CHAPTER 83 ROHAN #2
Oh, the Omega clearly meant what she was saying, every word of it, but she’d also clearly come here for a reason, condescended to speak to two men of sacred things for a reason.
“You’re a means to an end,” Rohan warned Toby. “She wants you dead—but not at her hand. She wants Alice to know that all her machinations, all her sacrilege accomplished naught.”
Toby struggled against Rohan’s hold but otherwise ignored him altogether, focusing only on the woman on the other side of the blades. “You’re saying Hannah chose to die?”
“I gave your Hannah the opportunity to save herself when she was dying. I could have arranged for a transplant. Hannah declined.”
All at once, the fight went out of Toby. His body went utterly still beneath Rohan’s grip, but Rohan instinctively knew better than to loosen it.
“You came to her five years ago.” Toby’s voice was more scrape than whisper. “You offered to save her life if she said yes, if she agreed to go with you, to disappear, to die. You told her about the Crucible, including what it was called.”
“I offered to save her life if she would come with me for training in anticipation of the next Crucible. Such things are allowed for those who do not have the blood, which she did not. I was allowed to make certain disclosures, many of which your mother had not made. If that information did not die with Hannah Rooney, it is no fault of mine.”
“You used her,” Rohan inferred.
“To get to me,” Toby finished. “To make me even more of a liability, to force my mother into a position where she would have to render judgment or be deemed compromised.”
“I might have suggested to your Hannah that her daughter might make a suitable Candidate at some point, if enough pressure could be brought to bear. If the woman felt the need to leave a message to a man in case that happened, that, too, is no fault of mine.” Katalin smiled.
“And here you are, all these years later. And here you will at long last be judged.”
“But not yet.” A familiar voice came from beyond Katalin. Zella. Rohan had to appreciate the duchess’s ever-impeccable sense of timing.
“A deal is a deal,” Katalin replied. Rohan heard movement on the other side of the blades, and then there was light. Rohan resisted the urge to blink against it, absorbing the sight of what lay beyond the blades: another room lined with yet more mirrors.
Only one woman was reflected in them. The Omega was gone.
“Hello, Duchess,” Rohan said.
“What deal?” Toby demanded. “What deal did you strike with that monster?”
“Your moment will come,” Zella told Toby. “But this isn’t it.”
Rohan read between those lines. “I take it that would make this my moment?”
“You came here to offer a bargain to the Gilded Blade, did you not?” the duchess replied. “It might not have been plan A, but I’ve never known you to have only one.”
Rohan assessed the ever-evolving lay of the land—Katalin, gone; Zella, seemingly in league with the enemy and ready to deal; Toby, a wild card to the end.
“Don’t be shy, Rohan. It doesn’t suit you. We both know you didn’t waltz in here without a few cards up your sleeves. Make us an offer.”
“Us,” Toby gritted out. “You and the Omega. You betrayed my mother.”
Zella didn’t even try to argue the point.
“I came here,” Rohan said, “to make it known that I would be willing to fully pledge my loyalty as Proprietor, without reservation or tricks, should Savannah become the next Watcher.”
Rohan would have preferred rescuing Savannah, eliminating the Gilded Blade, and cutting his leash altogether, but that was neither here nor there now, and from the moment he’d read those letters between the first Proprietor and his Ascendant, Rohan had known that there might be another way.
The man who’d founded the Mercy had decreed that Proprietors could have no earthly connection to explain away the fact that he never married, never begat an heir—because for him, there was only ever her.
“You think you’ve found a loophole,” Zella observed.
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re not. Even setting aside the first Proprietor, you wouldn’t be the only one to take advantage of certain… exceptions.”
Rohan considered that, then considered her.
His once-rival. “Was it ever really you?” he asked.
“Breaking into the Mercy, earning your spot as a member. Or was it always the Blade?” No response.
“Were you ever really my competition? Did you want the Proprietorship? Or was it all an act, all part of some grand plan?”
“I want,” Zella said, “and have always wanted, to break out of my glass castle and be something more than a guiding hand. I have always believed that, in this day and age, those of us in the web should be able to aspire to more than mere proximity to power.”
“What kind of deal did you make with Katalin Aquila Reyes?” Rohan asked.
Zella didn’t bat an eye at the name. Rohan had no idea if she’d known it before he’d said it or not.
“I would suggest you ask me a different question, Rohan. Ask me about Savannah.”
Rohan didn’t ask a damn thing. He refused to show weakness. Do your worst, Duchess—or your best.
“Savannah will not win,” Zella said simply. “She still lives—for now. But she will not win, Rohan. As things stand, I can promise you that she will not come through the Crucible alive.”
“You’re lying,” Rohan said immediately. “Savannah Grayson doesn’t know how to lose.”
Clever winter girl.
Clever, brutal, merciless winter girl.
“Some games,” Zella said, “you have to lose to win. Tell me, Rohan, would Savannah die for Avery Grambs? For Eve?”
Rohan said nothing. He thought nothing, let absolutely nothing show on his face.
“Savannah will not come through the Crucible alive.” The duchess gave Rohan a moment. “Look at me, Rohan. Am I lying?”
“No.” If Rohan knew one thing, it was how to read people, and he’d spent a great deal of time learning to read her. The duchess was not lying. “You are, however, leaving off a word.”
Unless. Savannah would not live unless the duchess saw to it somehow that she did.
“What do you want?” Rohan asked Zella.
“Tell me, Rohan: Would you give up everything for her?”
Rohan knew what Zella meant when she said everything. “The Mercy.”
“All you’d have to do is abdicate and choose the right heir.”
“You.” Rohan saw her play then, clear as day. He’d won the Proprietorship, and she’d responded by boxing him in. By choosing a new pressure point.
“I can see to it that Savannah doesn’t lose.” The duchess let him ruminate on that for a moment. “I can guarantee that she will live. Am I lying?”
“No.” Whatever deal Zella had struck, whoever and whatever she’d betrayed to be in this position, the duchess could do this. She was not lying about that.
Rohan flashed back to the moment his fingers had closed around the Proprietor’s cane, the moment it had all become his, and then his mind took him back further, to seeing Savannah unconscious on the garden path.
“Is she worth it?” Zella asked. “To you?”
“Is she worth everything?” Rohan shot back. “All I’ve ever worked for? All I’ve ever known? All that I have ever wanted?”
But even as Rohan said the words, he could hear himself saying that he didn’t want it anymore, and not just because it wasn’t what he’d thought. I don’t think I’d want it, he’d told Jameson Hawthorne, even if it was.
Power came at a price. It always had, and Rohan had always paid it, and to what end?
Don’t be a fool, he told himself, because only a fool would make a deal like this.
Without the Mercy, he would be nothing. He’d never again hold cards worth even a fraction as much as what he was being asked to sign away now.
And romance was nothing but a trick of light.
An illusion. A sleight not of hand but of heart.
Rohan knew that. He’d always known that.
And yet, he could hear himself saying, Right from the start, what choice did I have with you?
There were moments in life when one was forced to choose: The guaranteed payoff or the risk? The long game or the short one? To try to be clever—or to let yourself be played the fool.
“Well, Rohan?” the duchess said. “Do we have a deal?”
One last wager.
One last game.
Winter girl.
“You know,” Rohan said, his voice low and vicious, the die cast, “that we do.”