Chapter 75
Griff held me, propping my arm over his shoulder.
“I’m all right,” I said, trying to stand on my own. He shook his head and held me tightly against him. He wasn’t wrong. I was shaky, my tongue was so heavy I could barely speak, and the asylum’s halls were tilting and swaying under my high heels.
I’d only taken three steps outside of Jagger’s door before the floor had bucked under me and I’d nearly fallen on my face.
I closed my eyes, trying to regain my equilibrium, but that only made me dizzier.
The hallway was dark and echoed with distant chatter, but the area around Jagger’s office was empty. It was a general rule that Jagger’s creatures wanted to be close to him, but not so close he noticed them.
Griff waited patiently, his arm around my waist. He stared down at me worriedly, his gaze running over my expression, searching for a hint as to why he’d had to pull me up off Jagger’s floor.
“I’m not going to talk about it,” I said.
Griff frowned, and it looked like he wanted to argue, but then he made a face and shrugged. He walked slowly, and step by step, the floor stopped bucking, and I regained my footing.
“I’m okay now. You don’t have to—”
Griff pinched the underside of my arm.
“Ouch! Okay. You know what? You’re a bully.”
He stared at me.
I stared back.
Finally, I blew out a breath. “Fine. I’ll change. I’ll clean up. I’ll have breakfast with you and Rou. But then . . . you heard Jagger. I have to go to the Clarks’.”
Griff’s mouth curved into a slow smile. He’d won our unspoken argument. He tugged me closer.
“I see. You like bossing people around—”
I broke off as Griff shoved me behind him. I knocked against the stone wall, my head snapping back and hitting the surface. Sparks burst, and I shook my head. Winded. Griff was stronger than he realized.
I blinked as his wings burst free. He crouched in front of me, snarling. He’d taken his father’s form. His wings spanned nearly the entire width of the hallway. They twitched menacingly, and his tail whipped back and forth.
My head throbbed from striking against the stone. A slow nausea built in my stomach. I pressed my back against the wall, steadying myself, while the floor wobbled and tilted.
I couldn’t see around Griff’s wings—he’d flared them wide. But I could feel.
There was the low hum of illusion. And when I looked in the space outside myself, I saw Justice’s simple knots. They were distinct in their rudimentariness. One gentle tug, and they’d unravel.
My heart tumbled in my chest, falling over itself to clamor to him.
“Griff,” Justice said, and I nearly leaped over Griff’s wings at the sound of his deep voice. It echoed through the hall, and Griff snarled. “Step aside.”
I pushed off the wall and wobbled on my heels. I grabbed Griff’s back to steady myself and tried to move his wing.
“Either you move, or I move you. The first way, you live. The second, you die.”
I stopped tugging at Griff’s wing. A slow itch traveled up my spine. “Justice?”
There was the sound of a sharp inhale, and then weighted silence. Griff’s form was tense. His skin was kicking off a violent heat, like a tar pit bubbling under an alien sun.
“Griff, move,” I said softly.
His wings twitched. The dark hall filled with a steaming, boiling pressure. What was this?
But then, the pressure and the heat evaporated, and Griff shrank back to his own form. He caught me as I stumbled. I didn’t notice him holding me up. The entire hallway had shrunk to a single point.
I stared at the man standing in front of me.
What had happened to him?
All the air leaked from my lungs like a deflated balloon. Had I been happy? Had I felt joy? Had I really felt like I could spin and fly because Justice was back?
“Yes,” he said, smiling, “I know what you’re thinking. It would’ve been better if I’d died.”
No. That wasn’t it.
It would’ve been better if . . . no . . . There was never any point in wishing for a different past. There was only one way to change the past, and that was by altering the future. The only way you could go backward was by walking forward. The only way you could rise up was by falling down.
Justice was a different man.
He was older. Years older. There were lines on his forehead. Crow’s feet spanning from his eyes. Lines of pain bracketing his mouth. He’d always kept his hair shorter, but now, it reached his shoulders. A closely trimmed beard lined his face. But those were superficial changes.
