Another scream. Luca falls to his knees.
“Don’t touch him,” I beg. “Please.Please.”
“This wouldn’t hurt so much if you had only listened to me, Sorina. If you hadn’t gone looking for answers yourself and lied to me. You never would’ve met him to begin with. Nicoleta tried to warn you. So did Venera. If you hadn’t met him...this mess would never have happened.”
Villiam leans down and kisses Luca’s forehead.
Luca screams.
The pain in my mind lessens. Slightly. With Villiam focusing so much energy on Luca, I now have more room to breathe. I don’t dare move an inch to clue Villiam in to this but instead frantically search through my mind for some kind of an illusion. I settle on hornets.
We hear the buzzing first.
Then they appear, one by one, as if sprouting from the earth. They circle the air around me and Villiam, so loud they drown out the noise of everything but Luca’s screams.
“I can see through your tricks, Sorina,” Villiam says. “You can’t actually hurt me.”
Still, I order the fake hornets to attack Villiam. Whether or not heknowsthey aren’t real won’t stop him from feeling the pain of their stings.
Villiam grunts, but his concentration must not waver, as Luca doesn’t stop screaming. However, the pain in my own head lessens. Sweat rolls down the side of my face, and I lift my hand to wipe it away.
My mind eases open to me like a sigh, and I search around it as if I’m crawling and reaching for things in the dark. I find a Trunk—I’m in too much pain to identify whose it is. Hopefully it’s Tree, who could stampede over Villiam just like he did to Agni. This time, I’ll be ready for the sound of bones crunching. I’ll be ready to watch my justice carried out.
But if it isn’t Tree, who is seven feet tall and capable of protecting himself, then whichever illusion it really is could be in danger. How could Unu and Du save Luca? By slapping Villiam across the face?
But it’s the only shot I have.
I open the Trunk, and the Strings slip out like a rope dropping off a cliff. They run and run and run until a silhouette appears beside me in the darkness, one with sharp hair curling on his head.
Crown.
His face hardens as he examines the scene before him, of Luca screaming, of me sweating and trembling on the ground. I curse. It could’ve been anyone other than Crown. Crown has been weak after Blister’s death, and this...this could kill him.
Crown, however, doesn’t hesitate. Not for a moment.
He takes off the glove on his right hand and drops it to the ground, exposing the razor-sharp fingernails beneath.
And he stabs his arm straight through Villiam’s heart.
Villiam, Crown and I each let out a cry—Villiam’s of agony, Crown’s of anguish and mine of horror. Luca collapses, gasping for breath. The hold on me breaks, and I immediately rush to Luca’s side. I place his head in my lap.
“Are you all right?” I ask. “Please, please be all right.”
He squeezes his eyes shut, and he doesn’t speak for almost a minute. Just when I am certain he is gone, he manages, “I’m fine. Just a migraine.”
“Thank goodness,” I say, over and over. I kiss his cheek. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
He takes a deep breath, but his expression remains rigid. “I know.”
Crown pulls his arm out from Villiam’s chest, and my father falls face-first into the grass. His usually clean shirt is stained a deep scarlet. Even knowing everything he’s done, all the hurt he’s caused me, I still cry out. Another member of my family is dead.
“You killed my little boy.” Tears spill from Crown’s eyes. He grabs his glove off the ground and covers his blood-soaked hand. “Evil, evil man.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I help Luca to his feet, but he’s so weak that he needs to lean on me for support. Not that I have much to give him. I’m so shaky from crying that I can barely stand myself. Like mine, his hair is stringy with sweat, and his whole body feels hot to the touch. “Are you sure you’re all right?” I ask him.
He winces. “I’m fine.”
