regarded me with an expression of mock consideration. “An interesting idea…but I think not, Mr. Leander. You see, you’ve caused me considerable grief when everything should have been so simple. If you’d just followed your usual pattern of behavior we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I didn’t expect you to care enough about any of your three choices to end up in this predicament. Nevertheless, I owe you a small measure of thanks; it has been centuries since I’ve had the pleasure of killing a Loose Thread.”

His eyes never leaving mine, he stroked the flat of the khopeshe’s blade in front of him. “The act is so much more satisfying than merely watching a Guardian choose unwisely. This morning’s events are only a minor setback. Once I’ve dealt with you, I’ll look forward to seeking out your lovely friend.”

He smirked again. Darker this time, if that was even possible. My stomach turned. It was hard to believe this monster had once been human, that he’d once loved someone—then killed her in a jealous fit.

I gritted my teeth at the wave of rage gathering inside me. He wasn’t touching Cora. Ever. The only thing keeping me from slicing the vile expression off his plastic face with the blade in my hands was the knowledge that I’d never get close enough to him to do so. Not yet, anyway.

“That’s not going to happen,” I bit out through clenched teeth.

“Oh, but it is. And there isn’t a thing you can do about it.” He cocked his head again, this time to the other side, then let his gaze drop dramatically to the Book of Threads on the desk flanked by his splayed hands. “Ah, quite right. There is one thing you can do about it.” He lifted his dark head and looked me in the eyes. “So what are you waiting for, Mr. Leander?” He glanced at the khopesh in my hands. A frisson of fear broke through my anger and brushed up and over my skull. It wasn’t his words so much, but rather the calm, conversational tone of his voice that made me take notice. “Make your cut nice and deep.”

Make your cut— He knew! He knew I was going to relinquish my Protection Charm to get to the book. And the feral smirk on his face made me think he almost…looked forward to it. My hands grew clammy around the sword’s hilt despite the freezing temperature of the study. Why the hell would he look forward to it when I had possession of the one thing that could kill him?

“You look confused, Mr. Leander.” As Elymas straightened, he picked up the khopesh off his desk and held it effortlessly in one hand. Someone shifted in the shadows. Most likely Clay, itching to start the bloodletting.

Lips set in an infuriating self-assured snarl, Elymas slowly rounded to the front of the desk. I took a step back and, one by one, wiped my sweaty hands on my pants, then tightened my hold on the Sword of Absolom. “I don’t see what you have to smile about when I’m holding your one-way ticket back to hell.”

He flashed toothpaste commercial teeth. “Ah, Jonas—you don’t mind if I call you Jonas, do you?—let me enlighten you.” With a wave of his long-fingered hand, the flames in the fireplace leaped higher. My breath faltered when several orange-tipped tongues broke free and licked along the walls, setting a dozen or so torches alight, flooding the library in bright ochre.

“You see, I’m confident that, even in my mortal form, my strength is greater than yours. Because unlike you, my judgment isn’t clouded by that most pathetic of all emotions you call love.” He sneered the word, his contempt echoing around the room. “It’s a chimera, your human love. Nothing more than a cruel deception, an illusion.” His expression turned predatory. “It’s already fooled you, led you here alone, without her. Which is exactly how I wanted it.”

Behind me, Leo groaned, a wounded animal kind of sound. Elymas ignored him. So did Baptiste and Clay.

Confusion, and a creeping wariness, pulled at my brows. “Why?”

Elymas made a show of sliding the blade of his sickle sword between thumb and forefinger. “Because with the surprisingly skilled Cora by your side, you actually had a chance at success. Together you might just have posed a threat to me. But alone, at worst, you’re nothing more than an interesting diversion, and at best, a satisfying way to extinguish another arm of the Guardian Line.” He smirked and took a step forward.

I fought the urge to step back. Together. She’d been trying to tell me. We were stronger together, but I’d been too pigheaded to listen. Elymas’s eagerness for me to relinquish my Protection Charm poured doubt on my decision to do this without her. He was convinced he could best me, even without the advantage of his supernatural power. Suddenly his intent was clear: only one of us was walking out of this marble tomb alive tonight, and if Elymas had his way, it wouldn’t be me. A chill descended over me, so cold it made the hairs on my arms brittle.

