Chapter Thirty-Five #2
“Then don’t go far,” Val corrected. “We should leave soon.”
Penn laughed at his concern. “It’s not like I’ll get lost—” Before he finished, he realized he was talking to himself. Val and the servant had already left.
Adelaide called his name, and he turned back to her. As he did, the room tilted around him, like a cart trying to dump him out. He grabbed the edge of the table to steady himself and blinked until the room came back into focus.
They stood in the middle of Adelaide’s workroom. One wall had shelves lined with herbs and other supplies, all sorted alphabetically. The other three were solid gray stone, stretching up endlessly into the sky.
“What—weren’t we—” Penn’s sentence tumbled to a stop as pain burst in his head. Like a cleaver sliced through his brain, separating it into two distinct parts.
“We don’t have much time. I don’t know how long Alistair will be distracted,” Adelaide said. Her firm grip on Penn’s hand grounded him, allowing him to pull away from the pain to focus on her.
“Alistair,” he repeated, confused. The name was familiar, but he couldn’t remember—pale hair, blue eyes, every inch of him as cold as the ice he controlled. Penn squeezed his eyes shut, but it didn’t block out the images assailing him.
Their first meeting at Veritim Palace.
Alistair sneering at Penn through the bars of a jail cell.
The unconscious body of a man they should have killed when they had the chance.
An ice blue eye staring at Penn from Valerian’s face.
Penn thumped heavily into the table he’d grabbed onto. “How did I forget …” Slowly, he looked around the room again, his confusion growing as the details blurred. The only things that remained in focus were the stone walls around him. “Where are we?”
Adelaide sighed. “It’s a little difficult to explain, but essentially, we’re inside your memories.”
“So we aren’t actually speaking right now? I’m imagining this conversation?”
“No.” Her answer was sharp and fierce. “We are speaking right now, and you need to remember what I say to you. If you treat this like a dream, Alistair will pull you back into the illusion he’s created. Do you remember what really happened at Causley Estate?”
“What really happened?” Again, pain sliced through Penn’s skull. Bits and pieces of memory and dream were severed, pried apart, and sent to their separate places.
On one side: waking up in Val’s arms, content, satisfied, gazing into hazel eyes.
On the other: waking up to a cold splash of water. Arms tied behind his back. A nasally voice pontificating on his own cleverness. Then looking into mismatched eyes, one hazel and the other ice blue.
“We found Niall,” Penn croaked. “And …” More memories slotted into place.
Grimoires hidden in shelves. An ice bridge melting and dumping him into a freezing river.
The servants of Causley Estate behaving like puppets with their strings pulled.
The corpse Niall left behind when he’d shed his disguise.
The deal Penn had made to help Adelaide and Em escape.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, instinctively looking for an exit. The stone walls were seamless, impenetrable. He didn’t even know if she could leave.
Adelaide grabbed his hands and clasped them in both of hers. “Don’t worry about me, Penn. You’re the one in danger. The only reason we can speak like this is because Alistair ripped open your mental shields.”
Penn waited for another painful flash of memories, but this time, nothing. “He’s fucking with my head.”
“Yes,” she said, her gaze a mix of sorrow and pity. “Though I can’t guess at his goals. That whole scene was … not what I expected from him.”
It was too romantic, Penn thought. Alistair probably could have made Penn relive any memory, perhaps even created new scenes from scratch. But he’d chosen to impersonate Valerian, to continue their relationship as if no one had interfered. “How do I get him out of my head?”
“He’s spreading himself quite thin between you and Valerian.
As you repair your mental shields, you can try to cast him out.
But Penn,” her voice softened for the next part even as her grip tightened until his hands ached.
“If you stay with him, he will simply tear through your shields again and again until you cannot fight him anymore. Then he will control both you and Valerian.”
“But Val—”
“Valerian is gone,” Adelaide said.
Penn shook his head sharply. “He’s still in there, he’s still fighting.” When she started to interrupt him again, he spoke over her. “This isn’t wishful thinking! I saw him, Adelaide. There must be some way to help him. Some medicine or potion or other gods damned magic—”
“Stop,” she ruthlessly cut off his plea. “I don’t know what magic could purge evil rooted so deeply into someone’s mind, but it isn’t any sort I practice. The best cure for Valerian is death. At least then he might take Alistair with him.”
Penn’s fist struck the stone wall beside them and Adelaide flinched. “Please,” his voice broke on the small word. “I can’t kill him or watch him die. I just … can’t.”
Adelaide watched him for a long moment. “He has to die.” Then carefully, slowly, she offered him a few words of hope, “But maybe you can bring him back—just Val. No parasite in his mind.”
Penn immediately latched onto this lifeline, clutching it until the hope twisted into recklessness. “Tell me what to do.”
Before she explained, she warned him, “I won’t be able to help you again, Penn.
After this interference, Alistair will shut me out, and I can’t risk physically fighting him.
He’s already proved to be more than my match, even in a stolen body.
You will have to remember the exact instructions, and protect the information from his probing, do you understand? ”
Penn nodded, but she waited until he said aloud, “I understand.”
Then carefully, step-by-step, she gave him one chance to save Valerian.