Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Lienna
Conditioned responses were a significant part of my martial arts training.
Override the flight-or-freeze panic response with strategic, practiced actions.
Manage adrenaline, use controlled intensity instead of fear or anger, rely on instinct, on muscle memory built across years of drills and practice.
But I didn’t have a conditioned response for this. There was no practiced action, no strategic move, no way to stop the adrenaline-fueled panic that flooded my body and froze all my muscles.
“Lienna,” my father said, a gruff note of relief in his voice. “Come. We need to get out of here.”
“Dad.” The word scraped out of my throat. My hands finally moved, spinning my cube, but I didn’t know what spell I needed. “How—”
He gripped my elbow and pulled me out of my paralysis. I stumbled after him toward the museum’s main entrance.
“We can talk later.” His head turned from side to side as he searched the dark exhibits. “First, I need to get you somewhere safe.”
I wrenched my arm out of his hold, stumbling again. The precise balance I’d used to land high kicks on the jaws of attacking mages had abandoned me, leaving my legs numb.
He reached for my arm again.
“Why are you here?” I backed up a step, panic howling through me. “How did you find me?”
“I’m here to get you to safety, Lienna.” His voice sharpened. “We’ll discuss the details later. You need—”
“No,” I snapped. “No, you need to explain now.”
Reason was returning to my thoughts. And part of me already understood what his presence meant—the part making my heart race and my hands shake and my fingers twist my cube into combination after combination even though there was no spell in the world that could save me from what was coming.
From one of my worst nightmares becoming a reality.
“You’re in danger, Lienna. More than you know.” He reached for my arm a third time. “Let’s—”
This time, the conditioned response I’d trained so diligently kicked in. I smacked his hand away and fell back to a defensive distance, still gripping my cube.
Dad stared at me, disbelief creasing his brow. Cancer and chemo had hollowed his cheeks and thinned his shoulders, but he’d recovered a lot of strength in the last few months I’d spent with him in LA—caring for him, mending my relationship with him, trying to forgive him.
I’d been so blind.
“How could you,” I whispered, my voice cracking. “How dare you.”
His face hardened into the authoritative mask of LA’s deputy captain. “Don’t be ridiculous, Lienna. This vigilantism won’t change anything. Your safety—”
“My safety?” My voice rose, piercing the hush that lay over the museum. “Don’t pretend to care about my safety. You’ve been waiting for me to give away my location, haven’t you? What was it? All that noise when I called you—is that how you figured it out?”
“You’re being hysterical,” he barked. “I’m here to help you, and we don’t have time to waste.”
“No, we don’t!” I shoved my cube back into my satchel, never taking my eyes off him. My fingers closed around a different object. “What did they offer you?”
He went still, mouth open but wordless.
Pain cleaved my chest, as terrible as the day I realized he was letting criminals walk in exchange for bribes. No, this was worse. This time, he wasn’t committing a petty crime for a petty reward.
This time, he’d taken the side of corruption and evil. Whether he wanted to protect me or not, he’d betrayed me. He’d betrayed everything I was fighting for. He’d become the very thing Kit and I were fighting against.
He was Consilium.
I yanked my wooden knife from my satchel. “Ori consi—”
His hand flashed out, striking my wrist. The artifact flew out of my hand and clattered across the floor. Just as fast, he caught my other wrist, a foot blocking mine, and pulled me in an elbow-bending hold.
Dropping my satchel, I bent forward at the waist and yanked him across my back, trying to throw him down.
He landed on his feet, his hold on me broken. We separated, our hands raised, eyes locked, but this wasn’t just another sparring match between us.
“Lienna,” he said, an urgent, almost pleading note in his hoarse voice. “Let me explain—”
My vision splintered with fury. I lunged forward. Our hands connected in rapid strikes, feet constantly moving. One slip, one mistake, and I could lock him in a hold—or he could pin me.
“Lienna—”
“No!” I didn’t want his excuses. I wanted to never see his face again. I wanted to scream.
“You don’t understand—”
“Don’t patronize me!” As I yelled the words, I spun, my leg flashing up. My heel struck him in the sternum, throwing him backward. He fell, rolled, and came up on his feet in time to catch my second kick. He yanked me off balance.
He caught my elbow as I fell, securing it behind me, his legs pinning mine. I couldn’t move an inch without tearing something in my arm.
“Whatever you believe about me, Lienna,” he panted, “I will protect you—”
I twisted my arm, prepared to dislocate my shoulder.
He let go.
I threw him off me, rolled across the floor, slapped my hand down on my wooden knife, and swung the point toward him.
He, too, had an artifact, the incantation on his lips.
I ducked. “Ori consistere!”
His spell flew over my head in a flash of pale purple. Blue magic arced out of my artifact at ankle height. It caught Dad’s legs, and he lurched, arms thrown wide for balance.
I shoved to my feet, my body aching from its impact with the floor. Or maybe it was my heart struggling against the rage and anguish clogging my arteries.
Grabbing my satchel, I turned toward my father, reached into my pocket, and pulled out the flower-tile keychain. The array on the back seemed to burn my palm—the spell that could locate its twin. The twin spell he possessed, that I’d asked him to look for yesterday.
My chest quaked. My breathing was ragged.
I flung the keychain at his feet. Then I was running back the way I’d come—back toward the door to the staff area, to Ballester’s office, to wherever Kit had gone.
If my father knew I was here, then the Consilium knew Kit was here too.
We’d walked into their trap, and I feared—no, I knew—it was already too late.