Deep, rapid breaths at my shoulder reminded me I wasn’t alone. Leo was here. Which was as good as being here alone. I wanted to turn and tell him to get out if he saw a chance, but I didn’t want to draw attention to him. So far Elymas and his demon cronies had ignored Leo completely. With any luck they’d continue to do so.

“We’re wasting time, Guardian. Make your blood flow. Or do you need a reminder of what I’ll do to the lovely Cora next time I see her?” Elymas didn’t wait for an answer. He arced his hand through the air and sent me flying into the lectern. Pain raced up my side. My eyes watered. Darkness crowded the edges of my vision as I crumpled to the stone floor. The only sign that Elymas felt any of my pain was a tightening of his jaw.

Fuck. I stood no chance against him like this.

“I ask you again: would you die for her? Or have you come to your senses and decided to leave her to her rightful fate? All you have to do is hand over what is mine.” He eyed the Sword of Absolom still in my grip. “Go on, Guardian, make your choice.”

Choice. You can risk love and allow it to change you for the better or harden you to become bitter and vengeful. Face-to-face with Elymas, my choice was suddenly as clear as the centuries-old vengeful bitterness in his violet eyes.

A wave of certainty flooded me, so powerful it drowned my fear. I heaved myself up off the floor and faced him.

“I’d rather die.”

He smirked. “And therein lies your weakness.”

“No, therein lies my strength.” And as I spoke the words, I knew they were true. Aunt Helena was right—my love for Cora wasn’t a weakness; it was a strength. It empowered me to step outside myself, outside my own fears. It put her first, smack in the middle of my circle of importance where she belonged, where she’d always been, even though I’d refused to see it.

With the realization came calmness. Resolution flowed through my veins: I was ending this tonight. If I didn’t manage to tear my page from the Book of Threads, then I’d die trying. Either way, the curse would be broken and Cora would be safe.

And in the end, that was all that mattered.

Without another thought I lifted the Sword of Absolom and sliced its blade along my forearm. The cut stung. Warmth snaked along my skin as blood trickled down my arm.

Elymas watched it drip onto the pale marble floor. When he lifted his eyes back up to mine, they were filled with purple menace.

Then he lunged.

The blade of his khopesh slammed down hard on mine, the force of it jarring all the way up my arms and into my skull. He swung again, using both hands, his strength brutal. I ducked, and his blade hit the lectern behind me with a dull thud, catching in the wood. Seeing my chance, I aimed my sword for his unprotected side. He was too fast. He’d freed his khopesh and leaped out of the way, my blade slicing only his silk shirt.

Elymas glanced down at the gaping purple fabric. “First the window, now this.” He sneered his contempt at me. “You have no respect for other people’s property, Guardian.” With ruthless determination in his pinprick eyes, he charged again.

This time I was ready for the bone splitting jolt. His blade bit into mine. My teeth rattled, but I held firm.

The bastard’s strong. Even in human form.

Now I understood his eagerness for me to give up my Protection Charm. Suddenly my chances of surviving this didn’t look that great. I had no time to dwell on the morbid thought.

His blade swished. I parried. The moment our weapons collided, he swung again, too fast for me to find an opening. Blades clashing, he forced me across the marble floor, my limbs straining against his blows.

Heat pulsed against my back—Elymas had backed me up against the fireplace. Flames licked my calves. Another step and I’d be toast. The lack of space meant I couldn’t take a decent swing while he kept at me, his blade powered by brutal downward thrusts. Heart thumping with exertion—and maybe with a bit of panic—I looked around for a way out. There was none. Only Elymas’s blade in front of me and the burn of the fireplace at my back.

A vicious downward slash of his blade unbalanced me and—shit! I had to move or step into the fire. I grappled for the mantelpiece, somehow managed to grab hold without dropping my sword, and twisted away from the flames. Elymas’s khopesh met the marble with a jaw-rattling clang in exactly the spot my head had been. Bloody hell.

He only took a second to recover from the jolt. That was all I needed to grab the side of the mantelpiece and swing out with a high kick to the demon’s head. He stumbled, narrowly missing a face plant into the flames.

