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Lilianna didn’t fit in with the room at all. She wore another sundress that made her seem young and innocent, yet she walked between the frightening soldiers as if she had no worries.
Though, she probably didn’t. Judging from the reaction of the one holding me, I’d bet she had nothing to fear from them.
“Let her go,” Lilianna said.
Immediately, I collapsed to the floor, the hands that held me releasing me. It was then I realized just how much my head hurt, how difficult the fights so far had been. It was as if all the adrenaline inside me had seeped away, leaving me an empty mess.
Still, Lilianna knelt in front of me. She said nothing, waiting until I lifted my gaze to hers. When I did, she tilted her head. “I heard Kit. He doesn’t sound as I expected him to, but that could have been the speakers. He mentioned my mother. Did you know her?”
I shook my head.
“I don’t remember her. Kit does, though, and I can hear it in his voice that losing her hurt. It doesn’t hurt me—I didn’t know her—but I feel a strange heaviness at his pain. If my toys killed you, he would be sad. I don’t want him to be sad, not over something I could have stopped.”
I nodded, then forced myself to my feet. I gestured at the door, then pointed at the soldiers.
She shook her head. “No. I was listening when the Warden gave you the chance to become human again. I truly thought you’d accept it. Most shades want nothing more than to become human again, to regain their old life. You gave that up.” She reached out and set her hands on my cheeks.
The world shifted, a familiar feeling now. I found myself in that old darkness, the same place I’d been before when I’d spoken to her.
“Please, help,” I immediately begged. “If Kit asked for help, they need it.”
Lilianna sighed and stared off into the darkness. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I watched you pick your path. I watched you choose who you wanted to be, and it makes me question what I’ve done to my toys. I’ve taken that ability from them. I’ve lived my entire life here, with no choices, and yet I turned around and did that to others.” She shook her head, pain drenching her words. “I will pull my toys from the fight, send them back to their cells. What happens will fall to you, to the others, because I cannot ask my toys to take any other lives. Kit said my mother would be proud of me, that he wished he could see who I would become. It makes me think for the first time who that might be, and I don’t think I want to be a person who would force others to kill. I hope you succeed—I hope you all survive.”
She paused, then stared straight at me. “Kit thanked you for changing him, but to me, change is rarely good. Change is different, and that difference doesn’t always make a person better. You changed him, you changed Larkwood, and I suspect you’ve changed me. You must have, or I wouldn’t care if my toys killed you. I never cared before.”
“I didn’t change you,” I said softly. “You changed. You decided what you wanted to do, not me.”
She smiled, though the look was strange on her face, as if she wasn’t used to it. “Perhaps. Now, you need to go. I can hear the fight, feel the death, and I suspect that as the one who started this, you are the one who will have to end it.”
With that, the world took form around me again. I blinked and found myself back in the North Tower alone. Lilianna had left, taking her toys with her, leaving me there.
Her words forced me to my feet. We were finishing this all right now.
I didn’t have time to take the bridge over and make my way through the other tower to the bottom floor, to risk running into guards who would only slow me down. Instead, I took the elevator to the bottom floor.
Larkwood could sue me for the damage I was about to cause, but when life closed a door, sometimes a person had to put a hole in the fucking wall.
* * * *
Knox
Everything ached. Brax enjoyed pointing out that I wasn’t a fighter, but never did that feel as true as right now.
Yet, no matter how exhaustion tugged at me, no matter how much I hurt, I couldn’t stop. Too much rested on us. With the other shades who had come, we had a shot, but that didn’t change that we had to fight with everything we had.
At the very least, my incubus got to stretch itself out, to show itself for the predator it was.
A blast shook the ground, nearly knocking me from my feet, and I turned to find a shade standing there, flames surrounding her. Farther down was another who had taken the form of a bear and charged into a group of soldiers. Bowen kept his barriers up to repel the bullets and level the playing field.
It made it so the guards had to approach us, had to get close, which gave us an advantage.
Not that the edge guaranteed anything. It didn’t take much to change the course of a fight like this. One lucky hit could alter everything.
“Enough.”
