Page 79 of Strange Lights

“And it worked in a way, didn’t it?” Zara laughs bitterly. “Now none of us are leaving this cell.”

“When this failed me”⁠—Adele holds up the Gauntlet⁠—“I tried, again and again, to create a similar object. I can’t make it work.” She looks at me. “You might have a hope of succeeding. If you willingly help me, I will tell you everything, and the creature can stay with you until the rest of her kind arrive.”

“My sisters?” I say. “Calvin?”

She assesses them. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. They can go after you help me.”

“Not good enough. They go now. Eldi too.”

“No. We are out of time. I need to create a gate to bring them back. The rest of her kind”⁠—she points at Eldi⁠—“are coming, and I must be ready.”

Meredith and Zara have fallen into absolute silence.

“Bring who back?” I ask.

“My family. Your family. She”⁠—again she points at Eldi, who looks utterly baffled and terrified⁠—“is responsible for innumerable deaths.”

“No, that’s not possible. Eldi hasn’t . . . she wouldn’t⁠—”

“It is time I told you the truth, Regina, but I will not do it here. Come with me. I’ll explain, and I promise you, you won’t want anything to do with that creature anymore. I have the weapon almost ready, but I need you for the last step. There’s no alternative. I promise I tried, for your sake, though I know you won’t believe me.”

I hate that there’s even a piece of me willing to pretend, a piece that wants to hear her out.

“I was going to let you go. I was going to figure it out on my own. But you came back anyway. That has to mean something.”

“You baited me, locked me up. Don’t pretend I’m here by choice.”

“I wanted to love you, but you make it so hard,” Adele says. She speaks so quietly, a quaver to her voice I’ve never heard before.

“That’s not how love works,” Calvin says coldly, earning a glare from Adele.

“Help me,” Adele says, returning her gaze to me.

Memories, my sisters’ baby faces, Eldi asleep in my arms, all the moments they looked to me to protect them. I didn’t want to love them. I tried not to. And I did anyway. Voices echo inside my head.

I would rather die than let her make me into a weapon.

Mama.

Do something besides play her little games.

Ma.

You are your choices; you are good.

Clone, same, one.

“No.”

I shake the voices and memories loose and meet her gaze again. Her face is unmasked, yet I watch as something shutters closed in her eyes. A beast wearing human skin, just as that boy so long ago called her. A chill runs down my spine as I see it, too, a human mask shielding something dark and damaged.

“I have to deal with the mess you’ve made of the front gate,” Adele says. “When I come back, you’ll either come with me willingly, or they won’t leave this basement alive.” She walks out of the room, heels clicking. The door closes with a snap.

33

Clean Out Your Skeletons from the Closet

We have to get out of here before Adele comes back.