Chapter 49 #2
The next moment, I felt Lexington wrench himself out of my mind, unable to withstand the brilliance of the memories I’d unearthed.
“You bitch,” he panted, and I blinked myself back to reality, where all of my knives were floating in midair, their deadly edges winking in my face. “Where did you get the power to do that?”
Before I could respond, another voice landed in my head.
Hold tight, Rayna. I’m on my way.
I tried not to let my face betray any sign of the communication.
Garvis?
Yeah. Coen’s working on the last monster, but I saw something pull you backward and figured you might need a bit of assistance.
I grimaced. Maybe just a bit.
Lexington’s face pinched together at my silence. When he spoke next, it was through clacking teeth.
“I’m not going to ask you again, girl. How. Did. You. Get. Mind Manipulating. Power?”
Knowing that Garvis was near, I allowed myself to sneer right into his face.
“The same way you did, Kitterfol. By taking it from a faerie.” I leaned in closer, pressing my own neck into the point of a knife until a sting of pain flared against my skin. “Only mine was willing to share.”
Lexington’s chest swelled. By the looks of those veins popping in his forehead, I could tell he was about to disregard Dyonisia’s apparent no-killing orders in light of what I’d just done: beaten him at Mind Manipulating.
But just as he was blowing out a reeking breath and all of my knives were twitching forward, a glint of metal caught both of our eyes.
Garvis came leaping into the alley with his machete raised high. Lexington managed to jolt to the side to try to avoid it, but he didn’t make it far enough.
The machete crashed down on Lexington’s left shoulder, right over his original brand.
Bone cracked. Warm and sticky pinpricks splattered my face. At Lexington’s howl of pain, my knives spun around as if of their own accord, controlled by his Object Summoning power…
Garvis didn’t have time to tug his machete back out.
He didn’t have time to back away.
He didn’t even have time to raise his arms.
The knives burrowed into him from every direction—impaling his stomach, his heart, his lungs.
And my world slid sideways as Garvis toppled.
A scream was fracturing in my mouth, ripping my vocal cords apart, shredding all the words I couldn’t say to pieces.
And then he was there—Coen, right in front of my face, dripping with gore and grasping me by the back of my neck.
“Rayna. I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize you were gone until I cut off the last brand and heard you scream. What—?”
He read everything in my eyes and pivoted, processing Garvis on the ground, surrounded by a spreading pool of liquid I refused to name.
Lexington himself had been staggering backward with the machete still lodged in his shoulder, but at the sight of Coen and Old Veracious before him, he straightened with a hiss.
“You—” he began, eyes moving hungrily to the sword.
Just like Garvis hadn’t had a chance to defend himself, though, neither did Lexington.
I had already opened myself up to Coen again, and with our consciousnesses merging just like it had before, we moved as one.
My hands shot forward to take the pommel of Old Veracious while Coen materialized behind Lexington, locking his wrists behind his back, and growling in a voice that dripped with predatory command, “Stand still. Do not use your Object Summoning power or any power at all. Watch the reflection of the light as it leaves your eyes.”
Through our open connection, I knew Coen’s rage and grief and fear had been strong enough for the command to latch onto him.
Lexington went still, his pupils forced to tack onto the glinting blade before him and the reflection that shimmered in the steel.
But his mouth was still able to move, and I knew he was talking to me.
“I’ve been in your mind, girl. I know your deepest fears.”
I adjusted my grip on the sword.
“You don’t want this kind of blood on your hands,” Lexington continued confidently as Coen kept his arms firmly locked behind his back.
“You’re too desperate to prove to the world that you’re good.
” He licked a splatter of blood off his lips.
“So prove it, Ms. Drey. Prove to me that you’re a good person and drop that sword. ”
I took a deep breath. We didn’t have time for this conversation. Garvis was bleeding out now. And with my subconscious stirring right behind my eyes, I didn’t need to perseverate on his words or wonder if they were true. I already had my answer.
“I don’t have to prove anything to someone who knocks other people down just to feel big,” I told him.
Old Veracious hummed in my hands, sending vibrations up my arms, into my chest, into my very soul.
When I pressed the edge of it against Lexington’s neck, those vibrations whispered all the truths about the man’s identity before me.
Kitterfol “Kitty” Lexington, born of Andrea Brink and Fallon Lexington 37 years ago in Belliview on the island of Eshol.
Mind Manipulator. Object Summoner. Good Council Elite. Assaulter. Madman. Parasite.
But one word stood out above all the others.
Coward.
Lexington’s eyes widened a fraction as he saw the determination settle on my face. His own face crumpled.
I hefted the pommel to the side and swung.
“No!” he blubbered. “St—”
The sword severed through his neck in one swift stroke, the cut so precise and clean that I barely felt the impact.
And the most famous Mind Manipulating head on the island bounced to the ground at my feet.