I took off for the table—but instead smacked the cold stone floor when Elymas grabbed my ankle. I thrashed and twisted out of his grip and scrambled to my feet. But the demon was also back to standing. Back to slashing his blade at me.

“You’re making me work for your death, Guardian.” Slash-clang. Slash-clang. “But I enjoy a challenge. And I’m not altogether surprised…” Slash, slash-clang. “Your kin have always proven hard to kill.” Slash-clang—

What? Did he mean my mother?

Elymas’s next strike aimed high. I ducked, rolled on the floor, and swiped low, nicking his thigh, before jumping back up onto my feet.

Nostrils flaring, he glanced at the small gash then back up at me.

“Did you kill her? Did you kill my mother?”

The demon’s face flashed briefly with a smile. “Ah, Caroline. Collateral damage. The Guardian’s instructions were to end your father, but he wasn’t in the car like he should have been.”

My father? He sent a failed Guardian to kill my father?

“Why?” It didn’t make sense, not when Dad had already made his choice and produced kids.

“Your numbers were dwindling too slow for my liking. I needed to hasten them along.”

Suddenly Elymas lunged with renewed energy. I blocked and countered with a kick to his hip that should have sent him on his ass, but all he did was stumble back a step. The man was a brick. Or I was tiring, because the khopesh grew heavier in my grasp with each of his blows, and at this rate it wouldn’t be long before I couldn’t—

Fuck!

Fire lanced along my right shoulder as his blade sliced deep into my flesh, possibly bone. My legs buckled. I tripped, landing hard on one knee.

The expression on his face bordered on ecstatic. The bastard was feeding off my agony. “And now I’ll have you to add to the body count.” Khopesh lifted above his head in readiness for a lethal blow, Elymas charged.

Fear reared its useless head once my brain managed to focus on something other than the blaze in my shoulder. I refused to let it win. Instead I shoved it down and used the searing fire to fuel my anger, my resolve to finish him. For Mom. For Cora.

My chance came with a streak of white bandage beneath the gaping fabric of Elymas’s shirt. I rolled just as his khopesh slashed next to my head, so close the rush of air fanned my temple. My heart stopped, then hammered double-time.

Too close.

Elymas’s copper blade struck marble a moment before my foot rammed his bandaged side. He hissed, swayed on his feet, but remained upright. Still, it bought me enough time to scramble up.

I swung my blade. It met its mark, slicing deep into the back of his thigh. He screamed, more in outrage than pain. Didn’t matter; I now had the upper hand. Summoning all my strength, I advanced on him before he could get the better of me.

Strike by strike, I forced his retreat. Each blow of my blade ignited new agony in my shoulder, sending a fresh gush of crimson warmth down my already blood-smeared arm. I ignored the wound, even managed another well-aimed kick to his injured side. He grimaced and faltered. The sight of his blood weeping out from under his bandage spurred me on, gave me hope.

I can do this. I can finish him.

Every muscle and sinew in me strained, but somehow I managed to back him up against his desk. The Book of Threads lay on top, but Baptiste and Clay no longer stood guard behind it.

Where the hell are they?

No doubt they’d been instructed to step in if Elymas needed it. Then again, the arrogant demon bastard had bragged about his ability to kill me himself.

No time to worry about his cronies now. If I wanted at the book I needed to bring Elymas down, and quickly, because even though sweat coated his Ken-doll features, I was tiring faster than him.

My shoulder screamed. It’d bled down my arm so badly the Sword of Absolom’s hilt was slick as grease.

My breath came in rasps, the air cold and metallic.

Concentrate. You need a way around his defenses. What would Cora do?

But no matter what I tried, the Groth Maar demon refused to yield, meeting each of my strikes with a stubborn resolve. Hell, the book is right there. Right there!

Elymas guessed the direction of my thoughts. “You want the book, Guardian? So have it!”

Before I had a chance to react, the demon leaned back. With a jerk of his free arm, he swept the Book of Threads off the desk, catapulting it through the air—right at me.

The corner of the heavy leather-bound tome slammed into my bleeding shoulder. For a heartbeat my vision blanked with the blinding pain of it. The impact forced my arm back, loosening my grip on the khopesh. The sickle sword slipped from my blood-smeared fingers and slid along the floor until it came to a stop right at Leo’s feet.

