Still, Jianyu’s gaze had never wavered. His expression had creased with determination as he’d pulled Libitina from his shoulder. Blood had soaked the material of his tunic in response, and his hand had trembled as he held the dagger out to Viola. An offering. A truce. But all Viola could see was the blade, still sticky with his blood. It was a lurid stain on the shining metal and another dark mark on her soul.
Viola knew too well the weight of a soul. As Dolph Saunders’ assassin, she’d taken so many lives. She’d accepted those black marks, one after another, in the hope that one day others like her would not have to struggle as she had. She’d made peace with her own certain damnation—had only hoped that it might have meaning. Now, staring at Jianyu’s blood, Viola understood that she’d been a fool to ever hope for redemption.
Shame and guilt wrapped around her like a noose, but before her ears could clear, before she could understand Jianyu’s words, his legs wobbled beneath him, and a man with skin as dark brown as the girl’s scooped him up. Jianyu, who had always held himself with a determined strength, who had always seemed somehow apart from the rest of Dolph’s gang, did not fight this man, and Viola understood immediately that they were friends—Jianyu, the girl, and this man. She realized in that instant the depth of her mistake.
Before Viola could say a word or take a step toward them, Jianyu’s head lolled back. His body went slack in the man’s arms, and his hand, which had been holding Libitina, went limp. Viola’s dagger fell to the floor, and the brown-skinned girl scooped the blade from the ground. She did not offer it, as Jianyu had, but instead lifted the knife in warning as she met Viola’s eyes with a silent challenge. Judgment and anger and fear all burned at once in her dark eyes—and rightfully so.
Because Viola knew what the knife could do, she held steady. Even in the hands of a Sundren, a mere nick of the blade could be deadly.
Which is why I need to make them understand. She could fix this—all of it. The misunderstanding. Jianyu. The blood on the blade. Her curse was her gift as well. But Viola saw Jianyu’s limp hand swinging listlessly—lifelessly—and felt a familiar heaviness pressing her down. For what she had done once again. For what she was.
When they began to back away, taking Jianyu with them, Viola could not seem to make her feet move or her mouth speak, even as the words waited on her tongue. Urgent. Necessary. The room was still rollicking, and Viola knew that she needed to go—with them, away, it did not matter. She could not stay there, and yet she seemed to be rooted in place.
Then a movement in the corner of her vision drew her attention back to her original destination, where a great stone beast sat upon a woman’s chest. It looked like something from a nightmare, roughly hewn from rock or perhaps from clay, but the beast moved as though it were alive. It shifted, puffing itself up in warning to any that might approach. Guarding its treasure.
The ring.
Viola had only agreed to accompany her brother to the Order’s gala because Nibsy Lorcan had told her that an artifact would be here. The last time she’d seen the ring was in the depths of the Order’s Mysterium. Then, it had been on Krzysztof Zeranski’s finger. The Order had taken the man, along with other powerful Mageus, and had bespelled him. They had been draining his affinity—killing Krzysztof and the others—with false magic, presumably to restore the power in the artifacts. Then, Viola had allowed Darrigan to get the better of her and slip away with the ring, but now Viola knew she had a second chance.
The ring was within her reach again, there upon the dead woman’s hand. It was so close, this item that Dolph Saunders had desperately wanted. This artifact that Dolph had believed could help to free them all. Dolph had been her mentor and her friend. He’d given Viola a home and a purpose. He’d given her hope, too, that the world could be different.
But he’d lied.
Viola understood that now. She had seen the truth for herself, written in Dolph’s own hand. He might have scooped Viola from the gutter and saved her from a life of misery under her brother’s thumb, but she learned in the end that Dolph Saunders was a man of secrets. He’d done terrible things alongside the good.
Viola turned back to Jianyu, but the man carrying him had already disappeared into the crowd, and Viola felt a sharp pang of something too close to longing. She could simply walk away from all of this—from the danger swirling around her, from her brother with his anger and threats, and especially from the mad path that Dolph Saunders had set them all upon. She could leave the ring and follow Jianyu and his new friends, whoever they were. She could make right her mistake.
It’s already too late. She had seen Jianyu’s hand swinging lifelessly. She had no power over death.
Then the great beast shifted again, drawing Viola’s attention back to the ring that glinted on the finger of the woman who lay dead beneath the heavy creature. The monstrous thing adjusted itself over the woman’s lifeless body with a menacing lurch, and Viola was reminded that it was not only Dolph Saunders who had been after the Order’s artifacts. Nibsy Lorcan had killed for his chance to possess them, and the Order would kill to retrieve them as well. Perhaps it already had. Perhaps this great stone beast was their work. Whatever Dolph Saunders might have been playing at, whatever his secrets or lies, Viola knew that neither Nibsy Lorcan nor the Order could be allowed to
