might survive.” He leaned into her embrace, grasping her arms, holding on to her. “I don’t want you to come to harm. And when you do…I won’t be able to save you.”
“Then I won’t ask you to try. I’ll whine at someone else.” She tried to cheer him up and clearly failed.
“The problem is not that I can’t help you. The problem is I don’t know if anyone can.” He nudged away from her and stood, pacing a few steps away. “If my fears are correct—if my predictions hold true—then there is nothing anyone can do, Cora.”
She felt a cold settle over her. “The tower.”
He nodded weakly. “Inside that place, no one has power save the holder of the Key. If he doesn’t want to let anyone in…or anyone out…that is his right. And no one can challenge him.”
“And the only one who can kill him is me. So, if he puts me in that place, then, he’s safe.”
“Yes.”
“Then why hasn’t he done it already? Why didn’t he do it the moment he knew I was a threat?”
Lazarus smiled. It wasn’t kind. It was a deathly cold smile. “Because the thing you must realize…is that he still believes himself to be the hero.” He turned to look at her, and all the warmth in his expression was gone. “He still cannot accept that there are no heroes and villains in this world. There is merely us…and them.”
Simon awoke in bed alone.
It was how he had woken up for a hundred and thirty-five years. It was how he had woken up for thirty-one years before that. A veritable male spinster he had been at his age. But an artist with a loose attachment to sanity did not make much of a desirable bachelor, even rich and connected as he had been.
But in the past few weeks, he had become accustomed to the warmth of a body against his. The smell of her shampoo. Of lilac and the sweetness of her. And when she was gone, when she was missing, he found something ached inside him.
Last night had been glorious. He had never wanted, nor had he ever adored, anyone quite as much as he had wanted Cora as he watched her drain the life from the cretin Duncan. The whole scene before him had been decidedly erotic. And when she sat atop Simon’s hips in her bed and mimicked the pose she had done with her abuser so perfectly, he wondered if he was about to die.
He honestly hadn’t cared.
Because she was a creature of pure artistry. Pure majesty. And he had shared in the ecstasy of the moment. He couldn’t have picked a way in which he would rather die.
I love her.
I shouldn’t. And I hate it. But I do.
I love her. Even if it destroys what’s left of my mind.
He reached out for her without opening his eyes and found the bed empty. He didn’t hear her bustling about. All he could hear was the rain against the roof and windows. He didn’t smell cooking food. He didn’t even smell coffee. It was very unlike Cora to be up and about without her dose of caffeine.
It meant something was wrong.
Or was soon to be wrong.
He flew from the bed. He checked the bathroom and found it empty. Snarling, he threw on his clothing. They were in a precarious scenario, and now was not the time to go wandering off on her own! She should know the danger they were in! No, she has no reason to know. She’s still a child here.
And now I’m going to ruin my nice coat!
He flung open the door to the boxcar, intending on racing out into the Faire to find her. She couldn’t have gone far. They were trapped.
He pulled up short.
He wasn’t alone.
Sodden from the rain, a small pack of the Family stood at the base of the stairs. Led, in no small part, by Turk. Simon sneered. “You look like a wet dog.”
“Get him.” It was a simple order. And no one hesitated.
Simon fought. He took off Bruce’s hand. He fought hard, and he fought well…but a hard punch to the temple from Jack sent him staggering to the ground. And then it was over. Ringmaster lifted his boot and stepped down on his neck.
There was a crunch, and it all went black.
But not before he realized—with no small amount of loathing and horror—that his last thought before the darkness took him was not of his own safety.
It was of Cora’s.
2
Cora