Chapter 39
The acrid smell of smoke burned August’s nose, and he blinked hard as the tingling in his head faded.
Felix was facing away, and Marlow was folded forward, hands on her knees, fighting to catch her breath. They’d made it out. Everyone was still standing. Still conscious.
Relief flickered, then crumbled to ash as the realization slammed into him.
Felix had used his magic. Forced August to obey. He promised he would never do it again.
August had trusted him. Despite everything he’d been taught. But Felix didn’t give a damn who he hurt.
He lied.
August lunged to shove him forward. It barely made an impact, but when Felix whirled around, he had the audacity to look surprised.
“How dare you use magic on me!” August shouted, anger throbbing behind his eyes.
Felix blinked, and coldness settled over his features. “I did what needed to be done.”
Not an ounce of guilt.
Felix didn’t care. He’d broken his promise—broken everything—and couldn’t even pretend to be torn up about it.
August moved in close, chin raised to meet Felix’s eyes. “I won’t tolerate being used. You think you can do whatever you want, but you can’t. There are consequences.”
“Are there now?” Felix asked. “And what consequences will Ashcroft and your mother face? Who’s going to hold them accountable?”
August knew the answer. There would be no consequences, and no one would ever hold them accountable. Nobody could. But he couldn’t bring himself to say that.
So he said, “I don’t know.”
“I do,” said Felix. His lips twisted into a dangerous smile. “Me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t go after them.”
“Are you going to stop me, Aesling?” Gold glinted in his blue eyes, an unspoken threat.
August didn’t recognize the boy in front of him. The one he thought he knew, thought he might have loved, was gone. Or perhaps he never existed in the first place and August had just been so desperate for something real that he missed all the signs.
“I swear to Baellas, Felix. If you ever use your magic on me again, I’ll have you arrested.”
Felix’s eyebrows pinched, hurt flashing briefly on his face. And then it was gone, like a window slamming shut.
“That so?” he asked.
Footsteps approached, bringing with them the purposeful voices of the City Watch.
“Felix,” Marlow said warily. “We need to go.”
“Not yet!”
August shook his head. “Well, I’m leaving. Good luck with all this.”
“You’re a damned coward, you know that? Since the moment you found out what I am, you’ve been searching for a reason to hate me.”
August’s lip curled. “And you were clearly eager to give me one!” Everything in him was screaming to walk away, but instead, he asked, “Are you even sorry?”
Would it even matter if Felix was sorry? The damage was done. Was August really so desperate to hold onto this?
“Sorry for what?” asked Felix. “Being more powerful than you?”
August bristled, his pride drawing out a response before he thought better of it. “You have magic, not power. There’s a difference. I have both.”
It was a stupid, arrogant thing to say, but he was feeling particularly stupid and arrogant at the moment. He knew it was a blow that would cut deep. And he wanted Felix to hurt.
Clearly it worked.
His irises lit gold, and the air hummed with his magic.
Fear shot through August like a lightning bolt, the jolt sending him back a step, and when he called out to the Watch, it was a knee-jerk reaction born of self-preservation.
A shadow darkened Felix’s face. “I see you’ve chosen your side.”
“You did this,” August snapped back. “I warned you.”
“You two shouldn’t be here,” an officer said as he crossed to them, but Felix didn’t even spare the man a glance.
You two. Marlow must have run.
“They won’t be able to hold me,” Felix warned, venomous eyes fixed on August. “I will come after you.”
August took another step back, and let the words spill out. “He used illegal magic.”
That sent the officer into action. He called the others, and in a heartbeat, all five of them were there, rifles aimed.
“On the ground, hands out front.”
Felix’s smile was slow and feral, and it made August’s blood turn cold.
The officer was talking. Wanting to know what kind of magic. They needed to know what they were facing. How to restrain him. Wielder cuffs weren’t always enough.
They wouldn’t be enough.
When August answered the question, offering only the magic Felix had used, the officers all took a nervous step back.
Gods, what if Felix was right? What if they couldn’t hold him?
He couldn’t break the hold Felix’s steady eyes had on him. Dark blue, like the sky at the first sign of dawn. Sharp and dangerous.
The officer said something else, but August wasn’t paying attention. The only thing he caught was his title. They used his title. They recognized him. They were going to take him home. He couldn’t go home.
He needed to disappear.
Run.
There was a cottage in the forest near Bedwyck that had been in his mother’s family for generations. His father told him once that she hated it. She’d never think to look there. He could hide. From her. From his exposed secret. From Felix.
But he had to find Lottie first. He had to tell her. The Watch could help him do that. Then he’d go.
“Alright,” said Felix. “My turn to speak.” The smile vanished, and his blue eyes turned gold. He leveled his attention on the first officer. “Shoot yourself.”
The words vibrated the air, and the man didn’t even hesitate. He pressed the rifle barrel beneath his chin and pulled the trigger. The deafening bang cut down the quiet street as his head kicked violently back, and he fell.
A strangled sound ripped from August’s throat.
I will come after you
He needed to get away from here.
With trembling hands, he tried to call his power, tried to force it forward. It didn’t respond.
Fear locked him in place, the horror of the officer’s shattered skull rising bile in his throat.
Marlow appeared out of nowhere, grabbing an officer by the shoulder and pressing a hand to his chest. The rings in her eyes lit up red, and the man writhed, body contorting unnaturally until he dropped with a heavy thud.
Felix cut his gaze to another—a man with a muscular build and a shiny head. “Kill the others.”
The man’s expression dropped. He turned to a slender female officer, clamped his hands on either side of her head, and swiftly snapped her neck. When he turned to the last, the terrified officer bolted down the street. The bulky man followed.
The gold faded, and Felix snatched a rifle from the woman’s corpse. He sighed heavily, as if the entire ordeal were nothing more than a frustrating inconvenience, then leveled the weapon at August.
Dread sank in his stomach, heavy as a stone in a still pond. He lifted his hands defensively. “Felix, don’t!”
A flicker of surprise crossed Felix’s face, and the gun lowered slightly. He narrowed his eyes, gaze locked onto the injured hand.
When August turned his hand around, his breath hitched.
The skin, torn open only minutes earlier, was smooth. Blood still crusted his wrist, but the cut was gone. No scar. No sign it had ever been there.
Before he could make sense of it, Felix raised the gun again.
August spun on his heel and ran, flinching at the sound of the gunshot behind him.