“Thanks,” I said to the elf. “Where on earth did you find all those sprites?”
“They were hiding among the ruins,” he said. “They said you helped free them.”
“We did.” I watched with satisfaction for a moment as Adair struggled to swat them away, then my gaze found the approaching zombies. “We should go before those guys catch up.”
“Agreed.” Miles eyed the wyrm, while Trix approached it from the side.
“You okay?” I asked Miles.
“I’m covered in slobber, but I’ll live.” He tensed when the wyrm moved, but it didn’t attack.
At Trix’s instructions, the beast lowered its head, and we climbed onto its back.
“Get back here!” Adair snapped, but even he couldn’t mind-control an entire flock of sprites and a wyrm all at once.
The wyrm took to the sky, just as a bolt of light shot up behind us. I twisted around, seeing the citadel in the wasteland igniting.
“What’s going on over there?” I said. “That place can’t still be active now the sprites are free.”
“Unless Hawker got in there and fixed the transporter,” added Miles. “Or Shawn. Dickhead’s been out here for a while.”
Not to mention Adair. The wyrm flew more slowly than before, and if Adair got away from those sprites, he’d catch up to us, no problem. We needed to get to Elysium and find Lex and the cure before it was too late. If she’d manipulated the Houses into pledging their loyalty to her in exchange for ridding the city of those cantrips, the Family would have more power than they’d ever had before.
“Speaking of Shawn, didn’t you want to finish him off?” I said.
“Nah, he’s not worth the effort,” Miles said. “Why’d they kill off the people in the warehouse?”
“Because they already fulfilled their purpose.” A lump grew in my throat. “They created those cantrips to spread the virus around the city, and now the Family has the only cure.”
We flew low over the rooftops of Elysium, where I spotted a flash of red moving among the houses. Lex. I’d know that bright dress of hers anywhere. It might’ve surprised me to see her moving on foot, but she had no need to fear an attack. Nothing could touch her.
“That’s her?” said Miles, leaning over my shoulder.
“I have to face her alone,” I said. “If you can bring backup, though, it’d be appreciated.”
“Bria, you can’t go down there alone.”
“I won’t watch you die.” Watching the wyrm bite into him had been bad enough. I wouldn’t lose anyone else today. “Besides, she won’t kill me. She can’t.”
“She can still make you into her puppet.”
“Not as effectively as Adair,” I said. “Also, she doesn’t know we have a few hundred sprites on our side. If you can find a way to get them to come and help, I can stall her until then. The important part is getting the cure. I can hold out until then.”
“I hope you’re right,” said Miles.
“Okay… we’re going down.” Trix steered the wyrm lower, and I leaned over the edge until Lex looked up and saw me. I gave a little wave, to be rewarded by her expression of incredulity.
Without taking my eyes off her, I jumped down from the wyrm’s back and landed in front of her. “So you have the cure, do you?”
“Bria,” she said. “I’m glad you came to see me. I was afraid you were going to run again.”
“You’re messed up,” I said. “Where is the cure, then?”
“Roth has it,” she replied. “When he delivers it to the Houses, he and I will be heroes.”
“You’re the one who unleashed the viral cantrips to begin with!” I said, my heart sinking hard. He has it. He’s way ahead of us. “You can’t rewrite history.”
“Can’t we?” she said softly.
A spasm of anger shook me. They could do exactly that. They’d even rewritten my history, erasing all traces of where I’d truly come from before they’d got their claws in my life.
“I know about what you did to the elves,” I said. “You can’t call yourselves heroes after you burned down their homes and helped the mages destroy what was left of them.”
“What does it matter?” she said. “They’re ancient history.”
“No, they aren’t,” I said. “Not as long as I’m here.”
“You’re no elf,” she said. “You don’t even remember where you came from.”
“I do remember.” My voice rose. “That town over there. By the citadel. That’s where you captured me from. It’s true, isn’t it?”
She studied me. “I thought you were too young to remember.”
“That’s what you’d like to think.” I swallowed down the scalding tears threatening to rise to the surface. “You didn’t care either way, did you? You killed them for no good reason at all.”
I’d always known on an instinctual level that the Family had never been the loving parents they’d pretended to be for most of my childhood, but not that they’d done anything as grotesque as to massacre my birth family along with everyone else who’d lived in their town. As if that wasn’t enough, they’d then taken me captive, erased my history, and made me believe that I’d only ever been what they’d made me to be.
“I wouldn’t worry your head about it,” she said. “The elves are gone.”
“Then where did you get the ones at the warehouse from?” I demanded. “Where did you capture them?”
She tilted her head. “Why the sudden interest? It’s hardly relevant to your current dilemma.”
It is. I might still fear what she could do to me, but my rage and disgust outweighed my wariness, and knowing what she’d done to my former home set a fire burning in my veins.
I would take great pleasure from crushing the life out of her with my bare hands.
“Tell me where Roth is, and I might let
