Chapter 25
She yanked open the door to the hall where Maxius lay, mouth open and prepared to tell Gelsey to go away.
Her mouth snapped shut as she took in Reeve, standing on the other side with one arm behind his back.
She kept her hand on the door, prepared to close it in his face.
He spoke before she even had the chance.
“I have a single proposition.”
Maeve’s brows raised, hiding half her frame behind the door. “Oh, suddenly I’m to be included in the plans?”
Reeve talked over her. “You eat with me every meal, and we can begin conversations towards a mutual trust.”
Maeve’s eyes narrowed. She frowned, disliking the idea she was the one undeserving of his trust when he was the one piling up lies and always keeping things from her.
“Every meal, meaning?” she asked hesitantly.
“Breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” said Reeve casually. “And you must actually eat.”
Maeve looked away from him, annoyed.
“I haven’t come empty-handed,” said Reeve.
Maeve looked back at him. He pulled from behind his back a single book, newly bound. He held it on display for her.
The Witch of Whitehaven Manor by Evelyn Starbound. Reeve flipped open the inside cover, where a sparkling signature swirled across the page in blue ink. Maeve’s face relaxed instantly.
“Where did you get that?” she asked with awe. “I’ve never seen that title.”
“She wrote it just for me as a special request,” said Reeve with a smile.
Maeve’s mouth fell open.
Reeve flipped open the pages and said, “Did I neglect to mention even your favorite author isn’t immune to the effects of such a handsome Immortal such as myself?”
Maeve rolled her eyes.
“Do you want it?” he asked.
Of course, she wanted it. “Obviously,” she snapped. “A single book in exchange for spending three meals a day with you doesn’t sound like a fair trade.”
“But it’s not just the book, is it?” said Reeve. “It’s the beginning of our ally-ship.”
Maeve hesitated. “I will consider it.”
She held out her hand, and Reeve laughed.
“You don’t get the book until you come to breakfast in the morning,” he said, his arrogant grin blown wide across his face.
Maeve huffed a small sigh of aggravation as he turned and began walking away from her.
“Reeve,” called Maeve.
The High Lord of Aterna turned back towards her.
She didn’t know why it mattered, why she cared, but the question spilled from her lips all the same. “Did you offer your allegiance in exchange for me, or did he seek you out with such a proposal?”
Reeve hesitated. “I sought him out,” he answered, his voice dull, and that grin gone.
What little food lay in her stomach threatened to lurch forward at his words.
“You could have run further from all of this. You could have taken your people anywhere and remained hidden,” said Maeve.
“Just as your spell was breaking, mine was too,” replied Reeve.
“I don’t believe you,” she said with a shake of her head. “I was remembering my lies. Never you.”
Reeve’s eyes narrowed. “Not once, huh?”
Maeve shook her head.
“Now who’s lying?” he said, no trace of a smile.
She closed the door with a soft click and without another word.
Maeve’s breakfast spread with Reeve was double what had been brought to her chamber each morning, but her fingers drummed happily on the cover of her new book. He fought a smile at how easily she caved with just a little bribe. How could he forget how deeply she loved gifts?
“Has Aterna ever experienced a winter like the one coming?” asked Maeve, her voice bleak.
Reeve waited to see if she would eat before beginning his breakfast, but Maeve merely looked out the amethyst-and-crimson stained glass along the hall they dined in. Still, he waited for her.
Magic hummed across her body; it was so weak and untouched he was certain she didn’t feel it at all. He nearly doubted its existence. All the things he wanted to say remained bound behind his teeth. Besides all of that, he knew the real death was within her mind, not her Magic.
Shadow hadn’t hesitated to show him the events of that night in the Throne Room at Castle Morana when he met with her, agreeing to trade his allegiance for Maeve.
How Maeve still clung to the idea of saving Mal after watching him mutilate her closest friends and break her body, he didn’t understand. But it wasn’t his to understand.
She’d grieve Mal in the coming days. Weeks. Months.
However long this took.
And he remembered his promise to himself: this time, he wouldn’t let her go.
Her eyes slid to him. Even though they were no longer dark-blue, shimmering beauties, her gaze still held every bit of power over him as it had since the first moment she laid eyes on him.
Her hand fell into her lap.
“Allies,” she said, as though she were tasting the word.
“I’m sure I’m not your first choice,” he replied.
“Far from it,” she said smoothly. “But as my grandmother Agatha would say, ‘beggars can’t be choosers’.”
“I’ve yet to see you do any begging,” he replied. “That would be a treat.”
