“Perhaps. Perhaps not,” Ventus answered, that caginess back, indicating my time for asking questions had come to an end.
“Now that we have given you some information, what is it you want from us?” Terra asked.
What? Seriously? “You know exactly what I want!”
“Yes, we do. But you must ask it and then we will decide how we will grant it. We cannot simply interfere with fate at our choosing. We have no autonomous power over the worlds. Our only mode of influence is through spellcasters and their requests.”
I hesitated, this piece of information highly interesting. How on earth should I request them to reverse all that they had done? Any request I made would be poisoned seven ways from Sunday. The mess could grow more serious than it was today. A thought struck me.
“And if I don’t? If I just stop casting spells? This game might never end, right?”
Four expressions turned stony and I realized I had found a loophole. I smiled. If I didn’t cast spells, they didn’t have a game. If they didn’t have a game … Had I found a bargaining chip?
A blur, a shift. Suddenly our surroundings changed. I now stood within Nathan’s gardens, crisp summer night air drifting across my bare shoulders. Out from behind the oak tree stepped a tall, lean, man. My insides melted. Nathan. Nathan as I remembered him. Nathan with chocolate brown irises. Nathan who recognized me, loved me …
I pawed the air in front of me, my fingertips searching for his flesh. “Wouldn’t you like Nathan back?” Ventus cooed softly from an unseen location.
Oh, to have Nathan back … To bury my head in that shoulder, to slip my hands around his neck, along his chest … to feel his soft lips graze mine again. For a long moment, I did nothing but stare at that beautiful face. It would be so easy to say the words.
No, wait! No, it wouldn’t! They dangled Nathan in front of me but I knew that what I would get would not be Nathan. Look what they had already done! No … I gritted my teeth, fighting against their wicked temptation. Like serpents, the Fates were using my weakness against me to keep their game moving.
I’m on to you all! I laughed mirthlessly. “But you did give him back to me, remember? With a few extra bad habits.” My attempt at indifference to Wraith came out sounding strangled.
I was back on my pedestal, staring at the four of them around the vessel. Terra offered a thin smile. “Well, then, what can we offer you, Sofie? Would you like your venom back? Would you like to stop this impending war?”
Promises, promises. All just words. Words that would be twisted, tainted, mutilated into something grotesque and unrecognizable. Gritting my jaw, I shook my head stubbornly but said nothing.
Again, my surroundings changed in a swirling mist. I now stood in a cold, dark room. I recognized it. It was one of Viggo’s cellars. A frail young woman sat huddled in a corner, her dress long-since stained, her arms bruised, her curly brown locks hanging limply around her.
“Would you like your sister back in her tomb?” Unda whispered.
I felt the blood drain from my face. I fought my rising panic. It’s not real. It’s not real. They’re desperate. The cell vanished and I was back on the pedestal yet again, facing Unda, her mouth warped into a toothy, taunting smile.
“Oh, that’s right. You didn’t know. Your human girl has betrayed you …”
14. Yellow Eyes and Blue Prints—Evangeline
From the outside, all appeared tranquil at Viggo’s palace. No indication that the front gates were in shambles, blown up by witches’ fire; no hint that the scenic atrium was now a rotting battlefield; no signs that a young woman, guilty only for her choice in lovers, was being tortured mercilessly. But I knew better. I knew because I had seen it firsthand.
The second we made the decision to come to New York, Ivan called Lilly on her cell. She suggested we take Kait’s jet. Vampires and their private jets … Kait’s jet was smaller and simpler than Viggo’s, but it had wings and it got us over the ocean fast—I hoped fast enough that we arrived before Bishop. That’s all that I cared about.
Kait didn’t have a flight crew on twenty-four-hour call. Amelie quickly remedied that issue by compelling two nearby pilots to abandon their own planes and fly ours. We were in the air in less than an hour and landing in seven—the entire time shared between drifting off to sleep and fighting with Caden, Amelie, and Max over Julian and I stepping foot inside that place. Shouting turned to pleading turned to whining. Caden even tried persuading Wraith on the perils of me entering those gates. It didn’t work, thankfully. I was noticing that Wraith didn’t forbid me anything; he simply ensured he was one step ahead of me to destroy any potential threat.