between his shaky fingers like a stress ball.
I gaped at the boy, at his reddened eyes and tear-slicked cheeks. Was he kidding me? Was he really putting the blame on me? Little lupa turd. “Why don’t you tell your brother the truth before I call over your father and ask him to read my mind? Or yours?”
Karsyn blanched.
“Karsyn.” Remo sounded his brother’s name without shifting his lips. “The truth.”
“You said you hated her.”
So much white appeared around Remo’s irises that I thought he might pull a muscle. “I didn’t ask you what I said; I asked you what you did.”
He squeezed the faelight so hard it separated into two smaller gummy orbs that drifted out of his hands and up into the air, highlighting his already fading shiners. “You shouldn’t have to marry her.”
“Did you try killing her? Yes or no?”
“If I say yes, will you gas me, Remo, or will you ask Dad to do it?”
“No one’s gassing anyone right now.”
The brothers looked long and hard at each other before Karsyn finally admitted, “Yeah. I was trying to kill her. And I don’t regret it. I just regret that you came and ruined it all.”
“Tell me how you really feel,” I mumbled.
Remo’s chest rose and fell, rose and fell. And then he clasped his lids shut as though he couldn’t stomach the sight of his brother. “Go home, Karsyn.”
My shoulders jerked back. “Shouldn’t I have a say in where the kid goes?”
Remo snapped his gaze to me, his forehead scrunched in an emotion I had never spotted on him before . . . despair. “Have mercy.”
“Mercy?” I laughed a tad bitterly. “Your brother tried to kill me, Remo.” I gestured to my chest.
Remo winced as though a sword were slicing through him. “And he will be dealt with.”
Had it been anyone else, I suspected the lucionaga would’ve let me pick the person’s fate, but this was personal. Still, I didn’t fully trust Remo to deal with it.
“Your brother admitted he’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
“I know, Amara. I heard. I saw. But he’s just a kid. Please. I’ll do anything.”
“Anything?” Anything was a dangerous word in our world. “Even strike a bargain with me over your brother’s fate?”
His jaw hardened in time with the rest of his body. “Yes.”
“Remo, you don’t want to owe a Wood,” Karsyn said.
“Shut up. Prinsisa, do we have a deal?”
Without hesitation, I said, “We do.” I was going to kill two quila with one arrow: I would force Remo to sever our engagement, which in turn, would make the Cauldron lock him out of Neverra . . . for good. “Speak the words, Remo.”
“Words are unnecessary. I already agreed.”
He was right; I’d felt a little stitch form between our bodies when he’d said yes. Nothing uncomfortable. More like a strand that linked us, that I could pluck once the time was right. “I still want to hear you say them.”
His jaw worked. “You shouldn’t kick a man when he’s already down.”
I wanted to savor my little victory over his outsized ego, however petty that made me. “Speak. Them.” Perhaps he’d never kicked me when I was down, but he’d always stared and did nothing. Indifference was just as cruel.
If looks could kill, his would’ve turned me into flickering dust motes. “I fucking owe you, Trifecta. Are we done?”
“Yes.”
“Karsyn, home. Now. We’ll talk as soon as this dinner is over.”
The ten-year-old pursed his lips as though he’d bitten down on a tart gladeberry. Casting one last hateful look my way, he threaded himself between the stilts and soared upward, toward his home at the top of one of the calimbors.
I sighed, sensing too much time had passed and my family would wonder where I’d gone. Operation check-if-prison-portal-exists would need to be postponed till the end of the meal. I composed a quick message to Josh to wait another Neverrian hour.
“Prinsisa?” Remo’s voice jolted my gaze away from the holographic texts. Why hadn’t he flitted back to the dining room yet?
I vanquished my conversation with Josh out of existence with the swipe of a finger. “What?”
He stared at the stubby shadow spilling from his tall body and darkening the ground between his shifting boots. “You need to change.” A blush mottled his jaw. “Your dress.” Keeping his gaze averted, he gestured briskly toward me. “And your hand.”
I glanced down and found that the stretchy purple bodice was torn and had retracted, displaying more of my breasts than the skimpy red bikini Giya had gifted me