To drive the point home, she digs the blade deeper, causing me to cry out.
Kingston’s head whips in my direction at the sound, shadows rushing toward me as he rips the heart out of a wraith’s chest with his bare hands.
He’s surrounded.
“You do that, and she’ll die before they reach me,” Yaretta screams at him.
Kingston grinds his teeth, swiftly decapitates another wraith coming at him and points his sword at Yaretta. Fury and the promise of pain reflect back.
The shadows stop right before they reach us.
His fully black eyes meet mine.
Hang on, Norissa.
I’m coming.
I can’t help the small tilt of my lip. This is the first time he’s ever called me by my first name.
“Okay,” Finnley says, holding up his hands. “Okay, I’ll tell her.” He looks up at the sky, then at the ground. He doesn’t meet my eyes as he speaks. “We needed to fix her.”
I silently beg him with my eyes to stop talking. If he would just look at me, he’d see I just want him to stop.
He clenches and unclenches his fists at his sides. “To get her out of the continuous hell she lives in. There were rumors of a way to fix the mind, regardless of how broken it is. We spent years researching it, but we needed experts, which we clearly weren’t,” he says. “We needed a dark object and an incantation for it to work. Rhett stole a dark object last year while he was at Kintoira, but being a Veil, he obviously couldn’t use it, so he kidnapped the alchemy professor.” His jaw tightens and a muscle jumps as he speaks. “We thought, with someone who knew about metals, we could find a way for the incantation and dark object to be used by a Veil. We couldn’t get it right, though, the research we were finding was in too many different dead languages. We decided I would enroll in the academy to finish what Rhett started before he graduated,” he says, finally lifting his sorrow-filled eyes to meet mine. “Which is when I met you.”
I shake my head for him to stop. I don’t want to hear anymore.
Please just stop.
He runs a hand through his limp curls and stares at me with so much raw vulnerability. His ashy brows furrow as my eyes widen in alarm. A wraith is approaching him from behind, and there isn’t enough time for him to react.
I watch in slow motion as its rotten fingers reach out for Finnley’s hair. It’s the maze all over again. Only it’s not.
This time will change everything.
My mouth is open on a silent scream, a refusal filled with fury and regret. When I think I’m about to fragment on the pain I’m having to bear witness to, an arrow pierces its throat, and the wraith crumples at Finnley’s feet.
I drag my eyes up to Ambrose, who’s fighting his way through a horde, trying to get to me. He throws his bow down, flames rising from his palms as he starts burning through the abominations again.
There’s a desperation to his movements.
His skin is pale and soaked with sweat. He’s going to burn out. And when he does, they’ll descend on him like the plague they are and take the last thing I have worth living for.
I can’t let that happen.
I won’t let that happen.
Finnley steps away from the dead wraith and walks closer to me, staring at his feet as he does so. “We didn’t know about Liminals yet. They were wiped from our texts as you now know.” He smiles sadly. “I was working on finding another dark object for Rhett to give the professor to work with. But then you placed as a Liminal. Both Veil and Noctryn.” He looks at me as if I’m something precious. “It was like you fell in my lap,” he says, hanging his head. “You already considered me a friend. I knew I could use you to help us.”
“Look at me when you speak of betraying me,” I say in a soft, broken whisper, as blood drips down my chest. The gray shirt is brittle with dried blood. It’s now a mesh of rust-colored stains co-mingling with the vibrant crimson of fresh blood.
He raises his head. “I didn’t want to use you, Nori. I couldn’t. Which is why I kidnapped Professor Hunstal and stole another dark object instead.”
Rhett clears his throat. “That’s close enough. She can hear you from where you stand.”
The sound of Kingston and Ambrose fighting their way through the endless army is a chaotic symphony of violence surrounding us.
Finnley stops approaching and doesn’t even look at his brother. “I figured with an expert in language and an expert in alchemy, we could use the old texts to figure out an incantation to create our own dark object. But…” He rubs his face with both hands, clearly agitated by the turn of events. “I’m sure you put two and two together that we ended up needing a Noctryn after all. What dark wielder is going to help a light wielder, though?” He laughs darkly. “Unlikely.”
