"I am your friend, Royston," I said. "I won't leave your side. You won't be alone."
"Thank you, Gianna." Grabbing the back of my neck, his massive biceps flexing, he pulled me closer and kissed the top of my head. "I have complete faith in you."
He released me, and I took a few steps back from him. "What do you want me to say to the others?"
"Thank Cadby for his service. Tell him he was cherished as a father. Deidre, I cared deeply for her and wished we could have had more time together. The others, thank them for making me feel as if I belonged to a family for the first time in a long while. I shall miss our times in the hideout."
"I will," came out so quiet, I wasn't sure he'd heard me.
"I am ready," he said. "My father is waiting for me."
We needed to find a more private place where the book would be safe until our return. I led Royston up the stairs to the fifth level and between two lines of bookcases. Below us, boots hitting the marble floor resounded through the library. I dropped to my knees and pulled Royston down beside me.
"Someone's here," I said, barely audible.
Shit. What do I do? Think of a plan.
"You are in the light." Royston dragged me back like a rag doll. "What shall we do?"
I have to get him out of here.
I removed Gian's book from the bag and retrieved the leather canister from inside my boot, then shoved them both behind the books on the shelf beside us.
"I'm going to distract them," I whispered. "You jump through the gateway book to Chetham's library in Manchester, England. Wait there. A book faery will show you to the Barmhilde coven. Tell The Red who you are. He'll protect you. Okay? Did you get that?"
He nodded. "Chetham. Wait for a faery. Go to Barmhilde. Seek The Red."
"Good," I said.
Lifting my wrist, I blew on the silver butterfly embedded in my skin, gave her instructions, and she flitted off. I untied my breastplate and lifted my shirt under Royston's questioning look. My fingers shook as I placed them on the crown and whispered the charm. I bit the back of my hand as the Chiave ripped from my skin.
"Take it," I said, grunting through the fading pain. "Wear it while jumping. It will shield you. Don't lose it. Keep it safe until I make it back to you. We need it to release the Tetrad."
He grasped it. "I will do as you say."
The boots below us were shuffling around fast as they searched the library. How did they know to follow Royston's jump? The guard's mark that enabled him to jump was old. Maybe the Monitors could tell it was ancient.
I stood and motioned for Royston to go the other way. With quick, quiet steps, I found the stairs and went down to the lower level. When I came into the main room, my breath punched out of me.
Arik turned at the sound of my boots against the marble floor.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Arik's cold, dark eyes fell on me. He had several guards and two Sentinels I didn't know with him. "Gia, where is he?"
I shrugged a shoulder, turning my right palm up. "I have no clue who you mean. Accendere la stun." A purple globe formed in my hand.
His eyes widened. "How did you do that?"
"It belongs to one of those Sentinels who died when Veronique attacked me in the New York Public Library. I guess I absorb Sentinels' globes after I kill them, even if it's an accident."
He stared at me, most likely trying to process what I'd said.
"Arik, just let me go. I don't want to fight you."
"Drop it," he said, creating his fire globe. "Have we come to a place where we are enemies?"
"I don't know." I glared at him. "You tell me."
A book falling to the floor above us sent a smack sound through the library.
"Up there. Go!" Arik ordered his guards and Sentinels. He manipulated his fireball into a whip.
The guards charged to the upper levels using different stairs. I popped the stun globe, purple flickers of light dying on the air.
Arik lowered his hand, his fire globe snuffing out. "You did that to distract us."
"I was taught by the best."
"Flattery won't help you out of your predicament." Even as he was being cruel, his accent made it sound so proper.
"He's gone," one of the Sentinels shouted from the fifth level. "Jumped through the gateway book. It closed, so we can't determine where he went."
"Bring the book and get down here," Arik said.
His dark eyes narrowed on me, and those beautiful lips that I'd kissed so many times pressed together in disappointment, shattering my soul. He closed the distance between us.
Tears formed in my eyes as I looked up at him. "How did we get here, Arik?"
