pressed him against them.
“He’s been hurt enough,” I snapped, going over and carefully bracing him upright with my hands.
The vassal shrugged, waited another thirty seconds to make sure Aegis was fully sedated, and unlocked the harness. She carried Aegis across to the bridge. Redbriar vassals spirited him away. The procession of crates resumed.
I took an unsteady breath, rubbing Aegis’s blood from my hands. That was that. There had been no goodbyes, no lingering looks. Just a pathetic end to the pathetic shambling remnants of a friendship that had died years ago but didn’t know it.
I hoped I never saw him again.
Please, god, let me never see him again.
“Four 19th century demon jars,” said the clerk. “Enchanted maps to Hells #15, #28, #2, and #8.”
At last, the crates were all on our side. Representatives from both Houses went to the center of the bridge to work out the claims documents, while vassals repacked all the strange and sundry artifacts and transported them to the plane.
But I wasn’t interested in admiring the Nightfelds’ treasures, when my mom was still on the other side. The sun was lifting clear of the horizon, and every detail its light revealed was a squeezing fist around my heart. The glitter of her chains. The dull white of the bandage around her hand. She’d barely seemed to move, as if exhausted, or ill. Her face was drawn and emaciated.
How dared they.
But she was alive. At least she was alive.
She was next.
The Redbriar representatives went back to their side, presenting their finalized documents for Leda to sign, in her capacity as acting head of House Redbriar. And then Leda said, “Well, this would be the second of your three demands, wouldn’t it? Don’t you find that rather… unbalanced?”
Of course. A chill went down my back. I knew what she wanted. “We gave you Aegis already,” I said.
“He was never part of the agreement,” said Leda innocently. “Surely you wouldn’t insist on giving us nothing of what we asked for until you have everything you want.”
Arcturus regarded her with his pale eyes. “It does seem rather unreasonable,” he said at last.
I shot him a look of disbelief. “Arcturus, I know Leda, there’s no way she’ll keep the rest of her bargain once she has what she wants. You can’t seriously be giving in!”
Leda smiled, relishing my fear. “These documents would look so much better with the seal of the true head of House Redbriar on them. Don’t you think?”
Arcturus walked to Cly.
My heart hammered. Leda wouldn’t mind signing the documents in exchange, I knew. Arcturus would get what he wanted. But then she’d keep my mom, and take everything that had happened in the past day out on her. “Arcturus—”
He took his sword and leveled it at Cly.
Not the Everblade. The other one he’d brought with him, a pitted, ancient-looking bronze sword whose engravings were so worn they were barely visible under the patina.
“This sword is named Stasis,” said Arcturus, pulling Cly’s wrists above her head by the chains. “It’s been… difficult, at times, keeping it in my family’s ownership, but it has certain interesting applications.”
With a single stroke, he cut Cly in half at the waist.
Cly screamed, a horrible, animal sound and Leda screamed with her. But there was no blood, no gore. It was as if he’d cut through a doll, as if the cross-section had been instantly sealed in plastic wrap, keeping everything in place. In… stasis.
Arcturus gestured for a subordinate to take Cly’s thrashing legs. “You wanted me to give you something first,” he said to Leda. “I will do so.”
“You monster,” Leda snarled at him. “You rabid dog.”
Arcturus let go of Cly’s wrist chain with deliberate carelessness, allowing her top half to topple onto the ground, and raised his voice to be heard over her screams. “I gave you exactly what you asked for. Now, let’s continue. Once our business is concluded, you should have no trouble healing her back together.”
Leda stared at him. Then she stamped the documents with her personal seal with shaking hands. “Here,” she spat, almost throwing them at her subordinate, who rushed to bring them over. “And have the whore human too.” She snatched up Mom’s chains and shoved them into another subordinate’s hands.
I ran out onto the bridge.
She was so light, I thought in horror, as the Redbriar vassal allowed her to collapse into my arms. As if all the vitality had been drained from her, leaving a husk.
Weakly, she opened her eyes to look at me. “Cassandra?”
“Mom,”