The Glass Queen (The Forest of Good and Evil #2) - Gena Showalter Page 0,151

will let you both die, and I will try again in the next life.—

“Didn’t you hear Ophelia? There won’t be a next life.”

—You can’t be sure of that.—

“Ah, yes. Denial. That will make the lies you tell yourself come true,” I said. “Why can’t you let Saxon go for good and find someone else?”

—Because he’s mine, the only thing given to me by fate.—

“He isn’t and has never been yours. You just borrowed him from me for a few centuries.”

As the crowd cheered, I gaped at the scene now playing on Ophelia’s magical screen, my heart about to burst with joy and worry. With the aid of my weapons, Saxon had just won the tournament.

Blood soaked him from head to toe, still leaking from multiple gashes. He looked magnificent. Like the glimpses of Craven I’d had in my memories, coming home from battle wearing so much blood his wings appeared red.

Saxon might have begun as my enemy, but he was now my best friend. He was the first person to see worth in me. The first person to look past my limitations and discover strength. The first person to love all of me. And he did love me. Craven Tyron Saxon Skylair loved me with every fiber of his magnificent being. Just as I loved him. I knew it.

Ophelia appeared before him, and the screen went blank. No! I ran over to beat my fists against the wall, but the screen didn’t reappear. Well. I wouldn’t remain in this cell, waiting for others to decide my course. I would find a way out, and I would save Saxon from whatever horrors they’d planned for him.

“Leonora?”

Milo’s voice had me whisking around. He stood inside the cell with me, broken and bloody. His knees almost gave out, but he found the strength to remain upright and stumble toward me, arms outstretched. He coughed up blood. “Help me.”

I backed up. There was a piece of paper pinned to his shirt, and it read, “A gift for you. Enjoy. —O”

Ophelia had transported him here as a gift for me? But why?

“Help me,” Milo repeated, wobbling.

“Help you? The way you helped me?” Fury burned through me. I blinked, nothing more. The next thing I knew, I was standing before him, sinking one of my daggers into the hollow beneath his throat and twisting the blade.

My mouth began to move and form words I didn’t want to say. “I guess you can’t cast a spell of immortality. You should have listened to the girl. I never would have wed you. I only needed you to relay the information I wanted the king to know, and to weaken him so that Saxon could defeat him when the time came. I can give him what Ashleigh can’t. The respect of his people. Your services are no longer needed.”

His eyes widened. More blood. As his knees buckled at last, I dropped the weapon and stumbled back, in control once again and horrified with myself. He hit the ground and lay there, going motionless.

I’d just killed someone. A boy. A boy was dead. A boy was dead because of me. He’d been a bad guy, yes. But he’d been weaponless. I’d lost control of my body, yes. But... I should have been able to stop Leonora. She’d overtaken me so easily.

What if she did it again?

Could she, or had the effort cost her much-needed energy?

“You evil hag,” I spat.

—This is only the beginning. I’m going to ruin your life before I end it.—

I needed to escape this cell. Now. If Leonora wanted to be here, I wanted to be anywhere else.

I paced the confines of the cell, sidestepping a single stalk of ivy that had grown through a crack in the floor, before inadvertently bumping into Milo’s body and splashing in the pool of his blood. My stomach turned over, concluding the pacing portion of my day.

Think, think. How to save Saxon? How to circumvent Noel’s foresight and get to the dragons? How to defeat the phantom once and for all?

What tools did I have at my disposal? The magical bracelet Saxon had given me, a possible ability to bind unlikely objects together in harmony, and the dagger. I could—

Leonora began to sing, loudly and off-key, to distract me. How smug she sounded.

How brilliant she was.

Hours passed, my thoughts too chaotic to align, my body growing more fatigued as I fought her. Midnight loomed. I hadn’t eaten at all today, and I felt as if I had a mouth stuffed