Chapter 11 #3
“No.”
The silence between them stretched. She felt it in her ribs, a slow, expanding pressure.
“Say it again,” he said.
Her eyes flashed up to his. “What?”
“That it doesn’t matter.” His voice was low and unbearably even. “Say it again.”
She opened her mouth.
The words were already there, waiting, simple and obvious and well-rehearsed. She had spoken some version of them aloud and to herself a hundred times across the last several centuries, and they had always come easily. Anytime his name popped into her head, the words had been there to banish him.
They did not come now.
Because this time, she understood what he was actually doing.
He was not asking her to repeat the words.
He was asking her if she believed them. He was asking the version of her standing in this book, in this air, an inch closer to him than she should have been, whether the line she had drawn could still hold its own weight.
That was a much more dangerous question.
The Nushtonia shifted around them. Pages turned somewhere just out of sight, a soft, papery rustle that crawled along the back of her neck. Waiting. Watching. Patient in the same way Shade was patient, and she did not appreciate the comparison even though her own mind had made it.
She swallowed.
For the first time since she had stepped into the Nushtonia, she could not say with certainty which answer was the truth.
The book continued to shift again, and then there was another Shade again. This one was older than the other versions; in fact, he didn’t look too far from his current age. His attention finally left her and focused on the new oath that was apparently coming.
From the shadows beyond the other Shade, Thadrick stepped. Myanin’s breath caught as she stared at the two men who’d both held different parts of her heart.
“Umm, what the hell?” Myanin muttered.
Shade attempted to step in front of her, as if he wanted to keep her from seeing this. Fat chance. He got to see her mess, then she got to see his.
“Where is she?” the book Shade asked.
Thadrick didn’t move as he spoke. “Far from you, where she belongs.”
“You think you’re any better than me?” book Shade asked.
Thadrick shook his head. “I think we’re both wrong for her. She deserves better.”
“You have no damn clue what she deserves,” book Shade snarled.
“I know she doesn’t need you.”
“I’ll kill you for keeping me from her,” book Shade threatened. He pulled a blade from his side and ran it across his palm. “I swear it as a blood oath, you will die by my blade.”
Myanin sucked in a sharp breath. “How could you?” She wanted to hit him. “A blood oath, Shade? Seriously?”
“I’ll admit I was a tad impulsive,” he said dryly.
“You think?”
Book Shade stood there, blood dripping on the ground while Thadrick looked unmoved. “You can try. We both know she’d never forgive you if you did.”
“If I never find her, what will her forgiveness matter?”
Myanin did hit him this time, smacking his arm. “Dick.”
He leaned away from her. “Always so violent,” he said, affection filling his tone, and she hated the way it made her stomach drop just a little.
Suddenly Thadrick disappeared into smoke, and so did book Shade. Myanin turned slowly to look at her Shade. No. Not her Shade. The current Shade, that’s what she’d meant.
“You know what a broken blood oath means.” It wasn’t a question.
Shade continued to stare where the apparition had been. “It’s not broken, yet. I’m still alive. Plenty of time to remove Thadrick’s annoying existence from the world.”
The shadows moved and formed a body, though there were no defining features. “Lie,” the shadow said, its words directed at Shade. “Blood oath made, no truth behind it. The same as a blood oath unfinished.”
“Wait,” Myanin blinked several times. “You didn’t actually mean it?”
Shade still wouldn’t look at her. “I totally meant it.”
“Not according to devil book,” she challenged. “According to the shadow man, you were standing there dripping blood on the ground like an idiot just to posture like you needed to measure your—”
His head snapped around. “Seriously?”
Myanin rolled her eyes. “I’m not a child.”
“Then don’t act like one.”
“I will if I want to,” she crossed her arms and tapped her foot, like the mature adult she was.
Shade tilted his head back, face up and eyes closed.
He muttered something under his breath, not loud enough that she could hear it.
Myanin smiled. Good. Getting on his nerves was much better than dealing with whatever the hell had been happening before the book revealed another broken oath.
In fact, Myanin hoped it kept throwing failed oaths over and over so they didn’t have time to go back to the previous topic. Yep, that would be just fine with her.
The book began to shift again, until they were in some sort of room. Flames erupted and paper went up like someone had thrown a match on it. There was no heat from the fire. It was as if it was cleansing the place of what had just been spoken.
Burn it all down, she thought as she watched.