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It actually took me a moment to realize he was speaking to me. Ugh, I was not His Sweet. I was not His Anything! I stood anyway, playing along. He made a grand gesture as if he was unlooping an invisible thread from around himself then wrapped it around me.
“I hereby relinquish this life to you. This elf is now yours. My first gift to you.” Augustine looked quite proud of himself.
Did he really just gift me an enslaved elf? What. The. Fuck. Was that supposed to be romantic? Oh god, I think I’m going to be sick.
Milly maintained her neutral expression, but there was a spark of joy behind her eyes. Okay, this was actually a good thing. I could work with this. She’d be happier with me. I tried to look on the bright side, even though the thought of owning a person…or an elf…made me want to barf all over Augustine’s perfectly tailored suit.
“I will wait for you in your room, Mistress.” Milly bowed her head and stepped out again.
“Milly has bolstered my family’s magic for generations, but she is old and not much magic is left in her. She will make a good maid for you.”
So that was why Milly no longer had her magic. This asshat and his forefathers had stolen it for themselves! Yeah, I knew exactly who I’d be taking with me when I got out of this joint.
“Thank you,” I said, “for the very thoughtful gift.”
He looked pleased, so I guess he didn’t sense any deceit from me.
“You have until dinnertime tomorrow to consider my offer. Think well,” he whispered into my ear, leaning in close, “because if you make the wrong choice, I can and will make your life a living hell. Now, to more pleasant things: are you hungry for dessert?”
I looked down at my main course. I didn’t remember eating it, but my plate was mostly empty. “I think I’m going to skip dessert.”
“Ah, I see, watching your figure. Of course. That’s good.”
Ho-lee wow. How did I manage to hate him even more with every sentence that came out of his mouth?
“Let’s go do some magic.”
He reached into his pocket and produced the locket, entirely whole. There wasn’t even a visible seam where they joined. He undid the clasp, reached around my neck, and put it on me.
It thrummed with energy and felt warm against my chest, as if it was alive. All of a sudden, I felt complete. Like this locket had been a part of me the entire time, but I hadn’t known it had been missing. I didn’t want to take it off. I couldn’t tell which part of it was me, and which part of me was it.
I closed my eyes, enjoying the feeling.
My heels squelched in muddy ground, and I lost my footing. I looked around. Wait. How did I get here?
One moment, I was in the dining room, and suddenly I was standing outside. The sun was setting. Augustine was behind me, his front pressed to my back.
One of his hands was on my shoulder. In his other one was a fireball. He tossed it in front of us, and a fiery dragon appeared. Not a real dragon, but fire in the shape of one. Behind me, the wizard let out a cackle. It sounded like he’d been practicing this evil villain laugh his whole life.
“Go hunt down those pesky drones,” he ordered.
What drones? I looked up into the air and sure enough, several small drones zipped by above us.
The dragon took to the air, leaving a trail of flames streaming behind it. It began chasing one of them I couldn’t see across the sky.
“Your dragon can have his spies back in pieces.”
He meant Desmon. Those were Desmon’s drones. Did they know I was here?
A large shape in my peripheral vision had my heart racing. I’d recognize that form anywhere, unless lion-bodied creatures with scorpion tails and wyvern wings were more common than I’d thought.
Mateo!
The fire dragon hadn’t spotted him yet. I wanted to call out an alarm but held my tongue, not wanting to give him away. Then two shadowy forms appeared in the middle of the air, grabbed him, and pulled him behind a cloud. Liam and Prax, maybe? I couldn’t tell from here.
Had Augustine seen?
The fire dragon was still busy chasing down the last drone, and Augustine hadn’t called out new orders, so I assumed he hadn’t. With nothing left to attack, the fire dragon landed in front of us. Augustine made a gesture, and it shrank back down into a fireball, landed in his palm, and was absorbed back into his body.
