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I tumble onto my knees, and Esmae is on me. My power flares, demanding I let it intervene.
Her hand rams down with the letter opener, straight at my throat.
In that split-second, I know I might be able to deflect her blow. I might be able to send the blade into my shoulder rather than my throat.
I also know it’s only a matter of seconds before my magic digs its punishing claws into me all over again, leaving me crumpled in agony… unable to block any stabs after that.
Every future ends with me as dead as Julita in the Slaughterwell alley, except—
Despite the twisting of my gut, my fighting instincts guide my hand. I whip my arm up to stop Esmae the only way I can.
An instant before she’d have rammed her blade home, my knife plunges into her chest, straight to her heart.
Esmae lurches, her blow glancing off my skin instead of digging in.
“You,” she rasps as she teeters above me. “You—”
She slumps over sideways, still sputtering breath. I grope at her chest, afraid to move the knife, afraid not to.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t want to—”
My pleas and my frantic hands can’t save her. A few more furious wordless sounds rasp from her lips with flecks of spittle. The letter opener drops from her slackening fingers.
“No!” I protest. “Esmae, come on…”
Blood seeps in a growing stain across the bodice of her dress. Her head lolls onto her arm.
Her eyes roll up, vacant as an unmarked page.
No medic can help her now.
Thirty-Six
As I stare at Esmae’s body, a series of thumps resonate from somewhere behind me. It takes some time for the sound to register through the ringing of shock that’s blaring in my head.
Stavros’s voice calls through the dorm-room door. “Ivy? Are you still in here?”
His fist bangs against the wood again. I open my mouth, but no sound comes out.
The former general must be aware of the tricks Julita mentioned for unlocking doors, or else professors have extra access. There’s a mutter and a different sort of bump, and the click of the hinges swinging.
I have a sudden image of the massive man barging through the dorm’s lounge area, calling out my name, and somehow that propels me to my feet. I shove Esmae’s bedroom door open just as the first syllable leaves his lips.
“Iv—”
He freezes by one of the sofas, our gazes locking. Whatever he sees in my face, it makes his eyes flash with fury.
Stavros strides over like an ornery stallion, the muscles in his broad shoulders tensing beneath his shirt and vest. “What happened? Did— You’rebleeding.”
A bolt of panic crackles through my shocked daze. What am I doing? He’s going to see—he’s going to know—
I stumble backward, but he practically leaps the last few paces to grasp my hand. My pulse rattling, I hold still and tensed as he examines the thin cut Esmae carved in my forearm.
There’s no hiding it, is there? And he needs to know what we’re up against.
That’s more important than my life.
My lips part again, and I manage to do a little more than croak. “She—it was her. It was always her.”
