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I can practically hear Essos counting in his head as he draws in a long breath before slowly letting it out his nose. In his defense, my own anger is rising, but I’m willing to give Helene a chance to explain herself, whereas her brother is always going to go straight into protector mode. I can understand why Helene bothered to try.
“Explain.”
“You and Xavier are obviously triggers for her. She hates Xavier and she hates Daphne for apparently also taking you from her daughter. I thought maybe we could try to come up with a solution.”
Essos turns his back on his sister and presses his hands into his eyes. He takes in another shuddering breath. “And?”
“And she seemed receptive at first. We met at the cabin, on neutral ground.” Helene is really dragging out her take and it’s starting to push my patience.
“Spit it out, Hel. What happened?” I ask. I feel tense all over again, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Posey cut us. With the God Killer blade. She said she wanted to prove to us that she was open to negotiations by showing that she could have killed us, but didn’t.”
“She cut you,” Essos says.
Shit.
I know better than to get between the siblings when they want to fight, but I can’t help but feel for Helene. I’ve done my fair share of boneheaded, reckless acts while we navigate this, but the possibility that Posey has now taken Kai and Helene’s power is a blow I’m not sure we can come back from. It’s less their individual powers over the oceans and the stars and more their strength when it comes to fighting.
“Yes,” Helene confirms. “Both of us.”
“I can’t fucking believe you would do something so stupid, soreckless, Helene. What were you and Kaithinking?She could have killed you, and we had no idea you were even doing this. You deliberately went behind our backs because you knew that Xavier and I wouldn’t approve.” He paces away from her before screaming, “Fuck!”
“You can’t have it both ways, Essos. You can’t lecture us on not doing anything and then take issue with how we do things.”
“I absolutely can, Helene. We’ve been talking every move through before we make it to ensure that we’re not stepping into one of her traps like you just fucking did. Do you understand what this means? No, of course you do. This happened two days ago, and you’re only coming to me now. Tell me, what power of yours are you lacking? What is wrong that you realized you have no choicebutto come clean now?”
“You can be such a sanctimonious prick, Essos, you know that?”
“It doesn’t change that I’m right. I can’t look at you right now, Hel. You should find our mother and start researching to see if there is a way to reverse what you’ve done.”
“Fuck you, Essos.” Helene doesn’t bother looking at her brother as she stomps in the direction of the house.
I wait until she’s inside before I look at Essos. “Do you think maybe you could have handled that better?” I ask.
He turns his angry glare on me. “Don’t you start. What is with the insistence that confronting Posey is a good idea? It’s not. It never has been, and it never will be. We know she has Finn’s blood, very likely our blood from the night of your wedding to Galen, and now Kai’s and Helene’s too. Who knows who else could be at risk? Did she cut each of her followers? Did she get Tink or Xavier? We may never actually know. But we know there are still souls unaccounted for, and we know she’s starting to consume power. So let me be fucking pissed about this, Daphne. I’m tired of us handing wins over to Posey and giving her the upper hand.” He kisses my forehead roughly. “I am going to go work off some of this anger because I will yell again, and I don’t want it to be at you because I like sharing a bed with you very, very much.” He starts to walk toward the house, leaving me standing on the beach.
Essos pauses and turns to me. “I love you.” He says it with such anger and surety that I have to smile at him, even as he turns and strides away from me.
This whole turn of events has me feeling too unsettled to do nothing. So, I do something I know will piss Essos off. If he doesn’t like it, he can just deal with it.
CHAPTER32
Zara and Octavia are sitting in the library, arguing over something in a book.
Zara huffs in annoyance. “I think you’re reading it wrong. This line here indicates that once the blood is used for better or worse, then it means that the blood can’t be used for some other nefarious purpose.”
“I thinkyou’rethe one reading it wrong becauseIam the one who wrote it,” Octavia argues.
“Just because you wrote it doesn’t mean you aren’t wrong,” Zara snaps, pulling the book around to face her.
“What are you arguing over?” I ask. I expected Helene to be here, but it shouldn’t surprise me that she wouldn’t listen to her brother, not after he dressed her down so thoroughly.
“Your mortal thinks that her interpretation of an ancient textwritten by meis right and I am wrong,” Octavia pouts.
“And where are Sybil, Estelle, and Cat?” I ask, pausing my walk around the perimeter. I stop at a shelf with well-loved paperbacks. I had seen the bawdy romance novels here during the Calling and had started reading the series then. I grab the next one in the series off the shelf and look over the cover, which pictures Princess Lorelei heavily pregnant while her two lovers embrace her. All three of their hands are touching on her belly while she is nearly kissing one and the other is kissing her neck. I hug the paperback to my chest and turn to face Zara and Octavia.
“Cat is with Bria and Finn, I think up in his room. Sybil and Estelle are down in the kitchens arguing about how they should be weaving without their sister,” Zara supplies. She tosses her long, dark hair over her shoulder before pulling a book from the pile in front of Octavia.
