The air shifted, and Maeve could smell desperation.
“Would you like to see—”
Why, why, why would you ever aid me—
“Because you got me to Reeve,” she said plainly, perfectly hiding how painful the words were to voice, even though they were merely part of the deception. Her next words, however, were painful. “And I intend to stay with Reeve.”
Shadow fell silent.
Maeve pulled out the oldest trick in her book: a singular, in real time, false memory that played out before them in hopes that the lie would occupy her attention long enough for her to speak to Mal.
“Is that a yes?” asked Maeve.
Yes, hissed Shadow.
She drew forth the perfected “memory,” not a crack out of place, and let it manifest around them. It was fabricated, as Maeve would never show her the night she and Mal conceived Maxius.
Feeling Shadow’s attention fully enveloped in her false memory, she grounded herself and prepared to move to Mal. It was like looking at two different things using both eyes, one as the focal point and one as a close periphery. She kept Shadow in her periphery and slid into Mal’s mind with such ease her heart constricted at his weakened state.
Darkness swirled around her, spiraling up from the ground and swirling above her. Flecks of cosmic night flickered in the darkness. And he appeared before her. He was himself, nothing like the version she was certain occupied Castle Morana in the present. Nothing like the Mal she’d seen so utterly destroyed a few weeks ago.
This was her Mal. He was clean, his pale skin held a soft flush of life, his hair was perfectly placed, a small, soft ringlet brushing across his forehead. He stood tall, with a smile made for weakening knees.
And his eyes were a dark hazel dream once more.
His voice was like coming home.
“Is this my Little Viper, come to see me at last?”
Maeve returned his smile in earnest.
He was utterly himself in their joined consciousness. His eyes scanned down her body, slowly drinking her in, then snapped up to her eyes.
“You were his Inheritor?”
Mal had always had a keen sense of Magic. It came as no surprise to Maeve that he realized at once what power ran through her. Shadow, still occupied in her distant vision, made no notice of her entrance into Mal’s mind.
Maeve nodded, answering his question. “I’m coming to get you,” began Maeve, and Mal shook his head at once.
She searched his face, darting back and forth between his eyes.
“That’s too dangerous,” he said after a moment.
“I have a plan,” she said. “Please listen.”
After a moment of consideration, Mal nodded as Maeve told him about her gamble of an idea for facing Shadow and evacuating the Dread Lands. When she was finished, Mal did not argue.
He merely nodded and said, “Clever girl.”
“Can you hang on just a bit longer?” she asked, her chest tightening at the words.
He nodded, just slightly, a small amount of disdain slipping into his features.
“I do not want to watch Maxius give up his Magic, Mal,” she said, the vulnerable words slipping from her mouth. “I don’t want to see his life ended before it’s even had a chance to begin.”
His face softened. “He won’t die, Maeve. I promise you that.”
“You will not defeat her until your Magic is one with Maxius’. That is written in Magic.”
