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Lured her? Phoenix and I exchange a confused glance.
“Oh, come, my dear,” my father says. “Don’t be dramatic. You hungered for this realm just like the others do.”
“I was happy where I was,” Ammit cries.
“You were an outcast,” my father’s voice bites out. “In a realm of spirits in constant consummation and orgasmic bliss, you were alone. You cried out, and I answered. I gave you a body. I paid for your passage into this world in blood.” He gestures at the atrium, and she winces away in horror. “You should be the first bowing at my feet in worship of your god.”
“Never!” she shouts.
“Wait,” Phoenix says confused. “Are you even Ammit? Was it you who killed those people?” She gestures at the sliced-up body in the atrium.
“What?” the woman looks horrified. “No! I’m not a murderer. They did that to bring me into this world.” She points to my father and then to Sabra and Vlad.
Phoenix swings around, and I see the devastation on her face. She stumbles back a step. “Why?” She can barely gasp the question.
“Please,” Vlad sneers. “You think I was fooled by that little performance you pulled on your wedding night? I need you to produce me heirs. That was the deal he and I made.” He gestures toward my father. “He came to me after the stunt with the Devourers and offered me a partnership. We were about to become in-laws, after all.” Vlad’s eyes gleam with avarice and greed.
“You’re a fool if you think he considers you a partner,” I say. “You’re nothing more than a pawn to him. An insect.”
I know my father better than anyone. He “partnered” with many powerful emperors, kings, and rulers over the years, only to crush and betray them the moment it amused him.
Vlad’s pissed, I can tell, but Phoenix interrupts before he can say anything.
“Fine, you’re both big and bad and evil; I get it,” she says, holding up her arms. “You’re going to raise a great, evil army together. What does any of this have to do with why you’ve trapped us in this circle here with a dead body and the spirit you already pulled over? Just so you could keep us contained while you did your big, Machiavellian reveal? Okay, great, you’ve done it. Now let us out.”
Both Vlad and my father laugh.
It’s not a good sound.
“You think we would waste such a magical conduit?” my father says, gesturing toward the body. “Oh no, no, no, son. I have such plans for you”—he comes over to me and grabs my shoulder in a crushing grip—“and your new bride.”
I shove him away from me and stand in front of Phoenix, blocking him from her. “You won’t touch her.”
“You’re right,” my father says, walking right out of the circle without any trouble at all. “I won’t.”
I grab Phoenix’s hand and try to follow him but run into the invisible wall just like she did when she tried.
“Don’t,” she says, pulling me back.
“You’ll never get what you want!” I yell at my father. At all of them.
But he just chuckles and walks right up to me on the opposite side of the invisible barrier. Behind him, Vlad brings Sabra close, dips her head back, and sinks his teeth into her neck.
“No!” Phoenix yells, running up beside me.
Sabra’s eyes go vacant, and when Vlad lets her up moments later, she looks so pale and zombie-ish that I can’t believe neither Phoenix nor I caught on to what was happening with her a long time ago. She’s always worn a lot of makeup the entire time I’ve known her, but I thought it was just her style.
“The question,” my father asks me, “is what you want.”
Sabra stands in front of Phoenix and lays a hand on the floor at our feet, the tips of her fingers just making contact with the circle she somehow laid there before we ever arrived. Did my father help her make it invisible? His runes were always golden instead of silver, if I remember.
It was a trap. This whole thing was a set-up for us to catch the murder at the center of a super-charged sacrifice as a power source so they could— What? So they could what?
“What do you really want, deep down inside your soul?” my father asks. “Do you want your wings back?”
I look at him, furious. What is he even talking about?
“And you?” He looks at Phoenix. “From what your grandfather tells me, you’ve always wanted to be anything but what you are. You want a normal life. Isn’t that right?”