"Don't speak. Because if you do, I won't have the strength to follow my orders." He lowered his lips to my ears. "Gia, everything comes back to you. I loved you. My heart is ruined. You've broken me."
"I'm sorry." The hurt in his eyes made something inside me implode. "It wasn't my fault. I wish … " What did I wish? That Emily never came between us? That Arik and I never broke up? That Bastien and I never fell through that trap? I didn't wish any of those things. My wish would be for Arik and me to find a common ground. To be friends.
"Why can't you follow orders?" His voice was softer then.
"Because it's wrong. Can't you see that?" I stepped back from him. "I thought I knew you. That you knew right from wrong. I put my faith in you. And I broke you?" The laugh that burst from my lips was weak and shaky. "You tore me to pieces."
Footsteps pounded across the tiles, and Arik took a step back from me before the guards and Sentinels joined us.
"The shackles," Arik said, his jaw tensed.
My face heated with the anger burning inside me like a furnace.
One of the guards pulled out a long chain with two metal plates at the end.
Avoiding eye contact with me, Arik said, "Hold out your hands."
I lifted my arms. "Don't do this. We don't have much time."
Another guard helped put the metal plates against my palms and fastened the chains around them.
Arik couldn't look me in the eyes. "Gianna Bianchi McCabe, you are under arrest for treason and will be allowed a trial. Take her to the gallows."
"Arik, please. You're wrong. The new council is with Conemar-"
"You'll be safer in the gallows than running loose in the covens."
The two guards dragged me over to the gateway book and jumped with me to the Vatican Library. I struggled in their grasp, trying to break free. We came out of the book and crashed against the floor, one of the guards landing on top of me.
"You had to struggle," the guard grunted as she rolled off.
The second guard pulled me to my feet. Arik and the other guards and Sentinels came through one by one.
Arik stayed in the back as the rest rushed me through the tunnel and down to the gallows. The faeries attending there were ancient-looking and tall. I glanced around for Odran, the only one I knew. He was the faery who let Nick, Deidre, and I visit Toad when we'd come to get a Chiave from him. But the faery wasn't there.
"You can remove the bindings," Arik said. "Her magic won't work down here."
A woman guard undid the metal plates from my hands. Two faeries, a tall, lanky woman and a stout man, shuffled me along the long narrow corridor. There were prison cells on both sides. I glanced over my shoulder, my tear-filled eyes finding Arik. I stared him down until he turned and exited the gallows.
He left me here.
I wanted to scream out, but I couldn't. It was like a concrete slab fell on top of me, crushing me to the ground, knocking the air out of me.
When I'd first entered the Mystik world, I had thought Arik would always protect me. I once trusted him with my life. He taught me how to survive in this new world. How could he care so little for me? After everything we've been through …
He had said I'd broken him. But I wasn't about to let him break me. I didn't know how, but I was getting out of there. And if it came to blows between Arik and me, I'd go down fighting.
As we passed a cell on my right, I recognized the man staring through the barred window of the door.
"Uncle Philip!" I struggled against the hands gripping my arms.
He grasped the bars. "Gia, what are you doing here?"
"For treason," I said. "Arik arrested me."
The faeries stopped and unlocked one of the cells.
"I'm so sorry. I never wanted this for you." He had a beard, and his usually perfectly cut hair was shaggy. There were bruises on his face and bags under his eyes. "Stay strong."
The faeries shoved me into the cell and locked it.
"Well, well, you never know who will join you in the gallows."
I spun around.
Pia lay on one of the cots. "Hey, roomie."
The last time we saw each other, she and her twin sister had buried arrows into guards and some of the high wizards attending Toad's trial in Mantello. And they'd killed him. Her sister ended up dying that day, too.
"What are you in for?" Pia sat up and swung her legs over the side.
I sat down on the cot opposite hers. "You know, trying to save the worlds."
"You were always so ambitious. And such a softy."
"Unlike your evil heart." I lay back on the cot. There was no way we could share a cell without me killing her. Toad had been innocent. He didn't deserve to die. Actually, the wizards she'd killed were all good. The council was now corrupted because of their deaths.