Magic Binds
Page 22

Andrea opened her eyes and smiled. “We’re going to call her Baby B.”
“No trace of loupism,” Nasrin said behind us.
“Here.” Raphael handed me the baby.
Aaa!
“It’s okay.” Andrea chuckled. “She isn’t made of glass.”
I very carefully took the baby. She was so tiny. So light. Her little hands were curled into fists. There was nothing and now there was a life. A little tiny helpless life.
I stood perfectly still and watched her breathe. She was full of light. It seemed to stream from her little plump cheeks and her dark eyelashes, suffusing her whole body. Her fingers were so tiny.
“Someone take my baby before Kate faints,” Andrea said.
I realized I’d been holding my breath.
Curran gently took her out of my hands, held her for a long moment, and passed her to Raphael. Raphael sat on the bed next to Andrea and murmured something I couldn’t quite catch. Andrea’s eyes shone. Such a happy, content light. She looked completely at peace.
In four weeks Atlanta would burn.
Curran’s hand rested on my shoulder.
Atlanta would burn, and Baby B’s world would change. She wouldn’t know it, because she was a tiny baby. But my father would reach out and strangle her future.
I didn’t want her to die before she had a chance to grow up. I didn’t want her to be enslaved. I didn’t want her to go to sleep in our world and wake up in my father’s and then grow up thinking that was the way things were supposed to be.
“Kate?” Curran said. “Baby?”
The magic seethed under my skin. “I need some air.”
I turned and walked away, down the hallway. My legs carried me outside, onto the top of a short stone tower. Sunshine hit me. I inhaled, breathing deeply, feeling my lungs expand.
I had to stop this from coming. I had to.
“Hey.” Curran blocked the daylight.
“Hey.”
“Looking grim, ass kicker. Rough day?”
“I’ve had worse.”
“Are you going to tell me what the witches said or do I have to ask our minister?”
He’d put two and two together.
“In about a month there will be a battle,” I said. “Atlanta will burn. If we marry, you die. Roland kills you. I watched it happen.”
I didn’t want to tell him about our son. Not yet. When we talked about the future, he always talked about children. His father died protecting him, and Curran would do the same for our son. I had to shield him from knowing our baby might not have a chance. It was enough I knew. Telling him about it changed nothing at this point, except to pile more weight on him.
He shrugged. “I don’t care. I’m not going to live my life according to someone else’s vision. Your father can’t dictate it. The witches can’t dictate it. The only question that matters is do you want to marry me?”
“Yes.”
“Then we get married. Fuck them.” He put his arm around me and squeezed me to him. “If I’m going to die, I’d rather die married to you. But more important, what makes you think I’ll roll over?”
“I didn’t say you would. I have no plans to roll over. I want to win, but I don’t know how.”
I looked past the Keep’s courtyard and the clear stretch of cut grass between the walls, to where the woods met the horizon. Somewhere out there my father was adding the tower to his castle. I had no doubt of it. The vision showed it complete. I would pull it down.
“We win the old-fashioned way,” he said. “We outthink him and we fight. We’ll do what we always do.”
It wouldn’t be enough, but if I said that, he’d tell me we wouldn’t find out until we tried. That’s what I would’ve said back to him.
“It could be worse,” he said.
“How?”
“We could be fighting him and your aunt.”
My memory served up Erra dying on the snow.
“She talked to me before she died.”
“What did she say?”
“She said, ‘Live long, child. Live long enough to see everyone you love die. Suffer the way I did.’”
In that moment on the snow, exhausted and bleeding, all I cared about was killing her and making sure Curran and I survived. Now I finally got it.
“She didn’t want to go through all this again.” I glanced at the woods in front of us. “The land, my father’s mind games, killing people . . . I think she decided she was done and the only way it would be over was if she died or he did. She let me kill her.”
And I was a lot like my aunt. More than I cared to admit. Neither of us was well suited for diplomacy. The only reason I had lasted this long was because both Curran and Barabas pulled me back from the edge whenever I tried to charge it. My father had to have realized that left to my own devices, I’d snap and attack him.
“Your aunt fought plenty,” Curran said. “Besides, Roland was the one who told you that. I don’t trust his bullshit.”
“Well, it bit him in the ass. I told him that even his own sister didn’t want to live in the world he made.”
Curran laughed.
“What?”
“You always know how to get under someone’s skin.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s your superpower. Trust me, I know.”
He looked at me and laughed harder.
“What?”
“I love when you bare your teeth at me. All the shapeshifter living has been rubbing off on you. You’d make such a cute shapeshifter.”
“I will fucking throw you off this tower.”
“You and what army?” He spread his arms. “Give it all you’ve got, baby.”
I thought about it and shook my head.
The smile vanished from his face. “Okay, now I am worried.”
Live long enough to see everyone you love die.
She must’ve loved someone. She must’ve mourned him. She talked about her sons and having to kill them when they turned into homicidal psychopaths . . .
It hit me like a freight train. Wow.
This was a very stupid idea. An idiotic, stupid, suicidal idea.
Find a Rubicon to cross. I’ll show you a Rubicon. This wasn’t just crossing it, this was setting it on fire and blowing it up.
“Do you remember when we went to the Black Sea and you pretended to be infatuated with Lorelei?”