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But he shook his head. “She must return to her people.”
“Then…she is not dead?”
“The body is. But she will one day be strong enough to make another, since her essence was not scattered. Thanks to you.”
I didn’t understand that, either. I didn’t understand anything. Except that the child would not be here.
She would not be family.
“You have a family,” he said softly. “More than you know.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t speak. The child didn’t, either, but she pulled away from him. And this time, he let her go.
She came over to me, and looked down at the body I still held. And then up at me. And smiled.
And placed a soft kiss, light, light like air, on my cheek.
“To help you bridge your own divide,” the Irin murmured.
I looked at him, hurting, defeated. “I don’t understand,” I cried.
“You will.”
Something clattered to the floor behind me, loud in the silence. I jumped and spun—and saw no one. Just an echoing, dark warehouse, cold and empty and completely still.
And the same was true when I turned back a moment later.
And found myself alone.
The woman—Dorina—was gone. And so were the child and the Irin. No sign of them remained, not a scent, not even an impression in the dust. I stared, wondering if my fevered brain had dreamed them up.
Like the hubcap that suddenly clattered to the floor at my feet, shiny and metallic and reflecting—
“Damn.”
I started moving just as the whole towering line of boxes began to tip over, coming after me in wave after wave of cardboard. And falling machine parts, which seemed to constitute most of the boxes’ contents. Parts that were glittering in the moonlight and striking off concrete and about to cave my head in if I didn’t get out of the way.
Which would have been easier if they hadn’t been coming from both directions.
I stopped, turned, and went back the other way, but found no escape. Except for one. I dove into an empty cage, trying to avoid seeing what was on either side in favor of watching what was in front. Because I knew who was going to be coming through that fall of destruction, and I needed to be out of here before he trapped me in—
And then it wasn’t a problem anymore. When he suddenly materialized out of nothing in front of my makeshift bunker and snatched me out. And while his face was still a blackened mess, he must have been busy healing the important stuff. Because my feet weren’t even touching the ground.
“I just want you to know,” Lawrence said amiably, “when I am consul, your father will be the first to die.”
“Then he’ll live a long time,” I gasped, because the hand holding me was around my throat. “The Senate remains.”
“For the moment,” Lawrence said, frowning, because I guess I wasn’t on script. I was supposed to be cowed and begging or awed and overcome by his brilliance.
Instead, I decided to go out as I’d lived, a bitch to the very end, and materialized a stake into my hand. Only to get thrown at the remaining boxes. Which hadn’t budged because they contained what felt like solid rock.
I slid off and was jerked back within striking range, because Lawrence wasn’t afraid of me. And why should he be? I was beat-up, bruised and bloodied, and had the use of only one hand. Even if I managed to slip the wooden sliver into that cold, dead heart, there would be no way to slice his throat before he snapped mine.
And he knew it.
A smile cracked those burnt lips, causing a little blood to ooze down his chin. “I think this is what they call checkmate.”
And it would have been. Except for the figure who suddenly rose up behind him, very real in the darkness. With black, black eyes that met mine.