“Leo!” I ducked, swerved around the side of the desk, narrowly missing Elymas’s swinging blade.

Come on, Leo. Not again!

He was my only hope. Without him I was dead. “Leo! Kick it to me.”

But he didn’t. Eyes downcast under a mess of dark hair, his own khopesh still gripped tightly by his side, he stood immobile in the exact same spot we’d been when Elymas had announced himself. Baptiste and Clay stood either side of him but didn’t touch him.

My frustration boiled over. “For fuck’s sake, Leo!” I dodged another of Elymas’s lethal swings by leaping onto the desk. The sharp blade took a gash out of the wood.

I don’t believe this. I’m going to die because my prick of a so-called friend has no fricking balls.

“He won’t help you.” Elymas swung his khopesh again, this time nicking my side. I bit down on the pain and leaped off the desk, scrambling behind the lectern. “Like your mother’s killer, he has too much invested in your death.”

What the— Elymas’s words turned my limbs to concrete. I’d gripped the lectern, ready to shove it into him, but now I couldn’t move. The rasp of our rapid breathing filled the space between us. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Seeing my sudden stupor, Elymas quickly pointed the curved blade of his weapon near my face, the tip only centimeters away, smeared with my own blood. “Think, Jonas. Who brought you here tonight?”

Confused, I looked across at Leo. He hadn’t taken his eyes off the marble floor.

Leo? I didn’t believe it. He might be a dickless wonder, but he wasn’t that twisted. Elymas was messing with my mind, trying to psych me out.

“You’re lying.”

Still pointing the bloody blade at my face, Elymas smiled, the urgency in him gone, replaced by gleeful malice. “Am I? Or do the two of you have more in common than you think?”

A movement of Elymas’s fingers sent Baptiste rushing to pick up the Book of Threads off the floor. Coming to stand beside his master, Baptiste leafed through the parchment pages until he found what he was looking for.

“Here, see with your own eyes, Guardian.” Elymas motioned for Baptiste to thrust the book forward. Not so close that I might reach it, but close enough for me to see the name written in the center of the page:

Leo Tarsicio

The words were a steel-capped boot to my gut. Winded, I sucked at the icy air but couldn’t breathe. Leo, a Guardian. All this time… Suddenly it all made sense—his aversion to dating, the speed at which his bruises healed after his beating. What didn’t make sense was why he was selling me out to the Groth Maar.

Ignoring the deadly blade near my face, I glared across the room at Leo. “Why?”

This time at least he met my gaze, but he didn’t answer.

Elymas answered for him. “Because I have something he desperately wants.”

Rage boiled beneath my skin. “What can he give you that’s worth more than my life?” I yelled across the room at the guy I’d believed to be my friend. Elymas still held his blade centimeters from my neck, but part of me didn’t care anymore.

Maybe it was the bitterness in my voice or the disbelief in my expression, but finally Leo broke his silence. “It was never meant to be your life.” He grimaced. “It was supposed to be easy—get three Guardians to choose badly.”

My jaw slackened; he’d sold out, just like X and the Guardian who’d killed my mother.

“You were the third,” Leo continued. “All you had to do was kiss another stupid girl, one you cared nothing about, like all the other ones you cared nothing about. Everything was on track, and then you planted one on Cora and it all went to shit!” He stepped forward but stopped when Clay clamped a hand on his arm.

“They beat me to a pulp that Wednesday night because I’d failed, because by some fluke you’d chosen right. Like you, they can’t kill me, but three days of constant thrashing by a horde of Groth Maar made me wish they could, you self-righteous asshole.” The blade in his hand shook with the force of his words.

Beside Leo, Clay sneered. My bet was he’d been first in line during the beatings, relishing every second of Leo’s pain, even though he would have felt the sting of the blows he himself inflicted. Sadistic demon bastard.

“It was never meant to get to this, but when Cora ended up a Loose Thread…” His chest heaved with emotion. Frustration? Anger? Regret? I couldn’t tell. “Now one of you has to die.”

Hopelessness pressed down on me, cold and unyielding. I fought to hold it back. I gripped the lectern so hard my nails dug into the wood. “Our friendship? The threat to Beth’s life? Was any of it real?”