She didn’t smile. “Always a game to you,” she muttered. “Allies is a joke. We’ll both just be waiting for the other to stab us in the back.”
“But we’ll have so much fun at each other’s throats.”
He could tell she didn’t have it in her to argue or engage. Her eyes didn’t light up with desire for a fight, not like they used to.
“Answer me this at least,” she began. “Is saving Mal part of your plan?”
“No,” he answered honestly, watching his words sting her. “But I know it’s part of yours. So if we are to become allies, then I suppose that makes it part of our plan.”
She shook her head. “None of this is his fault.”
“That is a dangerous delusion at best,” he argued back.
“I was the one who released her.”
“I was there.”
“Then you know I am to blame. I started this.”
“This began,” he said in a correcting tone, “centuries ago.”
“Well, it didn’t for me,” she snapped.
“Damn. How could I forget just how center-minded you are?”
“Me? That’s rich considering you stole my spell and went into hiding with it.”
“I prefer to think of it as self-preservation, and I did not run for merely my preservation.”
“Nor did I. And that’s a shit excuse, and you know it. You handed over your army, your precious and sacred Warriors, to two of the most powerful Magicals because you still feel as though you are owed me.”
Reeve looked up at the ceiling, fighting a scowl, and chose his words carefully in response to such a ridiculous statement. “Why does everyone call you clever?”
Maeve stood from the table, her chair scraping backwards across the shimmering stone floor. He could see it on her face—fury raced through her with nowhere to go. No escape from her fingertips as she was so used to resorting to.
“Say it,” said Reeve, his eyes locked on hers, giving her permission to release her anger.
“I fucking hate you,” she whispered without hesitation.
Reeve nodded. “Anything else?”
“I think that about sums it up.”
Reeve watched her for a moment and then nodded. “Good. Now, sit down.”
Maeve’s breathing kicked audibly at the command.
“You agreed to one thing, Maeve,” said Reeve, holding up a single finger. “I know you to be a woman of your word. And you have not actually eaten like you agreed to.”
She stood a moment longer, each of her breaths slower and more controlled than the last.
“You know about my mother,” she said. Not a question. A statement. “When will I have those answers?”
Such an unanswerable question from the beautiful obstacle who stood before him. If he could have answered it, he would have. If it would buy her trust, he’d have told her everything.
But there was Magic holding Reeve’s tongue that didn’t negotiate.
Reeve smiled in a bitter way. “If only it were that easy.”
“All Magic is breakable.”
“At a great cost,” he agreed.
“I am not afraid of the cost,” she replied, with her chin held high.
Reeve’s eyes scanned the black lines that ran the length of her veins. “No,” he said softly. “You are not.”
Maeve didn’t tug at her sleeves. She didn’t attempt to conceal the marks as he’d witnessed her do in the past.
“Tell me what to do,” said Maeve, “and I will see it done.”
“I—” he began, his head rolling back against his seat and his throat closing. His elbows landed sharply on the table, shaking the plates and cups. “Enough.”
Maeve was silent for a moment, watching him reel under unseen Magic. “That’s some spell.” She pulled her chair back towards the table and took her seat. “So what is your plan?”
Reeve looked down at her untouched food and then back up at her. She huffed a breath and then picked up her knife and fork, cutting her omelet, which had surely gone cold. She placed the tiniest bite she could in her mouth, swallowed, and then looked back up at Reeve.
There, in her eyes, was the smallest flicker of the flame he fully intended to re-ignite.
“Shadow cannot move on Hiems yet,” he began. “She cannot move to Earth yet. Her form is weak, even I saw it, unless she’s fully possessing Mal. The more she drains him, the stronger her form gets.”
“What does that mean to you?”
“We move on Hiems and stoke the fires of the rebellion already building there.”
“Are you insane?” She pointed at the banners that ran the length of the hall, now bearing The Dread Mark. “Look around.”
“Then what do you propose?”
His brows raised, and he waited. And waited. When no reply came, he spoke.
“My plan requires your complete cooperation, Maeve,” he said sharply.
“You want me to be able to give you honesty? To understand the things you are in the dark about? Then you must act for once without ulterior motives. You will not move behind my back with other intentions. And that begins with telling me what purpose Malachite gave you here.”
She remained silent, chewing her lip. An action that forced him to look away from her. He allowed her to debate answering in complete silence, and when she finally responded, he was surprised.
“I’m to stop the Inheritance.”
Her confession sounded bored, almost in her tone. She had no idea the weight of such a statement. She cut up more of her omelet and shook her head.
“Starting a rebellion,” she muttered. “Ridiculous.”