I stepped forward, my hand raised to the scar that tore from his eye, trailing down his cheek. It was hidden beneath his chin, but I knew where it ended. I’d cried that tear.
For him.
I’d cried that cut.
I’d felt every single one of the scars marring his skin.
I reached out and pressed my fingers to the scar’s raised edge. It was hot, and Justice hissed as if my touch burned. He grabbed my hand and began to yank it away, but just as suddenly, he stopped and held my fingers against his cheek.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. My throat ached with all the jagged-edged words trying to rush out, piling one on top of the other. But all I could say was, “You weren’t worth sav—sav—saving.”
My throat closed, and I choked on Jagger’s words, hating them as they spilled free.
Justice dropped my hand, then he grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me close.
Behind me, Griff snarled, sounding just like his father.
Justice’s lips curved as he held my mouth an inch from his. “I used to dream about you,” he whispered, his warm breath fanning over my lips. “Then I had nightmares about you. Finally, I stopped dreaming altogether.”
I stared into his flat gray eyes. There was no kindness.
No sorrow. No love. No regret. Nothing but hate.
They were Jagger’s eyes, but worse, because I knew what they’d looked like before he’d lost the last of himself.
I didn’t know how long Justice had been in the Den of Depravity, but the time had turned his skin milky and pale.
His freckles were stark and out of place, and the raised scars zigzagged angrily over him.
When I’d asked him what his depravity was, he’d said, “You.”
Was that still true?
Griff snarled, and Justice tore his gaze from mine. His smile no longer held any of his warmth—it was merely the stretching of his lips. “What? Don’t want to say hello? Aren’t we friends anymore, Griff?”
When Griff didn’t answer, Justice’s eyes narrowed. His jaw hardened, and I saw in him the same expression Jagger had right before he tore someone’s limbs free and laughed as they bled out.
“He can’t,” I said. And when Justice focused on me, I said, “He can’t speak. Jagger took his tongue.”
Justice nodded. Then he stepped back, dropping his hand from my neck. I wobbled on my heels, and Griff caught my arm.
Justice stared at the two of us, looking at us in a way he’d never done before.
I had the feeling he was cataloging everything about us.
It was a cold perusal, as if he were noting every potential weakness, every soft place to strike.
How I was unsteady. How I couldn’t stand straight in my heels.
How I was covered in blood and bruises. How Griff was harder, but also more brittle than he had been.
How his nostrils flared like he was testing Justice’s scent and didn’t like the result.
Justice stepped forward. He ignored Griff’s warning growl and took a fistful of my dress’s tulle in his hand. He crushed the fabric, and some of the dried blood flaked free, falling to the floor.
“When I was in the den,” he said, his voice barely discernable over my drumming heart, “I became the den. I was every depravity. All of them. Do you know what that’s like?”
I swallowed. “No.”
Justice dropped his handful of tulle and stepped back. He clenched his hand on empty air. “Good.” He took another step away. And another. “Before we went to the den, Jagger offered me a bargain, and I refused. This time, he didn’t need to bargain. I’m going to do it for free.”
I watched him walk away. He was a long, thin, terrifying man. He’d been hollowed out and filled with something new. Before, he’d been a monster. Now, he was monstrous.
Griff touched my arm, a question in his gaze.
I nodded. “I know. We’re in trouble. I promise I’ll stay away from him. You too. I don’t think any of us are safe with him anymore.”
Griff and I had a quick breakfast of scones and tea, Rou lecturing us the whole time. I changed into jeans and a T-shirt but kept the pouch of explosives, poison darts, and blood snakes in my pocket. I even strapped the Smith’s folly to my chest.
Justice had spooked me. My dreams had spooked me. The Clarks always spooked me.
I thought about how the Finn in my dreams had told me he wouldn’t come to me again.
I thought about how the real Finn had promised to kill me.
I thought about how the Finn in my dreams had promised that when I woke up, I’d be free.
I didn’t feel free. In fact, I felt farther from freedom, farther from hope, then I’d ever felt in my entire life.
It was a strange thing about human nature that when Last waved at me from the decimated Clark Mansion, I lifted my hand, waved back, and smiled.