eyes the color of a serpent’s skin and a look of hate spread to the very corners of his curled lips.
Dante Ashwood, Kingpin of Uskhanya, destroyer of cities, was human.
He was just a man.
And Wesley had a lot of practice killing men.
Wesley’s gun was on the ground, where Zekia had dropped it after her illusion, and though Wesley couldn’t get to it with his leg still so jacked up, he knew he didn’t need to move to reach for it.
His magic surged, eager.
Yes, it said. That, we can do.
Wesley looked at the bone gun, licked his lips, and then watched it disappear from the ground and reappear in his own hand.
The familiar hilt, the slick way it fit to his palm, like it had been made for Wesley and nobody else.
Tavia locked her fingers between Wesley’s, and the warmth of her, the familiar scratch of her scars and calluses, steadied his heart.
He gripped the gun in his free hand.
“Wesley,” Ashwood said.
Fatherly. Perhaps pleading.
“You’re my son.”
The wind whistled in Wesley’s ears as he aimed the gun.
The clock tower that headed the Crook chimed.
Midnight.
“Yeah,” Wesley said. “I know.”
He fired the shot, straight through Ashwood’s newly human heart.
His father fell to the ground.
Ashwood’s eyes were wide, his hands still, his lips bloody and quivering.
His darkness, finally, fading from the world.
42
Tavia
HE WAS GONE.
Dante Ashwood slumped on the ground, bullet through the heart Tavia was sure he didn’t have. He didn’t move or get back up in some death-defying display of magic. He just lay there, with his eyes as wide as could be, staring straight at Wesley.
Finally, it was over.
“Holy shit,” Tavia said.
Wesley put his gun back in the holster. “Eloquent as ever.”
“I know you guys had a complicated relationship and I should probably say something comforting or poignant,” Tavia said. “But holy shit.”
She couldn’t help but smile, which was probably inappropriate with someone who may have been Wesley’s father lying dead by their feet. Still, she smiled, because they had just saved the world and she was owed the feeling of happiness that rose in her chest.
They had avenged her mother and everyone else who had died from the magic sickness and who had lost themselves and their loved ones because of the Loj. They had stopped a war. They had kept their city from ruin.
You see, ciolo. I told you that it would all be okay.
Her mother’s voice blew through her mind like the wind and for once Tavia didn’t want to cry or shut it out. She wanted to savor it and she wanted to laugh.
I know, she told her mother. And I wish you were here to see it.
Tavia squeezed Wesley’s hand.
He turned to look at her, deep brown eyes and a half smile that she felt in her bones. He was still wearing those damn cuff links and though the bow tie was gone—strange, considering this was definitely an odd day—his shirt was buttoned to the collar in true Wesley style. Almost pristine, if not for the blood splatters, which she kindly chose to ignore.
Wesley reached out and placed his hand on Tavia’s cheek, like he still couldn’t quite believe she was standing in front of him, rather than bleeding out on the ground.
“Don’t ever scare me like that again,” he said.
“I was just keeping you on your toes,” Tavia teased. “And in my defense, it wasn’t my plan. You have your sister to thank for—”
“Never again,” he said.
When he kissed her, it was soft and delicate, like he was afraid she might break, or that this living Tavia was the illusion and if he kissed her too hard then she’d fade away. So Tavia brought her hands around his neck and pressed him harder against her, letting him know that he didn’t need to be careful with her.
She was real.
She was here.
And she wasn’t going anywhere.
She felt Wesley smile under her lips and the world went newly quiet. He had the power to make her heart slow, like he was pulling all the bad from the world and all the worry from her body.
And then somebody cleared their throat and they quickly broke apart.
Tavia turned to face her friends, her cheeks warm.
She’d almost forgotten they were there and that she and Wesley weren’t the only two people in the world.
Saxony was tending to Zekia, pulling her sister to her feet and trying to avoid eye contact with Tavia, but Karam didn’t have that problem as she collected her fallen knives from the ground and stared at Tavia with