That was, if he was telling her the truth. And not going to turn around and redefine “companion” through some kind of awful loophole and start lopping off her body parts.
Which was completely plausible at this point.
“Two minutes.” He nodded. “I will give you this gift. As a sign of my good will.” He gestured one of his arms wide as if ushering her into a ball, and took several large strides back, giving her space.
Good. Space was what she needed. She didn’t know why she knew that. But, again, she was going on instinct. She smiled at him. “Appreciated.” Pacing away from him, she turned her back on him.
She wasn’t going to let herself be trapped.
Sure enough, the moment she got about twenty-five feet or so away, the grimoire was magically in her hands. “Finally. You do that trick, and I don’t hate it,” she muttered to it under her breath. “I really, really,reallyhope you…can do something here to help me out.”
Turning, she faced Rig. “Here goes nothing.”
“What was that?” Rig called from across the clearing.
She took in a deep breath, held it, and…held up her hand. “I’m sorry about this.”
The book flew open in her other hand and whirled to an empty, seemingly random location, and stopped. She pressedher palm down to the empty page in front of her. Writing flared to life, as if it had always been there.
Ava watched as the carcass of a several-ton, rusted, cast iron steam train engine appeared in mid-air, some fifty feet above Rig.
He didn’t even have time to see it before it came down on him.
The sound of the rending, shearing metal buckling from the impact would haunt her nightmares for the rest of her life.
As would the confused expression on Rig’s face the moment before she ended his life.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Nos did not enjoy tricking the human.
It did not bring him joy to sell her to Rig. Not simply because of how badly it upset Ibin, either. But the young woman was going to bring disaster down upon their heads.
It simply had to be done.
And he was only glad that Ibin had seen sense in delivering her to Rig. The Unseelie son of Lord Bayodan had a unique and truly horrifying gift—one that allowed him to rewrite the intentions of others to match his needs and desires.
Ava would be happy at his side.
Because Rig would ensure that it would be so.
Ibin was pacing back and forth in front of him, wringing her hands. “It feels wrong, Nos. It just feels wrong.”
“She will be fine. More than fine. Better than if we traded her to Aerin or back to Braega or any of the others. What if Ursur or Vesnir took her? Would you wish that fate on her instead?” He hated rehashing the same arguments. But Ibin’s good heart was always wont to pull her in the direction of her moral compass.
It was why he loved her.
And why he would always walk in the shadows of her light, even if she never loved him in return.
The noise from within Rig’s home set Nos’s teeth on edge.
It was unlike anything he had ever heard before.
A great and horrendousrendingsound.
Ibin stopped in her tracks. “What in the blueblazing hell?—”
Whatever had happened, it had gone terribly, terribly wrong.