Leo didn’t answer, just palmed the ring he always wore around his neck through the fabric of his T-shirt.

Elymas’s laugh filled the silence instead. I refused to look at the demon, refused to meet his freakish eyes, knowing I’d see my imminent death in the violet.

A warm breeze licked at my nape through the shattered window behind me, teasing me with a way of escape. But even if I made it out alive—which was highly unlikely—Elymas would come for Cora now that he had the Sword of Absolom again.

Every second that passed without Leo making a move to grab the ancient khopesh at his feet was a second closer to the end. Either mine or Cora’s.

Please.

Silently, I begged him.

Leo. Pick it up. Please!

But he stood immobile, and the last of my hope shattered to join the glass in the alcove window.

I didn’t even flinch when Elymas pierced the skin under my chin with the tip of his blade. A trickle of blood snaked down my neck, warm for a brief moment, before it soaked into the collar of my T-shirt.

There was no point in fighting the Groth Maar lord. It was either Cora or me, I reminded myself.

“Bring me my sword,” Elymas ordered over his shoulder as he herded me to the front of the lectern. Immediately, Clay abandoned Leo’s side and snatched the Sword of Absolom from the marble floor.

Without taking his eyes off me, Elymas addressed Baptiste. “Gather the others.” Baptiste placed the Book of Threads back on the lectern behind me, a clear sign I was no longer seen as a threat. Then he strode out of the library to round up his demonic brotherhood. It looked like my execution was going to be a public affair. I couldn’t bring myself to care.

It was over.

I had many regrets, too many to list in the short space of time I figured I had before Elymas drove his blade into my body, but one circled at the forefront of my mind:

I should have said the words, should have said those three little words as soon as I realized the truth of them. Then maybe I wouldn’t be standing here with a sickle sword at my throat.

As a dozen or so violet-eyed Groth Maar filed into the library, Elymas dug the sword tip at my neck farther into my skin, forcing me to lift my chin. Botticelli faces laughed down at me from the ceiling, and I clenched my fists against the ingrained impulse to fight.

It’s either me or Cora. This is how it has to be.

With his free hand, Elymas took the Sword of Absolom from Clay. Refusing to give the demon lord the satisfaction of seeing my fear, I stared up at the cherubs above our heads. Blood thundered in my ears as I waited for the fatal thrust of the ancient copper blade.

It didn’t come.

What are you waiting for? You have your audience. Finish it!

Each frantic thump of my heart heightened my dread. I didn’t know how much longer my legs would hold me up.

Then Elymas spoke, his voice a sinister whisper. “Come here, Leo.”

I glanced back down as Leo crossed the marble floor with hesitant footsteps.

Elymas’s lips curved in a malevolent smile as he held out the Sword of Absolom to Leo. “Show me how badly you want what I can give you.”

“No!” I lunged. Or my knees gave out. Could be I did both.

I had resigned myself to die at Elymas’s hand. But not Leo’s. Never Leo’s. The raw evil of it sent a fire blazing through my brain until all I saw was red.

Someone grabbed me from behind. By the viciousness of the jerk as I was hauled back, it had to be Clay. He shackled my arms in a vise-like grip behind me before I could scrape the skin off Elymas’s vile face. I thrashed and struggled for a second longer, then the burn inside died, and all that was left was the sting of betrayal behind my eyes as Leo stepped forward and exchanged his khopesh for the Sword of Absolom.

Elymas stepped aside, the two blades in his hands hanging loosely along his thighs. With savage anticipation reaching across every plane of his Ken-doll face, he looked every part the diabolical hellhound that he was.

Before me, Leo clutched the Sword of Absolom in white-knuckled hands. His face was devoid of emotion, but his hands trembled.

“Kill him slowly,” Elymas said. “I want to enjoy his suffering.”

I willed Leo to meet my gaze. If he was going to kill me, then I wanted the coward to look me in the eye the moment he handed over the last part of his worthless soul.

When he looked up, his eyes were hollow beneath the shock of his dark hair.

“I trusted you,” I said. My voice sounded distant, not my own.

“I know,” he whispered, “and I’m sorry.” Then he raised the Sword of Absolom to my chest.