“It’s natural to be a little nervous your first time, Miss Desario. But you have nothing to fear from me. As long as you behave yourself, I think you and I will get along like butter on grits.”
The figure on his left shifted, and I caught a brief glimpse of a face. A woman’s face, I was pretty sure. She had short white hair and light eyes. Blue, I thought. Like mine.
Did Sebastian have a wife? Awillingwife?
“Do you know why I’ve worked so hard to bring you into the fold?” he asked, stealing my attention from the woman.
Again, I said nothing.
“Speak plainly, girl,” he said. “No use standing on ceremony.”
“It’s okay, child,” the woman said. She sounded old. Sweet, almost. I immediately relaxed, though I couldn’t tell if it was because I actually felt better, or if she’d spelled me. “Answer his questions. You’re safe in my presence.”
Sure I am.But even as I had the thought, some part of me believed her.
“It is not enough to seek your own sword,” she continued. “You must learn to use that sword as well.”
I gasped. Had she read my thoughts? Was she actually encouraging me to kill Sebastian? What the hell was going on?
“Are you alright, girl?” Sebastian asked.
I blinked at him slowly. Numb. My eyes drifted back to the woman.
“He can’t hear me,” she said. “Only you.”
Her mouth hadn’t moved. It hadn’t moved, I realized then, from the moment we’d stepped into this room.
Everything she’d said to me, she’d said in my mind.
I’d heard of witches who could telegraph their own thoughts into the mind of another. But how could she have known about my vision? I hadn’t told anyone about that. Not even Liam.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, quickly trying to regroup. Despite the unconventional delivery method, the swords of the Tarot must’ve had a message for me, but what? Both the Three and the Four of Swords had come up in Sophie’s book of shadows, in the reading she’d done just before she died. I’d seen the swords again in my nightmare in the Shadowrealm, and then again on the boat, when they’d pierced my heart.
But in the Tarot, swords weren’t just about conflict. They were also about thoughts. Speech. Learning to harness your personal power and standing up for yourself and for those who needed protection.
Maybe that was the message I needed to hear today. It was time to stop cowering in the face of this devil and pick up my damn sword.
“Why have I brought you here, Shadowmancer?” Sebastian asked, and this time, I was ready for him. A surge of hot anger melted away the lingering fear.
“Let me guess,” I said. “You want me to raise you an army full of corpses. Or better yet—magic up some poor lost souls and convince them to come work for you. Or maybe you want to run experiments on me, cut me open, see if you can figure out what makes a soul manipulator tick.”
Behind me, Ronan shifted, a low growl rumbling in his chest.
“Simmer down, demon,” Sebastian ordered. Then, to me, “Intriguing ideas, witch. But I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood. Soul manipulation is an extremely rare power, I’ll give you that. But I’m not interested in your ability to raise the dead. Not today, anyway.”
“You want to enslave my soul,” I said. “That’s obvious.”
“Miss Desario! Wherever would you get such a preposterous idea?” He said preposterous likepree-posterous, and laughed as though I were the funniest girl in the world.
“Youarethe Prince of Hell, correct?” I asked. “Or is your whole dark, brooding, evil schtick just a smokescreen compensating for something else?”
Careful,the woman warned.Don’t push him too far.
I kept my eyes fixed on Sebastian, not wanting to give her away. But why was she helping me? Was she a prisoner as well? She sat at his side as though they were on equal footing, and the way he angled his body toward her suggested a much more intimate relationship than master-servant.
So whose side was she actually on?
Ignoring my dig, Sebastian cleared his throat, leaning forward so his face was once again in the light. The flickering candle made the pocks in his face deeper, his eyes more menacing. For all his southern-fried smoothness, Sebastian was downright frightening when he wanted to be.
