My hands were shaking too badly to risk throwinganother dagger, so I retreated into my mind. I threw all my energy into building a wall around my pain — blocking it out so that I could think.
I’d get one chance, if I was lucky. One chance if Silas thought I was hurt badly enough that he could finish me easily.
I was too weak from blood loss to use brute force and too shaky for precision. Instead, I’d have to let Silas think I was as weak as he’d tried to make me — let him underestimate me one last time.
It happened much more quickly than I could have hoped. Silas lunged, intending to finish me off, but I anticipated his movement.
I drew my dagger as he slammed me against the wall and thrust it upward as hard as I could.
I felt the crunch of bone reverberate through my blade just as my head slammed into the wall. Blackness flickered along the edges of my vision, but I kept my eyes focused on Silas’s face — watched his eyes widen in panic as he realized his mistake.
Blood gushed from the wound, coating my hand in hot, sticky warmth as his breaths moved the dagger between us. The scent of stale cigarette smoke filled my nostrils, but for once, I didn’t flinch from his closeness.
Silas didn’t scare me anymore.
I could feel everything he was spilling out of him. He had minutes at most, and I couldn’t afford to waste a single one.
“Tell me how to save her,” I snarled, my mind going to Imogen and that horrible blood oath. “Tell me how to save her, and I might just let you live.”
Imogen hadn’t been the one to strike that bargain, so surely there was a loophole.
But Silas’s mouth just stretched in a shaky, demented grin. His eyes were unfocused, but he was still taunting me.
He knew I wouldn’t save him — couldn’t even if I wanted to.
I gritted my teeth so hard my jaw popped, and I twisted the dagger lodged between us until I dragged a moan from his throat.
“Tell me!” I demanded, not caring that I sounded desperate.
Blood dripped down my arm, pooling in the sleeve of my jacket. Silas didn’t speak. His eyes just took on a glassy stillness as his weight sank into me, and I knew in that moment that he’d never give me the answers I needed.
A long moment passed before I realized he was dead — that the gradually weakening heartbeat I heard belonged to Imogen, not Silas. A furious sob wrenched out of me as I released my dagger and shoved him to the ground.
Lying there on the basement floor, he could have been any other corpse. There was no solace in revenge — no redemption in killing. That festering thing in my chest hadn’t died with him either. I just felt a little more empty.
My bloody handprints coated the floor as I crawled to Imogen’s side. Every tiny movement hurt, and my head swam from blood loss.
Her eyes were hooded as she watched me approach, and her breathing was even more labored. The blood oath that had bound her to the wards was working quickly now.
“Stay with me,” I rumbled, taking her hands in my bloody ones and squeezing them tight.
Imogen didn’t answer me, and her gaze was unfocused.
“I’m going to take you to Adelaide,” I gurgled. “She’ll know how to stop this.”
Never mind that I didn’t think I could stand without passing out.
Besides that, I knew there was likely nothing the old witch would be able to do — not without knowing the exact wording of the blood oath or what Silas had done to transfer the binding effect of the spell.
Even if Adelaidecouldwork out some way to save her, Imogen didn’t have that kind of time.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice cracking. Hot tears tracked down my cheeks, and I began to shake uncontrollably.
Imogen shook her head slightly, then winced as though the movement pained her.
This was all my fault.
For years I’d kept Imogen at a distance to protect her from Silas and the hunters. All it had taken was one moment of need — one selfish impulse — and I’d doomed her to this fate.
