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“I am sorry,” he says.
“Meria might have been once, too. But I don’t care now,” she responds. “Surely you have more important things to worry about than the next prisoner Kincaid is going to execute.”
“I won’t let that happen.”
“Why? I’d kill you if it weren’t for these bars,” she says.
“Would you?”
My mother lets loose a hollow laugh that’s nothing like the bell-like laugh I remember from my childhood. “I’m not Meria. No matter how much you want me to be. No matter how much she wants me to be. I am not your friend or your lover.”
“That doesn’t change anything for me,” he says.
His shoes click against the floor and I suck in a breath, sure I’m about to be caught. Instead a lock snaps open.
“What are you doing?” Meria asks in
a suspicious tone.
“I’m letting you go,” he says.
I have to clap my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming.
“You want me to prove I’ll kill you?” she says, and I hear the smile in her voice.
“I’m drugging you first,” he says.
“This doesn’t change anything,” she warns him.
“That’s not why I’m doing it. Some things don’t change no matter what’s happened,” he says. “Even things that fade with time and distance aren’t ever really lost.”
Her shrieks grate on my ears and I know what he’s done before I hear her body hit the floor. This is my only chance to stop him. I take a deep breath and round the corner. Erik stands silently behind me.
“Ad,” Dante says in surprise. He’s hovering over her body. She looks like she’s sleeping—or worse. Dante looks from me to Erik, his hand running through his hair as he takes in our sudden appearance. “Erik—are you okay?”
“Fine,” Erik mutters.
“What are you doing?” I demand, unable to dismiss what he’s done to her.
“It’s not what it looks like.”
“It looks like you drugged her and are planning to drag her into the desert and leave her,” I say.
“Okay, then it’s exactly what it looks like,” he says, a note of confusion in his voice.
“I heard it all,” I say. Only some of her words stung, but I still feel their vibration on my skin. She isn’t my mother, I remind myself. “You can’t let her go. For Arras’s sake, it’s a war zone out there.”
“Which makes it my only chance to get her out without suspicion. I never should have brought her here. Once Kincaid returns he’ll blame her for this attack.”
“She wants to kill you,” I remind him, slowing down my words. “She wants to kill me.”
“I know.”
“And you’re okay with that?” I ask him.
“I would prefer she didn’t want to kill us,” he says. “Adelice, you don’t understand.”
“I’m trying to,” I say.
