She threw her arms out and caught herself on a nearby tree stump, barely saving herself from the sodden pond bank.
“And stay away from her, too,” Adelaide spat from her stoop, a batch of new bottles tucked in the crook of her arm.
“She has nothing to do with this,” Garin shouted back, knees tensed to dodge the next barrage of purple flames.
“The princess? What are you doing here with her?” Ophelia then whirled on Lilac. “I should turn you into a toad then boil you until you pop! I don’t care who you are.”
Retreating, Lilac ran her fingers over her belt and felt instinctively for her dagger hilt. The blade clamored violently in its shaft as Ophelia lurched her arm back, a sparkling bottle in hand.
There was a sudden blur of white; Garin had dashed across the bank to put himself in front of her. “Adelaide, don’t,” he growled at the witch. Then, added bleakly, “Please.”
Adelaide’s upper lip curled into a snarl. “You dare demand anything of me?” Without hesitation, she whipped another bottle their way. Garin frantically scuttled back, cursing when he barely made it out of the way again.
“I told you the last we spoke,” Adelaide roared, “if you dared seek me out, I’d destroy you.”
Garin righted himself, his previously perfect, tousled hair now a tangled mop atop his head. His jaw was set, nostrils flaring; Lilac could tell he was trying with every ounce of effort in him to reign his own emotions in. He adamantly shook his head in protest, loosening a couple twigs in the process. “That’s ridic—you go by an alias, for god’s sake! You’ve warded your cottage walls, I had no idea—”
“Liar!” Adelaide screeched. “You’re here, aren’t you? In the cold, hard flesh. I uprooted what little I had left and spent years away, trying to reinvent myself, all to forget you and everything you took from me. Moving back was obviously a mistake on my part. How was I to guess just years later, you’d show up with your new toy, who just happens to be the princess.” She spat on the ground, laughing cruelly. “You can both rot in hell.”
Clutching her stomach with one hand, dagger in the other, Lilac fought the roiling waves of nausea flowing through her. The adrenaline made it extremely difficult to focus on anything but the sickening fear that he’d planned it all along; even if the smallest voice of reason reminded her it wasn’t likely. Garin couldn’t have known where she lived, or that Adelaide was still alive—and how did she look so young, unless that was an illusion, too… Could he? Could he have known?
Had he, he wouldn’t have waited for Lilac to come along, or any other excuse into Paimpont.
Ears burning, she considered taking the distanced mare and doing what she could to ride far, far away.
“Adelaide, listen,” Garin pleaded. “All of this is my fault. Not yours. Not Lilac’s. My mistakes are my own. They’re unforgivable. But now that I’m here, I need to tell you—”
But he didn’t get to tell her.
The vampire broke off mid-sentence. He lurched forward in two unsteady steps, as if someone had given him a rough pat on the back.
He rattled a cough from deep within his chest.
His frown was barely visible, even in the clear moonlight. Confusion mottling his features, he squinted and brought his fingers to his chest. When he pulled them away, his entire hand was slicked with black.
In the second it took for him to collapse face-first into the grass, both the princess and witch exchanged glances. All animosity between them fizzled abruptly, and their voices joined in unison for a single, anguished shriek that rang out into the dead of night.
The sound then faded along with Lilac’s vision, as if she continued to watch the unfolding scene in slow motion and from behind a filthy, judging chapel window.
Explosions rang out in the distance—and her shaky knees gave way.
A pair of hands seized Lilac under the arms before she hit the grass. Two soldiers she’d recognized from the castle had bolted into the clearing, brandishing longbows. A blossom of purple fire immediately erupted on the chest plate of one, knocking him down as Adelaide screamed her wrath. The downed sentry never rose again.
It was a cold sensation against her throat that jostled Lilac back to alertness. Blinking the fog away, she spotted the slumped form across the clearing. It was Garin, still face down in the reeds. Two poles protruded from his back—unmistakable