“I’m not talking to you.” Jinx purposefully looked away from her.
Sadie asked in an innocuous tone, “Hm. Are you sure you’re not fourteen? You did tell everyone I was your mother.”
Jinx’s head whipped back around. “No, I did not. You did that.”
A headache throbbed behind my left eye.
My half-mutilated leg burned.
I inhaled smoke desperately. “Sadie, stop it!”
She pouted. “What did I do?”
“Jinx, tell the story.” I pointed my pipe at her. “You owe me that much.”
The youngest-looking twenty-five-year-old in history narrowed her eyes at me, but agreed with a curt nod.
Chest rattling with each shallow breath, she said, “Ten years ago, the High Court found a purpose for me.”
She stared down at her mangled hand and avoided eye contact.
My stomach twisted with knots.
Back at Elite Academy, when the Kings had unleashed their powers, Orion told Jinx her soul was irredeemable because she’d committed a heinous crime against people she loved.
I shivered.
It was all so obvious.
“I don’t know the entire story.” Jinx’s voice was barely a whisper. “I only have small tidbits from what I’ve overheard and the things I’ve pieced together. What I know for sure is there are two key leaders, and their plans involve manipulating certain individuals, whom they call players. They’ve been doing it for decades—maybe even generations.”
“Manipulate what people? Who are these players?” Sadie asked.
I dug my nail into my lower lip.
Jinx didn’t look up.
I ripped off a chunk of skin and inhaled smoke until my lungs ached. Copper flooded my mouth.
Jinx continued like Sadie hadn’t spoken, “Over the years, I overheard them worrying that one of the most important players that they’d planted, wasn’t cunning enough to wield the power they’d given them. Their methods of fixing the problem didn’t seem to be yielding results. They were getting frustrated and desperate.”
The knots in my stomach turned to razors.
Sadie’s eyes widened.
“Then, ten years ago, they said they’d found a perfect solution. I was fifteen at the time,” Jinx said slowly, then fell silent.
I did the math.
The numbers added up horribly.
I looked around the room, barely seeing the dismembered corpses as my thoughts blanked.
Dread stretched among the three of us.
“Just say it,” Sadie broke the silence with a whispery rasp.
I shivered as I wiped sweat off my forehead with a trembling hand. I wanted to tell Jinx not to speak, but I couldn’t find the strength to say the words aloud.
Jinx looked up, and her too wide dark eyes held mine. “There was a side player, a fourteen-year-old, who’d just received record high scores on an analytics test. She was rumored to be brilliant. But that wasn’t the best part.” She kept eye contact. “She was the daughter of a woman who was infamous for her cruelty. As a result, they theorized that the player’s brilliance was likely dangerous—it was exactly what the leaders needed.”
I didn’t breathe.
In my periphery, Sadie looked back and forth between our locked gazes with horror.
Jinx’s lips moved.
I heard her speak as if she was talking from far away, down a long tunnel.
“The High Court took me to the fae palace in chains.”
Her voice warped.
“They removed my shackle and ordered me to take a piece of the brilliant player’s soul while she slept.”
My vision narrowed.
“They RJE’d me immediately to the shifter realm and ordered me to give the piece to the idiot player while she slept.”
Her words echoed from every direction.
“The two leaders were so impressed with the results that they elevated the brilliant player’s position in their plans. One leader vouched for her, and the other vouched for the improved idiot player.”
I gasped for air.
I just wanted her to stop talking.
Jinx continued, “A new plan was created to bring the two players together and use them to achieve the objective, which is still not clear to me. Secret, highly illegal enchantments were done on the idiot player to identify her fated mates. I was ordered to ingratiate myself into the family of one of those mates, and four discarded players were used to make my adoption seem legitimate.”
Sadie heaved beside me.
“I was ordered to build a relationship with the brilliant player. There were—” Jinx paused like she was searching for the correct word. “—checkpoints over the years to update me on my role.”
A bead of sweat dripped down my spine.
My hair stuck uncomfortably to my clammy skin, but I didn’t brush it off. I was too numb to move.
“From what I gathered, both leaders had some type of ability to communicate mentally with the players. However, the brilliant player was damaged by the soulmancy, and a connection could not be established. Even the Angel Consciousness could not forge a link.”
A wave of nausea rose up my sternum.
I swayed as a tunnel narrowed around me.
“I was the only one who could form a connection. I was ordered to be her guardian and help her eventually establish a link to the Angel Consciousness so she could earn her wings. Soulmancy is not an exact science, and there is much that I still don’t know.”
My hearing cut out, and the world went stuffy with static.
Jinx continued mercilessly, “I spent years trying to connect with the soul I’d mutilated. I was inside the player’s brain so often she was convinced she had a monster in her head. There were even some shared physical manifestations—when she was enraged, her eyes turned black like mine.”
I collapsed onto my side, pressed my cheek to the sticky, floor, and gasped.
“Aran—Aran—Aran!” Sadie shouted as she shook me, sounds resuming as she jostled my shoulder.
I groaned.
“I took a piece of your soul and gave it to Sadie.” Jinx moaned like she was in pain. “I mutilated you both—and the worst part is you think of me as family.”
Sadie trembled as she gripped my shoulder. “You’re the numb,” she whispered, “but I heard the moon goddess say she was the—”
Jinx cut her off, “The leaders have mental connections with their players. You were dying, and they told you what you needed to hear so they wouldn’t lose their investment.”
“Why does it need time to recharge?” Sadie asked with confusion.
Jinx shrugged. “From what I can gather, it is extremely rare for a split soul to take in someone else’s body. My theory is that your body still recognizes it as foreign matter and tries to expel it after you use it, but it has nowhere to go. So it recharges and comes back.”
I covered my mouth with horror.