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Tears wet her eyes. Oh, dear God, what do I do now?
“You think Linus is this sweet old man, but the things he has done would make you wake up at night screaming. He’s worse than me! Somehow, he can swim through a lake of sewage and come out smelling like roses, and I ended up as this wretched witch whom everyone despises . . .”
The connecting door swung open, revealing Linus. He was slumped over, holding on to an IV stand to keep himself upright.
“Vicki,” he said. “Baby . . .”
“Don’t you call me that, you horrible shithead!”
My mouth refused to close. Was this even happening? What was happening? What . . .
“We had a deal,” Victoria said, her voice bitter.
“I never meant to hurt you,” he started.
“Spare me your bullshit! You knew what I was doing.”
“I never thought you’d go through with it,” he said.
Somewhere off to the side my brain processed the fact that Linus was awake and dispassionately noted that he was deflecting the responsibility off himself.
“Well, I did,” Victoria snarled. “I spent years trying to atone for it. I took care of her family, I relocated them, I hid them, I supported them, I saved her sister from being kidnapped. I have done everything they’ve asked of me in that contract. None of it wipes the sin off my soul, I know, but I’ve tried. But how did you treat me, Linus? How did you treat your son?”
“Your granddaughters love you,” Linus said. “Look, Catalina has been setting a trap for you for two years and she threw it away just to keep you safe.”
“Don’t patronize me.” Victoria blinked. “Wait. Why are you here?”
“He was attacked and took an overdose of Styxine.”
Victoria glared at him. “Have you lost your damn mind?”
It was my turn to drop a bomb. “Also, he is the Warden of Texas. I am his Deputy. Where else would he be?”
The room went as silent as a tomb.
Linus raised his right hand. “Vicki . . .”
“You bastard! You dirty sonovabitch!”
Oh-oh.
“Let’s be rational about this . . .” Linus started.
“I’ll fucking lobotomize you, you filthy prick. You made her into a Warden! She was mine!”
The door behind me swung open and Arabella stuck her head into the room. “What’s with all the screaming . . .”
I pulled her in and clamped my hand over her mouth.
“You had two others to choose from,” Victoria snarled. “You could have had the older one. She would’ve been perfect. She is just like you. If that didn’t work out, you could have had the youngest one. She would walk across hot coals to get one of those kindly grandfatherly chuckles out of you. She adores you. But no, you took mine!”
“There were circumstances,” Linus said.
“Fuck your circumstances. You can take your circumstances and shove them up your ass.”
The circle pulsed with blinding light. If she had hit us with that much magic, our brains would have leaked out of our ears.
Victoria waved her arms around. “She stole Trevor from me! And I didn’t know! The subtlety required, the planning, can your stupid old brain even imagine it? I taught her, I molded her, I made sure she could lead this family. I made sure to find her the perfect partner. Do you have any idea how difficult it was to maneuver the two of them together? I suggested to the Keeper that he should request that boy to come to her trials. I made her promise that she wouldn’t leave the family for another House. I all but forbade her to love him, because forbidden fruit is the sweetest, and when she came to me, she was so meek and unsure, she would have fainted if he’d looked at her for two seconds. Their children will be invincible. And you ruined everything with your stupid plots and your inane nattering about duty and the greater good. Now she will die in one of your never-ending Warden schemes!”
Wow.
Linus opened his mouth.
“Don’t you dare!” She pointed her finger at him. “I don’t want your excuses. We had a deal. I held up my end of the bargain. I helped you with your idiotic Caesar plot! I became a criminal for you. I let them put me in prison. You promised me complete access to the children. You said I could pick one and you would not interfere!”
The circle pulsed. The floor under us shuddered.
“YOU LIED TO ME, LINUS!”
The chalk lines crackled with white lightning. We all stared at them until it faded.
“Question,” I said.
My grandparents looked at me.
“Actually, I have several questions,” I said, “But this is the most important one. Explain the idiotic Caesar plot.”
Nobody said anything.
“Go ahead,” Victoria said. “Tell your granddaughter about the mess you made.”
“It’s complicated,” Linus said.
“He is Caesar,” Victoria said. “The whole thing was cooked up by the National Assembly to dismantle that idiotic conspiracy, and your grandfather infiltrated it and got himself appointed as head idiot.”
