To Silas, Bruno was expendable. We all were. And yet Silas made no move to kill me. Nor did any of the others.
It occurred to me that Silas might not want me dead — that I might be worth more to him alive. A witch could fetch a high price from traffickers, but a half-huntress, half-witch descended from the Coranthe line . . .
My stomach clenched at the thought.
Silas wasn’t going to kill me. He was going to sell me to the highest bidder.
My body thrummed with panic as the other hunters closed in.
This wasn’t the plan. Silas was supposed to be alone. I’d counted on his other hunters being gone so I could get Imogen out and return to finish him.
Having her here was a huge disadvantage. Imogen was unarmed, untrained, and weakened from her time in captivity.
Get up, I silently implored my friend.
If I was going to fight my way out of here, I needed her on her feet — ready to run the moment I managed to cut a path through Silas’s men.
As if she’d sensed my plea, Imogen stirred, and Silas’s cold eyes flashed in her direction before flicking back to me. A cunning smile stretched across his face.
“Do you know that when the original witch wove those wards you so expertly destroyed, she and I made an arrangement?”
My chest tightened at the barely restrained glee in his voice.
“She wanted her freedom, you see, and I couldn’t have her double-crossing me. Couldn’t have her fucking me over by weaving some useless wards that would let my enemies discover this house and creep in to slit my throat.” He let out a cold huff of laughter. “So we made a blood oath, she and I.”
A fresh wave of dread seeped into my gut, and I wondered frantically why he was telling me this.
A blood oath was an antiquated ritual that had fallen out of use because of the strength of the magic involved — as permanent and unbreakable as the bargain I’d struck with Caladwyn.
“I made her bind her own life to those wards,” Silas continued. “If they ever faltered or worked against me . . .”
A shiver rolled down my spine. The witch would die — might be dying this very moment because I’d unwoven her wards.
Silas rolled on. “There must be a living witch to hold the wards in place, you see. Knowing where the original weaver was headed, I knew I needed a replacement.” His eyes narrowed on me. “You may have been weakhearted for a huntress, but you had your uses.”
The hatred that had been simmering in my gut since I’d entered this house rose to a boil. Not only had Silas knownwhat I was, but he’d been using me all this time to maintain his wards.
“Once the wards are bound to a witch, she can always see right through them. Naturally, I couldn’t leave my home undefended against a traitor, so after you left, I had to find myself another to replace you.”
Silas’s eyes glittered with sadistic glee, and a pang of foreboding rippled through me.
“I knew you’d come for your friend eventually — and that there was a chance you’d find a way to destroy my wards in the process. The satisfaction of watching you end your friend’s life is worth the inconvenience of finding a witch capable of weaving new ones.”
I chanced a glance at Imogen, swallowing down the feeling of razor blades clogging my throat. “W-what are you saying?”
“I already told you. Per the blood oath I struck with the original weaver, those wards must be tied to a witch’s life. And since you so expertly dismantled them . . .”
Icy terror unfurled in my chest, freezing over my thundering heart.
I whipped my head around to look at Imogen again, whose complexion had taken on a sickly gray pallor. Her eyes looked glassy. Her lips were bloodless. She’d barely moved from her spot on the mattress, almost as if shecouldn’t.
I’d chalked up her listlessness to starvation — and whatever else Silas had put her through. But that look in her eyes, her labored breathing . . .
How had I missed the signs?
I’d seen enough mortals drained in the Quarter to recognize that look when I saw it.
Imogen was dying.
