“Have any of you felt... different over the past few days?” Kit asks lightly, glancing from one to the other of us.
“Beyond hearing each other’s thoughts and feeling emotions that don’t belong to me?” Reva replies with a smirk. “And Noush yacking in my ear at all hours of the day and night?”
“I meant beyond the mate bonds,” Kit clarifies. “Have any of you felt... stronger? Like your magic has been amplified?” He aims this question at Aster, who shrugs.
“I haven’t tried, but—” His eyes widen, and I feel this strange warmth in my chest that floods my veins with fire before promptly cutting off. “Gods. Did you feel that?”
I grunt and Reva rubs her chest.
Kit lets out a low chuckle. “Seems like I’m not the only one who got a boost. When I realised, it felt like I should do something with all this power pumping through me. I thought about cursing the entire city to forget about us. Just like we did at the labs.”
“So why haven’t you?” Finch grouches, fiddling around with a wonky chair leg.
“Because of Amble and his mums,” Kit gestures around the room. “Because of all the people in this shitty part of town. They seem to think we can save them.”
“So, we kill the king then,” I suggest. “Chop the rot out and see what happens.”
Gods know, the prick deserves it.
“They’ll just bring in the bastard king's little brother or his cousin or something. Whoever his replacement is would no doubt be just as bad,” Finch replies, responding quickly enough that he’s clearly thought about this before, which doesn’t surprise me one jot. “I wonder what your young friend can tell us about the inside of the palace.”
Chapter 31
Jack
I’m a fool.
Right now, it feels as though every shitty, stupid decision I’ve ever made is a brick that’s laid over my chest and I’m lying here, slowly getting the life squashed out of me.
Something happened to me in the labs, while I was scrabbling around in the dark and caked in stolen magic. I felt this rush go through me as though I’d stuck my head into a vat of pure energy that flowed through every part of my body. And just like that, I had power for the first time in my life. I went from the useless whelk my parents could barely stand into something entirely new.
Something useful.
And in my infinite wisdom, once we escaped from the labs and went on the run, I figured who else could help to clear our names? Who among us had contacts that might be powerful enough to get out of this jam? My family is high up in sorcerer society, which means they have contacts all over the place. I thought to myself that if anyone could do a backroom deal with the right person and have every name expunged from the arrest records, it would be them.
Well, it seems I overestimated my powers of persuasion.
Or perhaps my issue was that someone more persuasive had got to them first.
“Come along, sweetness,” her voice cuts through me and echoes off the bare stone walls of this mausoleum of a mansion, setting my nerves on edge.
She’s putting earrings in, wearing a dress that’s gaping at the back which will need buttoning by my unwilling fingers. Her smile widens as she takes in the state of me, dressed in a full suit that’s itchy and too tight around the collar.
I’m dressed up like a prize turkey, ripe for stuffing.
And then she says the words that send a cold shiver down my spine. “Could you do me up, sweetie?”
No. I’d rather chop my fingers off and cook them into a pie.
But a familiar fuzz fills my head, and I get to my feet, moving forward on stiff legs as she gives a little giggle, twisting so I have full access to her back. I reach out, fighting against myself and gritting my teeth as I run a finger down her spine.
Revulsion fills me. But I can’t stop myself, can’t fight the compulsion to brush my fingertips over her with each button that’s fastened.
“Thanks, darling,” she says, twisting over her shoulder. “Now, you’d better get your shoes on. We don’t want to be late for supper with your parents.”
She sashays out the door, and I slump onto the side of my bed in this rented townhouse.
We never should have left Araminta alive. We just left her there after Finch had destroyed the labs, assuming she’d get her just desserts.
