“Unless you got new onesss.”
I exhale. “That’s not possible. Everyone knows you can’t give a Uathúil abilities. You have to be born with them.” I turn from him and his vapid game and glare out at the water. If the idea of training me was his offer, it’s nothing new. And Rasha had nothing to worry about. She and I can laugh about it later.
“My dear girl, is that what Eogan told you?”
I go still.
He smiles. “How do you think I have powersss?” Abruptly the ship bumps and tilts beneath us and Myles’s expression goes the slightest bit nauseous.
I swerve to stare at him. My breath is suddenly clobbering my throat. Maybe I should go inside now. Except I want to hear what he has to say. Besides, Rasha said that if he offers anything, he’ll do so in Bron. I count to thirty before I give in. “How?”
“How what?”
“How’s it possible? How do you have them, and how would I?”
“If I told you, that’d take the fun out of it.”
“So in other words you don’t know, and even if you did, you’d never willingly help Eogan.”
He smirks.
Exactly. “Why don’t you go back to your water closet?”
“I’d never willingly help unless I’ve set my sssights on bigger things than Sedric’s throne.” His gaze slides down my arm, as if bigger things could have anything to do with me. My responding glare could rip his eyes out.
He licks his lips. “I assure you that while you are in fact one of the more fascinating women I’ve ever met, I wasn’t only referencing you. Believe it or not, I may have a mind to save the world when all isss said and done.”
“By taking it over? How heroic.”
“Oh sssweetheart, we both know I’m not heroic. I’m nearly heartless and completely brilliant and a wonderfully attentive suitor when feeling up to it. But no, no, this has little to do with heroicsss.” He leans close and swipes a long, cold finger down the sleeve covering my left arm. “Let’s just call it . . . a sssoft spot I have for power, which will benefit all five kingdomsss, and you, if you’ll allow me to help.”
A sick feeling emerges, like ill-placed hope blossoming at the base of my mind. I shake it off. “It can’t be done.”
“The new abilities or the separating? Because I promise the first can.”
I stare at him.
Coils of twisted hunger slip down my spine and touch my heart.
This is his offer.
New abilities that could save Eogan.
His finger swirls over the bandage beneath my sleeve. “Such a shame to see your powers so quickly discarded. Especially when they sssimply needed a more effective trainer . . .”
I shake him off. “Even Rasha doesn’t believe separating them can be done.” But my voice is weaker this time. How could she not have told me? How could she have acted so casual if she really knew what he would offer? If she really knew what this could mean. To me.
Especially when she admitted there are no other options for saving the one person I care for.
“She may be right, on that I won’t lie to you. But when you go to sssleep tonight, ask yourself which one of us would be willing to risk and find out—a passive Luminescent or the second most powerful Uathúil you know trained by Eogan himself?”
His words snag at that slithering hope and without my permission billow it out with what we both know to be true—if anyone could know how to do this, it would be him. Suddenly I’m jittering all over. “I can’t,” I whisper, as behind us a door opens and then closes. “Don’t bring it up again.”
He looks up and lowers his voice to a mumble. “Your choice. But if you truly want to help him? Ask yourself if Eogan is worth your risk.” With that, he pushes off the railing and strides past me.
A few seconds later I hear the door to the dining room shut, and I am left with an armful of questions and horror and a desperately inflating hope that’s burning more questions into my mind than answers.
Could Myles help me get my power back? Would I actually be able to free Eogan in a way he could survive?
Could I free him in time?
I stare at the span of clouds and the sunset peeking between sky and water on the horizon and try to make some sort of sense out of the possibilities. Because while something tells me Rasha’s right—that Myles’s idea feels more slimy and more sinister than he let on—the very thought that I could free Eogan, that I could set this right, is enough to make my angry, hateful soul feel like breathing again.
CHAPTER 12
I’VE STOOD THERE A GOOD FIVE MINUTES BEFORE THE new presence emerges in my consciousness. I feel him before I see him. Standing there watching me.