It sounded like a great plan. Which meant it was going to go terribly, of course.
Changing into the chemise to sleep in, she put the book down on the nest of blankets and miscellaneousthingsand watched the fire burn.
It felt wrong to be up for such a short period of time, but she was emotionally drained. And physically, for that matter. She wondered if that was the fault of the magic. She had no problem letting her eyes drift shut.
She didn’t bother saying his name out loud. She knew he was coming for her anyway.
Serrik.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ava was standing once more in Serrik’s library. This time, he wasn’t playing music, but at the fireplace with his back to her. His hands were clasped behind him, and he was gazing into the fire.
She didn’t know what to say. Somehow, in some strange way, she assumed he was going to be mad at her. There was no possible reasonwhy.She hadn’t done anything wrong. Okay, maybe she shouldn’t have gone along with Ibin and Nos to go “meet people.” But they had been sheltering her.
He was an imposing sight, silhouetted like that.
Was she supposed to talk first? She might as well fall on her sword. He’d warned her, after all. “I should’ve listened to you about Ibin and Nos. You were right.”
“You are cornered and searching for any path forward. I do not fault you for it.”
That was a relief. Her mood lifted.
“I heard you consulting with the grimoire. The first image it showed you was clearly one that disagreed with you. What did it show you?”
Aaandthere it went crashing back down. Scrambling for a quick way to dodge, she came up empty-handed. Shit. No wayout. She’d have to tell the truth. “You and a man with blue bat wings. At war. Surrounded by dead bodies.”
“Valroy. The Unseelie King.” Serrik’s hands flexed and relaxed where he kept them clasped at his back. “What else, Ava?”
“You were holding the grimoire. And I was…chained up at your feet.” This wasn’t going well. This wasn’t going wellat all.
“I see.” He paused. Then four words, like lead balloons. “And what else, Ava?”
“You weren’t…”Human,the word echoed in her mind. “You looked different.”
“Different.” He repeated the word with all the emotion of a statue. It wasn’t possible to tell how he felt about what she’d said. “You said you had made a mistake. In your words, ‘you fucked up.’ You asked it to show you something to aid you. Another path to walk. It showed you another image. You said, ‘screw me for asking.’ What did it show you?”
“Nothing.” It was a terrifying bet to make. She was going to have to put all her chips on the bluff. But she had no other choice to make ahead of her. None. It was this, or…what? Honestly let him use her and commit genocide and wage a bloody war? Or wait until something in the Web got her? No. She’d honestly rather Serrik just rip her head off. “It flipped to an image of me. I had a tattoo of a weird spiraling…spiderweb thing down my right arm. And I was kneeling at your feet. And you lookeddifferentstill. That’s it.”
Finally, he turned from the fire to face her. Despite every instinct in her body telling her to turn and run for her life, he walked up to her. Slowly. Giving her every chance to flinch. Every chance to blanch and reveal she was holding junk cards in her hand.
He circled her, like a shark. When he crossed behind her, he stroked her hair away from her shoulder and pulled asidethe collar of her T-shirt to reveal the spider inked onto her collarbone. “You will wear it well, little butterfly.”
It sounded like a real compliment. More importantly, it sounded like he believed her. The tension in her shoulders loosened just slightly. “You could have warned me about the train thing.”
“How could I, when it was heretofore impossible?” His fingers lingered on her skin. They sent a shiver through her, and she felt goosebumps spread over her arms. He hummed, moving to stand in front of her, now only a few inches away. “You do not recognize what you have done.”
The sheer overwhelming nature of him made her take a step back. “No clue. I don’t know what’s going on, and I have nothing to compare it to.”
“You pulled an object ofconsiderablemagnitude from Earth and hurtled it into the Web with no more regard for the effort involved in such a feat than a child tossing a ball of snow at a sibling.” He laughed, quietly. It wasn’t a mirthful laugh. It was sadistic. It promised that whatever she’d just revealed that she could do—he planned on using it. And she wasn’t going to like it when he did.
But she had to pretend to be on his side. She wanted what he wanted. Swallowing thickly, she chewed her lip. “I don’t know how to do it again…”
“And that, my dear, is a problem we may solve together.” With a sweep of an arm, he gestured for her to follow him as he began to walk through his library. “All art consists of three things. First, the raw, innate gift. Second, learned skill. Third, the tools of the trade, or the means by which the art is made.”
Oh good, she was back in college again.
Yay.
