“Jocasta, it’s time to go. I’ll explain more. I have much to show you. Much to teach you.” He waves me toward the car.
I don’t move. If I go with him, it is possible I’d learn how to extricate myself from the claim I made on Beecher and the others. Perhaps even convince Death to renounce me as successor.
But it’s too late for all of that now.
“No,” I say. My ears are ringing with terror, but inside me, everything is cold, impenetrable.
His eyebrows go up. “No?”
“No. I’m not going with you. And you need to leave. You’re not welcome here. Inmyterritory.”
He straightens to his full height, icy gray eyes blazing, and I’m reminded that he might well be my sire but he’s also immortal—or damn close to it—and incredibly powerful. “I beg your pardon.”
“You should. But you won’t,” I say flatly. The strands connecting me to Beecher and Carter, Devon, Shane, and Maggie all flare to life, tangling around Death. “Get out.”
He tenses as the magic works to evict him. I’m no match for him, of course. But it’s the point I’m making that matters.
“You ridiculous child. Just because you have succeeded in this small way, don’t think you have made yourself irreplaceable. I have started over and I can do it again.” He strides toward me, hand up as if to drag me into the car.
Or pull the life from me.
I stay still. “You can, but you won’t. Unless you want to go back to War and explain how you got it wrong, again,” I say. “Twodefectivespawn in a row.”
His eyes narrow at me.
“My guess is War might even consider that a forfeit of your ‘challenge.’”
He says nothing.
And that’s when I know I’m right.
An ugly sense of triumph fills me. He wants to play the game? Let’s play.
“You’re going to leave Beecher,” I say. “Leave me and everyone I care about alone. In exchange, you’ll get a dutiful successor. In name, at least. Otherwise, have fun eating crow for War and returning your ‘trivial token.’”
That’s the move. The only one I have. And with it, it’s entirely possible that I’ve just condemned everyone, including myself, to a very quick death. In the old days, pre-internet, pre–Industrial Revolution, it would not have been so unusual for him to take out an entire town. Disease would be blamed, or witchcraft. It’s harder these days, I imagine, but not impossible.
I brace myself, waiting for his reaction.
Instead, a wide smile spreads across his angular face. If anything, it makes him seem more frightening. “Very good,” he says. “Now you are acting as my child. My successor.”
Sweat trickles down my spine. I fight to keep my expression as calm, as bland as his normally is.
He eyes me speculatively, then seems to come to a decision. “I will grant you this round,” he says with a generous wave of his hand. “For your audacity. But you have not won the match, remember that.”
Remembering this moment will not be a problem; forgetting it long enough to sleep without waking up in a cold sweat will be.
“We will talk again. Soon.” Death steps back from me and then climbs into his luxury sedan.
I wait until his car vanishes around the curve by the chapel in the distance before I let myself breathe again.
White sparkles cloud my vision, and I clench my fists tight in my pockets, digging my nails into my palms, while I take deep inhales of cold sharp air.
I won. For the moment. But I’ve also just put myself on the board. I’m dabbling in the world of the Old Ones now, instead of trying to pretend it doesn’t exist. And I have no idea what I’m doing.
Yet.
The sparkles fade, my breathing evens out, and I start walking toward Hayes Hall again. I’ll just have to figure it out—how to play their gameandget what I want.
Without losing myself to the Old Ones’ ancient and petty machinations in the process.
I grimace. It’s an enormous task, to say the least. But I can do it. I have to.
I am, after all, my father’s daughter.
