Chapter 32
E ven if her mouth hadn’t been stuffed with linen, we’d never have heard Cosmina scream over my own wail that shreds my vocal cords. Sin moves in front of me, tilting my chin up to look at him.
“Remember the rules, Wren. The faster you tell me the truth, the faster you get to run to Anika, and the faster she gets to work trying to salvage your sister’s broken pieces.”
We’re too high up. No one could survive a drop from this height, Anika’s magic be damned.
A faint flicker of hope flits across my chest at that. Magic . Cosmina may have been able to pull on some of her magic to slow her fall. If she had been quick enough, able to think clearly through the adrenaline, she could have softened how hard she hit the ground. But her bones would still have shattered, her head would still have collided with rock, her blood would still be rushing from her rips and tears far, far too quickly.
You know I would do anything for you, right? Cosmina knew this was coming. She agreed to it. That’s why she had been crying. Because while I stood here silently cursing Sin for giving Vox the opportunity to cut into my sister, she knew she was about to be thrown from a fucking tower.
The bloodwitch stirs in my veins.
“The dagger, Wren,” Sin repeats, louder now.
I yank my chin out of his grasp. “Torin. He wanted me to steal it and bring it to him. He told me to signal him at the waystone, and that after his seer ,” I spit the word at him, “broke the enchantment, he would seize the isle with the god magic and offer me refuge into Baelliarah. Now let me go,” I snarl.
Sin nods once and looks over his shoulder to Vox. “I want every Source-wielding elf cloaking the grounds at once. Do you understand?”
“At once, Your Grace,” he agrees, voice wooden.
“Let me go, Singard,” I growl again.
Sin turns back to me and yanks me to my feet, but he’s not meeting my eyes now. “See how much better things turn out when you shut up and follow directions?” He removes my binding, then leads me to the door, opens it, and shoves me through the threshold.
“I suggest you run fast.”
I fly down the stairs, nearly tripping myself from how quickly I take them. Sin wouldn’t actually allow hurt to befall my sister, would he? Not after everything—fuck, not after last night!
Still, the sight of my sister falling from that tower sends me hurtling through the doors to the western courtyard. I’m already hollering for Anika when I push them open, but my feet skid to a stop when I run right into her.
No— Eldridge . He grabs my arm to steady me, and behind him are the rest of my siblings. All of them.
I rush to Cosmina, assessing her from head to toe and finding not a single scratch on her. She clutches a piece of wet cloth and bats her puffy eyes with it, but that is her only sign of distress. “What in the gods’ names is going on here?”
“Cassius gave me a potion. Sin made him prove that it worked by taking it himself and jumping from the tower this morning. It slows your momentum, and by the time I reached the ground, I was able to plant my feet. I wasn’t hurt at all.”
“Your eyes,” I say, and she drops the wet cloth to her side.
“Daffodil sap,” she explains. “I patted it into my eyes to irritate them. I’ve been told it will resolve in a few hours.”
I look to Zorina, then Theon and Eldridge, expecting them to be as outraged as myself, but it’s only concern for me painted on their faces. Have they all lost their damn minds?! “This is actually insane. You let him throw you off a damn tower, Cosmina, on the promise that a fucking POTION would work!”
She straightens, meeting my stare head-on. “It did work,” she says, as if that somehow lessens the outlandishness of it.
“Gah!” I storm away from her, away from all of them, focusing on the smoke puffing from the kitchen’s chimneys. “You all knew. I can’t believe the three of you would allow her to agree to something so stupid.”
“Sin needed your reaction to be believable, Wren,” Zorina placates.
I hiss at the mention of his name.
“I agreed to this, sister,” Cosmina says, moving to stand in front of me again.
“But I did not!” I shout. “I agreed to let Sin do what he must to me ! I never said he could put any of you in danger, and especially not to protect me.”
“Oh, come off, Wren,” Eldridge huffs. “You are always so hell-bent on protecting everyone else, but you refuse to allow anyone else to do the same for you.”
“My very existence puts all of you in danger. None of you asked for that, and I will be damned if I allow what I am to be the thing that gets any of you killed.”
“You think we didn’t know that?” Zorina scoffs. “We knew what you were, and we took you in anyway, because we fucking love you, for Slaine’s sake! If you think for a split second that any of us wouldn’t have bloody jumped off that tower for you, you’re sadly mistaken. We all volunteered, but it was Cosmina who wanted to do it. For you. Because she loves you, and sometimes with love, you have to make decisions that really fucking suck.”
“You would have done the same for any of us,” Theon adds, his voice far calmer than the others. No surprise there; Theon always has been the most level-headed of any of us.
“Of course I would have.”
“Our safety is no more valuable than yours, just as your death would be no less unbearable than ours.”
The four of them look at me pointedly, and I blow out a breath, unable to argue their point. I turn to Cosmina and pull her into me, needing to feel her weight against my chest. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I just got so scared when he threw you. I can’t lose you. I can’t lose any of you.”
Eldridge grabs my elbow and tugs me against him, then raises that same arm to aggressively tousle my hair. “I can’t believe you’re making me say this but consider giving Sin a break on this one. Pick something else to bitch at him about, but this… not this.”
I blow the loose hair out of my eyes and tuck it back behind my ears, giving a playful swat to his hand.
“He was worried you would be furious with him,” Cosmina says. “He didn’t want to do it, Wren, but just as you are so willing to do anything for us, is it really so difficult to see that Sin would do the same for you? That no matter how much we don’t want to hurt the ones we love, it is better than being forced to watch as someone else does.”
My lungs constrict as I remember the night Cosmina pulled me from the woods and we fled, away from the horrors of that Legion camp, away from Ileana. What I wouldn’t give to be able to do it again and save her from that imprisonment. I would have allowed the bloodwitch to eclipse me completely, taken me away from the ones I loved, if it meant protecting Ileana from the terrors she was forced to endure for months because I was a coward.
Sometimes with love, you have to make decisions that really fucking suck.
Sin had hurt me in the beginning, but hasn’t his every move since then been to protect me? From leaping in front of me to take the bolt meant for my heart, to choosing me over his father, to coming back for me and pulling me from the ravine, to every single argument we’ve had in the past month, because every single one has been about keeping me safe. His words may be cruel at times, but his actions have only ever been motivated by love.
“He would do anything for me,” I murmur.
Zorina smirks, canting her head. “And despite my better judgment, you love him just as much, you lovesick pup. Now find Aeverie so you can kill this seer bitch. Mina and I have to go. There is much to plan.”
I raise an eyebrow at her. “You some kind of battle strategist now, sister?”
Her half-grin blooms into something all-consuming. “No, silly pup. I hear there’s to be a wedding soon.”