My horror expands.
“But after?” I take a step back. “You understood exactly what you’d done after, but you kept doing it.”
Consuming souls.
Stealing life to sustain his own.
Not to survive.
But to accumulate power.
To feed his addiction.
I take another step away, sliding my hand inside my pocket where it curls around the lighter. Beside me, I can feel Rafe’s tension, and I see that he has something in his hand, too.
The onyx.
It fell when I was knocked off my feet.
It fell and he picked it up.
“So what is your plan, Simon?” I ask him.
The ruby around his neck continues to pulse.
Jude’s life.
My blood.
Together, we broke the curse that separated them.
I think of his sister’s soul—no longer her own, but his.
A temporal conduit.
A wormhole.
I think about the pond.
The prisoners.
The clock in the center.
One that stopped the moment the curse was triggered, the moment he was torn away from Clara.
Who is now in a tomb.
“I will wake myself up from this nightmare. I have all the pieces I need to get back what was taken. Togoback, only this time, there will be no curse to separate us.”
“And what are those pieces—lives? Souls? How many more people are you going to kill to get what you want, and how can you possibly think she could ever love you again when this is what you’re willing to do?”
“She can’t love me when I am like this. But I will not bethisfor much longer.”
“No, you won’t.” I pull the lighter from my pocket. I give it a flick and a small flame flares in the dark. I hold it centimeters from the writhing, gasoline-soaked hedges. I don’t actually want to set them on fire. I just need to make him believe that Iwill. I need to give Rafe an opening to use the onyx.
And it’s working.
I have Simon’s full, unwavering attention.
