Reeve turned, feeling far too heated to be around so many people. Ambrose was quick on his heels, the voice of The Premier oozing from his tone.
“The relevance of that day is nonexistent,” said Ambrose.
A few heads turned their way as they continued their argument out of the ballroom. Reeve ignored them all. A tall, rounded door slammed open in the corridor, inviting him in. Ambrose joined him in a flash.
“You think it matters what you did for the woman I loved? As my best friend?”
Reeve turned on him. Black and deadly Magic flared at his back in the shape of a deadly beast.
“It matters because I allowed her to live! I allowed her to live, and I allowed Maeve to be born, despite the horrifying Shadow Magic that pulses through her veins.”
“As if I would have allowed you to kill my daughter.”
“You wouldn’t have had a say, Ambrose,” snarled Reeve. “No one alive, not the Double O, not the Order in Aterna, not Queen Lithandrian herself would have given one second of a thought to it. She would have been dead on the floor in a blink, and Maeve would have died inside her. Maeve would be dead right now if anyone outside of the two of us knew what she is.”
Ambrose’s Magic whipped out, rattling the windows and giving way to the floor beneath them.
“That may infuriate you, and it should,” continued Reeve. “This is a cruel world. But I alone am the one who permitted the perpetuation of Shadow Magic to exist, when I swore an oath to do just the opposite after the Shadow War.”
“And because of that, I am to look aside as you desire my daughter in ways I cannot allow you to have her?”
Reeve shook his head. “Do you think I want to be so consumed by her? When her eyes lock on mine, I am reminded of all that she is capable of. All that she could destroy and deceive, and manipulate in a blink. I amterrifiedof her.”
Ambrose took a long inhale, and his hands ran across his face. “Fear is the absence of Magic.”
“I do not wish to fight you, Ambrose. You are one of my closest allies and one of my longest living friends. I am sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” asked Ambrose with a huff, crossing the small smoking lounge and taking up in one of the chairs. “Throwing her life in my face or the fact that you have no intention of obeying my wishes?”
Reeve sat opposite him in a large tufted chair. “I came here to help Antony. I have not been able to do so. All I have done is driven another wedge between you and I.”
Ambrose was silent for a long moment.
Just one more touch, he thought.
No.
“I will leave tonight,” said Reeve, the words pouring from him before he could talk himself out of them, “and I will not return.”
“Your word,” said Ambrose at once.
“No,” replied Reeve, even quicker. “I will not swear upon such unbreakable Magic without knowing what the future holds.”
Ambrose nodded in acceptance and sighed. “Thank you, my friend.”
Reeve stood. The walk to the foyer dragged. Sounds from the party where he knew she laughed and danced, stuck in his skin like needles. He didn’t need to use the exit. He could Obscure right there, overriding all of Ambrose’s far weaker Magical enchantments.
But he dared fate to let him see her one last time.
He skipped the last few stairs and was nearly to the door when her presence slammed into him from behind. She stepped into the moonlight, the winding stairs above shadowing half of her.
Her hands slid behind her back innocently, the action driving something through him. Something he was certain he’d never felt. Maybe something close once, with Leandra.
But not like this.
Not like her. Never anything like Maeve.
“You’re leaving?” she asked.
