If you’re anything like me, you will. You’ll like them way too much. Maybe you’ll even like this one. He nodded to my floating crib. And if you did happen to like her, then you’d be king. Wouldn’t that be just grand?
Remo pushed up on tiptoe to look into the crib again, nose still wrinkled. Do I need to like her to be king?
Gregor sighed, and although he wasn’t actually there, his piercing hazel gaze seemed to land on me—grown-up-Amara. It’d be the easiest way . . . but not the only one.
The air brightened, but my mood definitely didn’t. My loathing for Gregor Farrow simmered and sank into my skin, curdling my blood. How I longed to launch my fire and dust into the wariff’s face.
Remo and I didn’t talk this time, even though our eyes met and held as the elevator dipped to the next floor. We’d gone up three stories. Did that mean there would be one more memory to wade through? Gripping my elbows, I readied myself. Right on cue, the elevator leveled out, and the air blackened.
A ball smacked into the side of Remo’s jaw, which was slightly round and dusted with sparse stubble.
Get your head in the game, Remo, another boy called out to him.
My head’s in the game, he grumbled.
Really? Because I could’ve sworn you were prinsisa-gazing.
The look Remo tossed his friend was full of venom. She’s a kid, Aaron. A kid, who thinks she deserves the world on a fucking silver platter because her father wears a crown and her mother can manipulate stolen wita. His fingers were rolled into fists. Wita she took from my family, by the way. Wita which I plan on setting free.
Dude . . . Aaron backed up.
What? You think our queen should be allowed to keep something that isn’t hers?
Aaron raised his hands. I don’t want to hear this.
When the boys faded, my fingers dented the skin over my elbows with such fury I was surely cutting off my blood circulation. “You planned on slicing my mother’s neck open?” I yelled.
Remo’s brow pleated in confusion. “Amara, I—”
The elevator dinged, snatching away the rest of his words—undoubtedly a lie—but the glass panel didn’t split open. Instead, it lit up and four words appeared: “Welcome to the Scourge.”
That word again. What did it mean?
The glass went dark, then brightened with a dile injecting venom into someone’s foot, followed by a quila clawing through flesh, faerie bodies bursting into gray dust and human bodies being decapitated by laser beams, wounds oozing and bubbling with sores.
A wave of sickness slammed into my clenched teeth. The projection shut off and then a seam appeared in the glass wall that widened as the doors pulled apart. I scrambled out into the lobby, palms gripping my thighs, body hunched over. As I worked on swallowing back the vile taste of vomit, wind whistled through the gaping entrance, filling the lobby with an eerie silence.
“What’s a scourge?” My voice was flat even though I brimmed with rage.
“A whip. One that causes immense pain.”
I wondered how Remo knew this. It wasn’t as though he could look it up on his Infinity. Maybe he owned one. That made sense.
“Maybe it’s the name of this place,” he ventured.
“It’d be suiting.” Once I got my stomach under control, I straightened and turned to face Remo, who was standing near enough for me to touch him. Not that I ever would after what I’d just witnessed.
Unless it wasn’t true and this place was trying to stir up trouble.
“Did you once tell a boy called Aaron that you would hack through my mother’s neck?”
He blinked.
I took a small step back. It was true. “I hated you before, but now . . .” My hands locked into fists so tight my knuckles whitened.
His eyes turned stony. “Trust me, I got that from the episodes I was subjected to. I didn’t know you had quite so many nicknames for me, and that my eyes were . . . how did you describe them to Giya again? Oh, right, the color of dile poison.”
“I might’ve said unpleasant things about you, but I never plotted your mother’s murder or your family’s downfall.” I backed up. “To think I was beginning to trust you.”
Color rose to Remo’s cheekbones. “I wasn’t going to murder her.”
“Like I’d believe you.” I whirled around and stormed out of the building.
Footsteps sounded behind me. Too quick and too near. “That conversation happened almost four years