Page 185 of Carousel

Dezeeves continues to sit opposite me, alive and well. His shirt isn’t blooming rose red. His eyes aren’t rolling back in his head.

I have failed yet again.

One second he’s staring at me, a look of complete horror on his face.

And then his features twist. Go in on themselves, like they’ve imploded. He’s laughing.

It’s a laugh I wish I could rip from his larynx.

Loud, hoarse.

Hacking. Cruel.

Wordlessly, I rise to my feet and hurl the empty gun across the room.

He’s wiping his eye. Through the broadest smile I’ve ever seen him wear, he wheezes, “You wanted to kill me? You are a wonder, Ara.”

It doesn’t matter. I can kill him another way.

I try to draw my power to me.

But Dezeeves laughs harder.

“I hope you’re not now considering making me strangle myself. Don’t you know some magic is impossible?” He beams at me like a war is won. “Forcing someone to commit an action that would result in their direct death would certainly fall under that category.”

The air is knocked out of me.

And honestly, the light around me dies anyway. I don’t think I could summon any magic even if I believed it could work.

I’m powerless again.

Still chuckling to himself, he grabs his flask. Swigs deeply from it.

Placing it back on the table, he says, calmer, “The Queen trained you well. Perhaps, too well. She has prepared herself a formidable opponent indeed. If that is what you wish to be to her.”

“It is,” I insist. “She lies to her people, just like Hevalla always claimed. My country really is starving while she lives in splendour⁠—”

He doesn’t let me finish. He speaks as if speaking to himself. “I suppose the results of Integration do vary greatly from person to person. The Queen tasked me with protecting her soldiers where I could. She knows many have blood magic, which should not be spilled – not when it could be used to boost the dome. I found many of her people to be loyal to their country to the end, and of course, they are still here today. I found, some, would let concepts of right and wrong cloud their better judgement – and some simply didn’t understand the process and chose the gun, thinking that is what they were required to do. These people all had to be weeded.”

He looks at me slanted.

“And now we have you. You understand Integration, and what I have been trying to do, unknown to my officers. You have no love for Hevalla and its regime of supposed equality. You were loyal to Rhavna, once. Yet still, you chose the gun.”

“And what a predicament that must be for you,” I say, with a wave of my hand. “Seeing as – unlike anyone else who failed – you can’t just go ahead and kill me.”

He sways in his chair. “The Queen requires you. It was believed you would be the female to fulfil The Soulmates fortune. But, perhaps…”

“Perhaps, what?”

“You, personally, are not valuable, Ara. You were trained to be a queen, yes, but many women could be – and of course, would long to be. What makes you valuable is the blood magic that was given to you. If you truly have no interest in supporting the Crown Prince, and you truly are as opposed to the Queen as you appear to be, then the best way forwards may simply be…” He trails off with a smile.

“Tell me.”

“For the Queen to begin again.”

I scoff, leaning over his desk. “What? She should start putting Drake’s magic into someone else?”

Dezeeves sits back in his chair. Comfortably. Contently. Like I am the entertainment that has been brought in specially for him.