Lynet put her fingertip against the jar and watched as the mouse tried to paw at her through the glass. She heard the excitement in Gregory’s voice, but all she felt was empty. “When you used my blood to make this, it nearly killed me,” she said, her voice strained. She looked up at Gregory. “Did you know that would happen?”
Gregory snorted. “Oh, you’re exaggerating. It’s disorienting at first, I know, but that initial weakness will pass. Creating you nearly killed me, of course, but humans are complex, and I had a number of failed experiments before I managed to get you just right. Not to mention I was much older than you at the time, whereas you, Lynet … you’re still so young, your heart so strong. You have so much life to give.…”
There was a hunger in his eyes as he reached out to touch her cheek, and Lynet flinched away. She still had her dagger at her waist under her cloak. She needed to distract him so she could reach for it without his noticing. “I … I’m still not feeling well,” she said. “Perhaps I should go.”
His eyes darted toward the door, and Lynet knew he was thinking that if he let her out that door now, she would never come back. He edged closer to her and shook his head in confusion. “You can’t leave now. You’re the answer I’ve been searching for. All these years, I’ve been trying to reverse the effects of your creation—my aging, my weakness. I even came here hoping medicine would help me since magic only worsened my condition, but to no success. Think of all that potential wasted, Lynet! I had only begun to discover what I could do before I grew too weak to continue. But now that you’re here, we can unlock all the secrets of our magic together. If you stay here with me, there’s no limit to what we can accomplish together. This is what you were meant for.”
Lynet took a small step backward. She had always thought she was meant to become her mother—and now, finally, here was confirmation that she wasn’t her mother, that she had a purpose and an ability that was all her own. She had been torn between wanting answers about the nature of her existence and wanting to leave her old life behind—and now Gregory could offer her both. She could be reborn in his image instead of her mother’s. Was that what she wanted?
“Mina and your father kept you away from me,” Gregory continued. “They made you scared of me, but I knew—I always knew—that there was a chance that we were alike, that you would share my gifts.” He smiled at her, and perhaps it was only the way the light from the window hit his face, but he seemed younger now, some color in his wasted cheeks, a hopeful glimmer in his eyes. How different he was from her own father, how willing to let her see the most fearsome and powerful parts of herself.
He nodded, sensing her waning resistance. “In all the world, you’re the only one who can help me,” he said. “I’ve been wasting away for so long, Lynet—would you leave me now? Who else can guide you like I can?”
Who else? His words echoed in her head, overlapping each other in an endless, muddled stream. And then the answer came to her with the sharpness and clarity of glass—
Mina.
Mina had power over glass, and Gregory didn’t know that. He had spent the past sixteen years trying to reach Lynet, but he had never even bothered to consider his own daughter. He could never help me cure her. He doesn’t know Mina at all. And if he didn’t know his own daughter, didn’t understand why Lynet would want to help her, then how could he ever understand Lynet?
He took a step closer to her, and Lynet slowly backed away, her hand slipping under her cloak. Her fingers rested on the dagger hilt. “And if I refuse to stay with you?” she said.
The smile froze on his face before fading away, his eyes flat and dull. “Well, then I’d have to admit that I’ve been less than honest with you about my reasons for wanting you to stay. You see, the truth is that I don’t need you. I just need your heart.”
Lynet drew out the dagger just as Gregory lunged for her hand, his fingers wrapping around her wrist. He pushed her back against the table, the edge digging into her back, the dagger hovering between them. He had her other wrist in his grip now too, but they were locked in a stalemate, neither of them strong enough to overpower the other.
“You’re not being fair, Lynet,” Gregory said through gritted teeth. “I made you, sacrificed my power and my vitality to give you life. Now it’s time for you to return it all back to me.”
“By giving you my heart?” She tried to pull away, but she only ended up digging the table edge farther into her back.
“You felt that pain in your chest earlier, didn’t you?” Gregory said. His fingers tightened, twisting her wrist, and Lynet’s grip on the dagger began to loosen. “Blood is the source of our power, just as I said, but the heart is the source of our blood. I grew weak because I drained my heart too quickly, but with yours—so young and healthy, so full of magic—I would be more careful. I would be strong again. Doesn’t that seem just, Lynet, that you should restore the life that you stole from me?” He gave a final twist of her wrist, and Lynet cried out in pain, her grip loosening enough to let him take the dagger from her.
“I came here to cure Mina’s heart, not yours,” Lynet spat. He still had her other wrist in his grip, but she could feel his hold weakening now that he had the dagger. If she could just distract him—
His face stretched into a hideous smile. “Do you still think you can help her? Let me show you what Mina really is. Look there.” He gestured to the shelves beside them, and Lynet glanced quickly from the corner of her eye, not letting Gregory out of her sight, to see what he was pointing at.
But even before she looked, part of her already knew what she would see—that … that thing in the jar that had made her shudder. “Yes,” Gregory was saying, “you saw it already, didn’t you? That’s what remains of Mina’s heart. Even if you found a way to give her a new one, she will always carry that rotten heart inside. Do you see now how pointless it is to try to cure something that’s already dead? It’s too late for her, but not for me.”
She kept looking back and forth from Gregory to the heart, trying to understand what that hideous thing had in common with Mina’s radiance, Mina’s fury. But even with her divided attention, she noticed that Gregory’s breathing had become heavier, his grip on her wrist continuing to slacken. All this exertion was exhausting him, and so Lynet put any thought of Mina’s heart aside and gave a final sharp tug. She may have been weakened, but years of climbing had made her stronger than she looked, and her wrist slipped free from his grip. She managed to make it down the length of the table before Gregory caught up with her, slamming both fists down on either side of her to trap her against the table. But Lynet had just remembered something about the dagger that was still clutched in his hand—she had made it from snow, and as long as she had the snow, she was never truly weak.
Burn, she commanded.