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It was no different now.
This was for today.
He’d learn his lesson, and one day, this would only be a distant memory.
“Will you bring me some of those honey biscuits Véa makes some time?” Lux asked. “I haven’t had one in ages, and I’m dying for it.”
“If she’ll spare a few,” I said. “Bet she’ll make a batch for you and the boys though.”
“Tell her it’s just for the boys,” he said.
I laughed. “She wouldn’t mind you having any.”
“Maybe not, but she wouldn’t make them for me. That woman would have to be possessed before she served me poison.”
“Can’t blame her though.” Rafael unclipped the keys from his hip, inserting one into the door for the third floor. “You’re lucky she cares for you at all.”
“She doesn’t,” Lux said.
“She’s the reason I didn’t kill you a thousand times,” I said. “Rethink that, esiasch.”
“She tolerates me becauseyoucare for me.”
“Mostly.” But that wasn’t the whole truth.
Véa did love Lux. Never intimately, never as closely as she loved most of our family and friends. Part of her, I believed, was and always would be afraid of him. She’d seen that temper of his in full force, and she’d suffered tremendously for it.
But she saw the same good in him that I did, or she never would’ve agreed to give him eternity.
Rafael muttered a curse.
“What is it?” I asked.
“The key isn’t working.” He turned the metal from side to side. The mechanism spun, but when he pulled, it only pounded the frame. “I don’t understand. It’s brand new.”
“The wrong one, maybe?” I asked.
He shook his head, spinning it side to side again. “The lock isn’t engaged. It should be releasing.”
“Wait,” Lux murmured. “Get—”
Bang!
A flash of golden light.
A burst of energy.
It happened so fast, I didn’t even have time to lapse.
I was airborne, and then I clunked into blackness.
CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO
VÉA
“Where’d Papa go, Mummy?” Vanna asked, tugging my skirt.
Well, I wasn’t going to answerthathonestly. One day, when they were grown, I’d tell them every awful thing that led us to where we were. For now, the generic response would have to do.
