Chapter 35
THIRTY-FIVE
NINA
“Where is he?” I paced the lobby at Ronny’s. We’d waited for ages at the gate. Searched for him when the smoke cleared. No one had seen Max since he blew apart the barricade. They’d had to drag me back to the brothel, worried we’d be arrested if we lingered too long.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Elli said, rubbing her hands together. The lobby, normally bright and buzzing, was dead. The lights were low. The mood grim. Some of the captured Cursed were still waiting for their poisoned cuffs to be removed, and their cries of pain echoed from the parlor.
“There’s a car parking out front. Not one of ours,” Andre announced from his perch by the window. “Nina, wait—”
I didn’t heed a single warning they gave me, too eager to see if Max had finally returned.
I burst through the wooden front doors, pausing at the top of the steps leading to the street.
The windows of the motorcar were blacked out, the slip of the moon too small to contribute any lighting.
A man, no one I recognized, popped out of the driver’s seat to open the back door.
It was her. Finally. The woman I’d turned over the city to find.
“Mother.” My voice was broken in my throat, coming out in cracks. I ran to her, gathering her bony body in a tight embrace. She clutched me back, holding me in a way I desperately needed, with a strength only she possessed.
“But how?” I looked to her, then the driver. He barely glanced back at me as he returned to the car and slammed the door shut.
“Nina?” Elli’s voice was hopeful behind me. “Is that…?”
“Yes,” I smiled back at her, “but I don’t know why or how…” Ice gripped my quivering heart. If she was here, and Max was not, then what if he… “No! He couldn’t have.”
Elli’s smile melted from her cheeks. “Max…”
As if called, the speakers on the streets barked to life. Static filled the empty roads.
Maxence started speaking through the PA system.
Nina Veyr…
“What’s happening?” I whispered.
Elli’s eyes were wide, looking around at the speakers carrying his voice across the lonely night. “I don’t know.”
His voice hit the airwaves once more.
I don’t have much time to talk, so I’ll keep it simple.
Something has come up, and I’m afraid I won’t be coming home.
By the time you’re listening to this, you will have your mother back as you always wanted, and I will most likely be dead.
There is no changing what has been done. I can only hope you understand.
I didn’t. My head shook in protest. Pain splintered through my chest as I tried to deny his words.
I must tell you before it’s too late.
He sounded more out of breath than before.
If you remember anything about me, remember how much I cared for you.
I didn’t say it before because I was a coward.
But know beyond every doubt, every day that passes, that I love you, that I could never stop loving you.
That I loved you as much as a man like me could ever love someone.
You are my peace and my sanctuary, and I am not afraid of what will come, because I know you have everything you need now.
I shuddered, leaning against Elli, who had appeared at my side. Every line he fed me was a bullet in my chest, and I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see through the tears blurring my vision.
Max still went on.
You saved me when I didn’t want to be saved. Now I’ve done the same for you. I love you, Nina. Don’t change who you are for these bastards. Live. Please. For the both of us.
The speakers cut off, and it was as if someone struck a stone against my heart.
“Nina…” My mother’s voice trembled as she leaned away from my embrace. “Gift.”
She took my hand and placed a velvet pouch into my palm. I clutched it, turning it over to find Max’s dice. These were the source of his power; without them, he couldn’t use his gifts. Which meant this was a true surrender. My mother’s deliverance had been a trade of some kind.
“Maxence…” I squeezed the relics until they poked uncomfortably in my hand.
“Come on, Nina,” Elli murmured behind me, her voice fighting a quiver. “We need to get you both inside.”
I looked down the street to see the mysterious men in the unmarked car disappear in the direction of the Upper District. I collapsed to my knees, shock stealing my strength.
Max’s last words, that final confession, echoed through the cobbled chambers of my heart. My grief sharpened into a deeper rage. A whetstone to all the shattered pieces, shaping them each into a violent, lethal weapon.
He loved me.
I loved him back.
I lifted my head, staring toward the lighted spires of the Academy that ruled over the skyline. My fingers trembled around the relics.
I didn’t care what bargain had been made. What deal was struck. I would find who did this to him—to all of us—and I’d make them pay whatever they had taken from Max. A life for the life I was robbed of.
I would never be the same after tonight. These pieces of me would never fit back in the same place. That girl I’d been—the one who believed in mercy and second chances and healing—she was gone. My new role became clear. I would be the Crown Killer they feared, born from everything they’d broken.
Don’t change who you are for these bastards.
It was far too late for that.