I don’t have a side here. They’re both right. Kade’s given everything to the work and it’s hollowed her out. Aaron’s not wrong either. They walled those people off too easy. I’ve got nothing that makes both of those things stop being true.
Aaron breathes out. “Kade. I?—“
“Save it.” She holds up a hand. “You really pissed me off back there.” She huffs. “None of us wanted to do it. We fought about it for years, fought hard. We just didn’t think we had a choice.”
“I know.” Aaron rubs the back of his neck. “I know you didn’t.”
“Where’s Jo?”
A voice comes from behind us, sweet and lilting. My tail lashes and the lion in me snaps to alert, quicker than my head turns. I come around to face it, and Aaron turns with me. Kade is the last to move.
Layla stands at the edge of the Market in a gown the color of deep wine, the skirt pooling at her feet, a long coat over it that drags the ground behind her. Her hair is braided back. She’d be the most beautiful thing here if I couldn’t already taste what’s coming off her. Vanilla and sugarcane. Under it, something gone rancid and live. Fury, folded up small and getting bigger.
Kade catches the scent too. She pulls up short, and the words drop right out of her.
Layla smiles, her fangs showing. The blade’s the next thing I see, near as long as her forearm. She holds it loose, like she’s forgotten it’s in her hand.
“Jo never lets me wake from my slumber alone, not once, not since the day he turned me.” She tips her head at us, gentle, almost dreamy. “Every time I open my eyes, the first thing I see is him, waiting.” Her smile doesn’t move. “Always.”
Kade chokes on something that was trying to be a laugh. Aaron and I both look at her, and she won’t look back at us.
Layla raises the blade and turns it in front of her face, studying her own reflection in the flat of it. “I woke up and he wasn’t there. So I followed his scent, and it ends right here.” She lowers it and looks at us over the steel, the sweetness in her face stretching thin. “So I’ll ask one more time.”
She points the blade at Aaron, then moves it down the line of us, one to the next with every word. “Where. Is. My. Man?” Then she giggles, high and delighted.
“Oh, shit,” Kade breathes.
I open my mouth. “He was in the?—“
“No.” Kade’s already shaking her head at me, fast, both hands coming up. “No, no?—“
It’s out of my mouth too fast for Kade to stop me. “He was in the Witching Glen with us, but he opened a portal and left.” I don’t look away from the blade. “He told us to tell you he’d be late getting back.”
“Oh, fuck,” Kade says.
Layla cocks her head, her smile not moving. “Oh, really. He left to go do something. Without. Me.”
“Layla.” Kade puts both palms out. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Stupid.” Layla blinks at her. “You mean like running off to the tourist island to have myself a little fun while I sit and wait for my man to come home?” The fury in her scent cuts through the sweet. “The man who just left me.”
“It’s not—“ Kade starts.
“I don’t like being alone.” Layla swings the blade up and points it at Kade’s chest. “And you know this about me, Mother Kade. You know exactly how I get.”
Kade lifts both hands higher. “Okay. Okay, Layla. I’ll stay with you. I’ll keep you company until he’s back, alright? I’m right here.” Then, low, just to herself, “Goddamn it, Jo.”
Layla’s head tilts the other way, considering her.
“I have an idea.” Kade keeps her voice level. “Don’t run off. Stay right here with me, and I’ll take you home to Medina Shadow. We’ll build you a brand-new doll house, a big one, put it right at the front of your collection.”
Layla brightens and lowers the blade. “Okay.” Kade eases up. “But we’ll need glue.” Layla lifts the blade again, turning it. “I like to make my own, you know. Mine holds better than anything you can buy.” Her eyes come up to Kade over the steel. “In blood.”
She giggles, then traces the edge of it with one fingertip, not quite touching, her voice gone light and sing-song. “You know what Jo always recites, Mother Kade. ‘When faced with those who would harm what you cherish, remember that mercy is sometimes the cruelest option.’” Her smile spreads. “He taught me that one himself.”
Then she’s gone. The gown, the coat, the blade—a smear of motion at the edge of the Market, and the spot where she stood is empty.
Kade stares at the space she left. “This is not happening.” She throws her hands up and tips her head back to the sky. “This is not fucking happening right now. Mother Fate, I know you can hear me, and I swear on everything, you are torturing me.”
