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“My brother would kill you before her blood hit the ground,” Viola snarled, but the threat had worked. The pain in his chest eased. “Tell me what you did to my knife,” she demanded. “Why can’t I heal the cut it made when you are just fine?” She gestured to him.
“You call this fine?” James asked, pretending to be more shocked than he was. He made a show of pulling himself to his feet, of leaning against the cane. Viola was a small woman, and even hunched against the cane, he was taller. “Because of what you did, I’ll never walk on my own again.”
“I could have killed you instead,” Viola told him. “I should have.”
“But you didn’t want to,” James told her, letting the sheer irony of it hang in the air between them. “I wonder why that is, Viola. Unless you knew even then, on the bridge, that I was right about Darrigan, and right about everything else as well.”
Viola shook her head. But James knew that she could not dismiss the words that were already working into her mind, worming their way into her sureness. “Tell me what you did to Libitina. Why won’t the wound heal?”
James could see the frantic fear in her eyes and he savored it. “You think I had something to do with that?”
“Who else?” she demanded.
“Have I had a hand in the others you’ve killed?” he asked. “You were Dolph’s assassin, weren’t you? How many did you use your blade on? How many have died by your hand, Viola?”
Her mouth was drawn tight, and James could see the guilt in her eyes, the shame of what she believed herself to be. It was a weakness that she hadn’t yet accepted the choices she’d made or the power she held. It was a weakness that she still foolishly worried about a god who would never answer her cries. It was also a vulnerability that he could exploit.
“Who was it that you wanted dead this time?” James pressed, considering the question seriously for himself. Feeling the Aether bunch and shift. “Why try to save this poor soul now?”
Viola lifted her chin, her eyes narrowing. “It’s none of your concern who I save.”
James didn’t agree. To his estimation, and based upon the way the Aether moved, the person Viola wanted to save had everything to do with him. The vibrations around him were moving in harmony now, urging him onward. This was what he needed—Viola’s involvement and the involvement of the person she wanted to save.
Jianyu. The moment the name came to his mind, James knew he was right. Now he understood. He needed their affinities and their commitment to getting the ring. Could use them.
James had no idea what had caused Viola to cut Jianyu with her knife, but it was clear they were now aligned. He needed them both. Or rather, his plan did. But he couldn’t make saving Jianyu too easy for her. No. That would raise her suspicions. Viola needed to hate him, and so James would gladly give her reason to. He would use that hatred to his own benefit, and then he would crush her and Jianyu both and take the victory that should have always been his.
A NEW ALLIANCE
1902—New York
Viola drew herself upright, refusing to let Nibsy see the way his words had affected her. “Tell me what you did to my knife, Nibsy.” She let her affinity unfurl again, a small jolt this time. A clear reminder of what she could do. And what she was willing to risk.
“Do you truly not know?” Nibsy said. It looked as though he was trying to laugh, but all that came out was a weak cough. “Your knife. Libitina, you call it. It’s not some random blade. It’s the same as this cane, the same as any number of items floating through this city—it’s been changed by magic. It’s not natural magic, of course, but that sort of thing never really bothered Dolph, did it?” He eyed Viola, daring her to disagree.
But Viola couldn’t. She knew about the cane, about what power it had over the marks they all wore when Dolph wielded it, and thanks to Nibsy, now she understood how the cane had been made. How Dolph had taken from Leena, had made an unwilling sacrifice of her power.
“I know this already,” she said. “But you haven’t explained why I can’t heal the cut it made.” She tried not to dwell too much on the fact that her knife had an origin like Dolph’s cane.
“Viola…” Nibsy shook his head as though disappointed in her. “Dolph gave you a blade that could help you to kill because he knew you were too…” He waved a hand. “Let’s be frank. Dolph knew you were too weak to use your affinity as it was meant to be used, and so he gave you the knife instead. Have you never wondered why your blade is so deadly? Why you never miss? It’s ritual magic, Viola, crafted to work with what you are. It calls to blood, just as your magic does. If you intended to kill someone with that blade, they’ll die. If someone is dying from your blade, that’s not something I did. That, my old friend, is all your own doing. And it always has been.”
Viola watched numbly as Nibsy took the knife from the tabletop in front of him. It was sunk inches deep, like the table was made of bread instead of wood. Then he placed it flat in front of him, the handle facing Viola.
At first all she could do was stare at it.
She’d known. Of course she’d known that the blade wasn’t normal. It had a certain weight that seemed far heavier than its steel and an ability to do what no other could. But Viola had convinced herself that the lives Libitina took had nothing to do with her affinity. She’d believed that she could separate herself—what she was—from the things she did. As though that made any difference at all.
She’d been lying to herself. Willfully blind. Because this is what I am. What I’ve always been. Viola stared at Libitina, perhaps seeing it truly for the first time. Even now, even accepting what the knife was, her hands ached to hold the comforting weight once more.
“Nothing you can do with your affinity will save the person you’ve tried to kill, Viola.” Nibsy gave her a rueful look. “False magic can only be broken by false magic. You know that.”
“Tell me how to fix this.” It took all of her effort to keep her voice from shaking. She glanced up from the blade, looking at him with fire in her eyes.
Nibsy’s expression was unreadable. “Are we friends again, Viola? Because from your little display, I would have said you still consider me an enemy.” He paused, letting the challenge filter through the nearly silent room. “I find that I have very few reasons to help an enemy.”
Viola felt her temper spike. He was toying with her. Cat and mouse in front of an audience thirsty for blood—for her blood. But she would not give him the satisfaction. In the end, she would be the one to kill the snake.
She swiped the knife from the table and had it at Nibsy’s throat before he could blink. Around her, the room contracted, and she sensed the boys she’d once seen as allies coming for her.
