“Well?”
“I don’t know,” said Alora. “Try to have me stand on one leg again.”
Lennox obliged, and Alora immediately returned to her awkward pose. Her abdominals strained and her thigh burned. Her eyes filled, and no matter how hard she blinked them away, they wouldn’t recede. A tear trickled down her cheek. “That’s that, then.”
Bash lowered his hood, his expression tormented. He took a single step forward before stopping.
“No,” said Lennox. “I refuse to justgiveup. Alora, I command you not to listen to me.”
The world immediately quieted to silence. Alora, properly horrified, observed Lennox’s mouth moving, and said, “I can’t hear a thing!” She didn’t know for sure if the words had even left her mouth at all, but both Lennox and Bash startled, and then Lennox’s mouth was moving again.
Alora’s hearing returned. “Well. That was terrifying.”
“Sorry,” said Lennox, visibly shaking. “I didn’t think it would be so literal. How about, I command you to disobey me.”
Alora stood still.
Lennox frowned. “You’re still on one leg.”
“Don’t I know it,” groaned Alora.
“Stand normal, please.”
The foot held aloft, unwound. Alora slowly lowered it to the floor. “It won’t work. It won’t let me escape it.”
“What if I break it?” said Lennox.
“I’ve tried,” said Bash, his eyes no less distressed above the mask. “At the coast. I tried smashing it against the rocks. It broke the stones apart and didn’t so much as scratch the skull.”
“You didn’t want to bring it back?”
“I thought it would release the family from their entrancement and rid the world of it all at once. It did neither.”
“So they are still beholden to their frightening witch of a grandmother?” Alora shuddered at the idea of someone wishing her into an early death.
“No. In holding it out and demanding they not obey the old woman, I transferred that power. They’re beholden to me. But I’ve no plans to ever see them again. To ever issue out any command they would need to follow. They’re as safe as I can make them.”
Alora couldn’t help but turn to Lennox, as the realization dawned upon her the same moment it did herself.Never see them again.“But…”
Lennox’s mouth opened and closed, a protest she couldn’t voice. Then determination hardened her. “Destroy the skull, Alora.”
She tried. She tried everything. She set flames to it, imagined it melted. Turned it freezing, willing it to shatter. She even tried to imagine it vanished. Whomever had created the skull to begin with had been thorough. Just as the clause in her contract, she could cause no harm to what mastered her. She growled in frustration.
“Alora.”
Her gaze met Bash’s, and he moved toward her until their chests nearly brushed. His scent enveloped her, and she breathed deeper without meaning. “Let me do it. Burn my contract and allow me free. I promise to stay at the opposite end of the world to give you your own will.”
“Bash…”
But Lennox was already obeying his outstretched hands, his gloves enclosing the skull. “Burn them. Make them disappear. Whatever you can or want.”
Her hands, shaking, pulled free the pages. The enchanted ink shimmered, black to red to gold, warning her. She fanned the trio of contracts in her hands and knew her second contract wasn’t at all like her first. Her first had been plain ink and paper. Her second would keep her chained for eternity.Burn to ashes,she thought and imagined, and when she blinked next, they were gone, dusting from her fingers.
“I feel different,” whispered Lennox. “Lighter, almost.”
Bash said nothing, staring directly at Alora. He waited for her decision. And beyond him—the only sound to ever echo throughout Opulence—rang a bell.
Lennox paled, swinging around to the closed door. “Opening,” she said.
