“Good, I’ll go with you.”
Lux pressed her lips together. To believe she’d once thought Shaw an unlikely ally…
Morana moved past her. “Are you coming? I’d rather not find my father murdered by youraunt.”
The barb sunk deeper for the person casting it. “Yourfatherappeared quite content to give you over to the trees. I’d rethink my loyalties if I were you.” Lux expected the palm swinging toward her this time, and she blocked it. “I’ve no loyalties to Riselda any longer, in case you were curious.”
“I was curious.” Morana rubbed her stinging hand. “She must be stopped, you know.”
“Yes, I know.” When Lux walked past Morana, the mayor’s daughter fell into step beside her. “I’m just not sure how yet.”
Another lengthy pause came and went. They reached the hall’s end, the fork greeting them.
“My father needs to be stopped, too.”
Lux picked her jaw back from the floor.
“Don’t gawk at me. I’ve lived a long, fulfilling life, and I won’t say I regret drinking lifeblood because I don’t, but the terror I felt while Riselda’s captive wasn’t like anything I’ve ever known. And my father did that, repeatedly, to the people of this city.Kidnapped them for little crimes to throw in his prison.” She shook her head. “He’s two hundred and twenty-seven this year. Perhaps it’s time for him to change his ways.”
Those years were too long. He would never change. In Lux’s short years, even she’d learned that, and Morana would too, if she only dragged the veil from her eyes.
“Will you stop drinking it?”
Morana hesitated. “I have another vial. Hidden in my vanity, ready to be unstopped and drank on my birthday, the same as every year as is tradition in my family. It’s why this face doesn’t age in the slightest.” She caressed her cheeks. “I’ve thought—if I make it out of this night alive that is—that I’d gift it to you.”
They were outside the mayor’s study now, and it was eerily quiet within. “No, thank you.”
“Why? It’s already been harvested. Long ago. And it’d be a waste to simply pour it out. Your brilliance should live on, at least for one more lifetime. You might not even need to change your face if you don’t wish to. Not many notice you as is.”
Lux tried the handle. Locked. Morana pulled a key from a hidden pocket and slid it home.
“Oh yes. My brilliance. The only part of me worth saving.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, Lux.” Morana huffed in her ear, irritated, but Lux ignored her, pushing the door inward.
The sight of Riselda and the mayor seated in corresponding armchairs took her aback. She’d expected a bit more shouting and a lot more blood. Rather, all she could discern was the mayor, sniveling between hiccupped gasps, as his gold buttons popped from his finery one by one.
“Morana!”
At the mayor’s shout, the gleaming letter opener stilled in Riselda’s hand, ceasing her torment for a moment.
Morana sidled in before Lux. “Surprised to see me, Father?”
The mayor’s blanched grip on the armchair released one finger at a time, his face flushed. “No. No, I knew you’d escape. You’re so strong. I’ve always known that…like your mother.”
Morana smirked, moving around the desk to claim the mayor’s seat. The one he’d abandoned to better converse with Riselda. Or the one she’d threatened him into. Lux rather believed the latter, judging by the mayor’s furtive expression. His nose was in desperate want of wiping.
“Please. I’ve known for a century you had her killed. For her.” Morana glowered at Riselda resting into the chair.
The mayor didn’t bother replying. Instead, his watery eyes darted from his daughter to Lux to Riselda and back again.
“Were we interrupting something important?” Lux remained by the door. She wanted an exit at her back. “Because we have a fairly big problem out there right now.”
Riselda’s face was hidden from her. “Which is precisely what we were discussing. Bartleby tends to run from his troubles.”
“My troubles! You started this mess—the both of you!” He clutched at his ruined shirt, monitoring the letter opener’s movement.
“Don’t lump me in with her,” Lux fired back. “The Rise incantation is a useless chant on its own. It’s lifeblood that caused this. You and Riselda, and your obsession with it. And you need to fix it! Rally the Shield. Send them out to dispatch the revived.”
