Heart of Vengeance (Alice Worth #6) - Lisa Edmonds Page 0,135

view,” Mariela countered. “I presented the facts. They know I spoke the truth.”

“There are always other points of view.” Lucy set her cup down. “You may have presented facts and spoken the truth, but we’ve got some facts too.”

“When she opened a doorway to the Underworld to reach you, Mariela left it open topside and a lot of monsters got out,” I said. “They killed hundreds of people—men, women, children. An entire town was wiped out. If we’re here to talk about justice, let’s not forget to talk about that.”

“You lie. I put blood wards on the doorway.” Mariela’s face flushed. “Nothing could have escaped.”

“There were no wards when we got there—not even a trace,” I said. “Shades and gravelings got out and killed at will. That blood is on your hands and no one else’s.”

None of the sisters seemed surprised by the news, or much affected by it. I tried to remember they were very, very old and had seen countless atrocities in their time, but the memory of the carnage was much too raw. I opened my mouth, then closed it. I wasn’t here to confront the Furies, I reminded myself. We were here for Mariela and the scroll. Calling them cold-hearted bitches would not help our cause.

“What do you think appropriate justice is for those deaths, Mariela?” I asked instead. “The shades you let out tore the children of Walliston to shreds and played catch with their heads and bones and organs. You’re no better than the people you want them to kill.”

She swallowed hard and lifted her chin. “If what you’re saying is true, then I’ll pay for what I’ve done. That doesn’t change why I’m here.”

“I’m not saying the people who murdered your brother and his family don’t deserve justice, but slaughter isn’t justice,” I said.

“Traitors like you are the reason these terrorists get away with murder,” she argued. “You’re more concerned about protecting killers than your own people. You don’t know what it feels to lose your entire family to monsters.”

I thought of my parents, burned alive by my grandfather for trying to rescue me. “I do, in fact, know what that feels like.”

“Then you can’t tell me you don’t want revenge,” she challenged me. “Hypocrite.”

“I want the person who killed my family and those who helped him to face justice. I’m not suggesting wiping out everyone remotely associated with him.”

She blinked. “Neither am I,” she countered, but a half a beat too late.

I turned to the sisters. “She’s not just asking for punishment of the Glen Grove bombers; she wants you to kill everyone who’s a member of an anti-supe group. Those people are hateful bigots, but they aren’t murderers.”

“You’re not asking for justice; you’re asking for murder,” Ronan interjected. “For revenge.”

“Why else come to the Furies?” Mariela demanded. “They’re the mighty goddesses of vengeance. In my world, a world run by humans who’d rather see us dead than have equal protection under the law, there’s no justice for us. Even the severest form of punishment available under human law isn’t enough to make this right.”

“That’s true,” I told her. “There isn’t any punishment that will make this right. You could burn down the whole world and you’d still be hurting. But you don’t get to burn down the world. That’s not how this works.”

“I’ll do what I need to do.” Mariela took a dagger and a picture from her robe and set them on the table. Dried blood and something else I couldn’t identify stained the dagger’s wide blade. The photo was of her brother and his family. The same one was in her Court dossier. Hers was worn and discolored from what must have been a long and arduous journey to Edis.

“I call down the curse of the Erinyes on those who murdered my family, those who protected the murderers, and those who share their hatred.” She looked at the sisters in turn and waited expectantly.

Tis picked up the blade and studied it. “Blood of a sheep, a kiss of honey, and purest water from a spring,” she mused. “You have read the lore. Had you true knowledge of us, however, you would know we are not goddesses of vengeance now, but of justice.”

“Then give me justice for my family and those like me, who’ve suffered at these people’s hands our whole lives just because we’re different. Make them suffer the way we’ve suffered.”

Ekto moved her fingers. The photo slid across the table and fluttered into her hand. “A lovely child,”