Until it was too late.
Rhys killed Natalya. Or did he? Natalya was desperate to live again, and the only way she could do that was to destabilize my mind while I was most vulnerable—when I was scrying into her memories. Then she could slip into my body. It worked the last time in France. All she had to do was show me Rhys killing her. A lie. The perfect scheme. Or the truth.
It was why I hadn’t told anyone about it. Not even Belle. I just didn’t know.
And now I couldn’t even trust my own mind. I covered my eyes with a shaking palm. What if she got me one day? What would I do then, trapped helplessly in my body? I tried to stop them, because I knew I had to pull myself together and be strong, but a few tears leaked out anyway, slipping through my fingers and trickling down to my ears. Sometimes it was too much.
“Don’t cry, Maia.”
My eyes shuddered open at the feel of his whisper grazing the skin of my ear, his hand on the side of my face. A tender touch. He’d sat down on the bed so quickly, so quietly. My whole body burned from his closeness.
No.
“You’ve been looking for me,” Saul said. “But I’m here now.”
I had already launched at him before the scythe had fully formed in my hand, flames erupting around my body. He moved off the bed with several steps back, quick and careful, side-stepping my first swing. The blade of the scythe lodged into the wall.
I had to calm down. Calm down and capture him. This was my chance.
Yanking the scythe out of the wall, I swung again. Saul could have disappeared just as easily as he’d appeared. Yet he didn’t. A shadow cast from his wide plum hood covered the top portion of his face, but not the upward turn of his full lips. His robes fluttered from the impact of my blade against his hand—a metal hand. Silver and shining, its thin fingers connected by bulbous joints that whirred noisily as he held my weapon in place.
“I thought I cut that off. Where’d you get a replacement?” I asked coolly, trying to break through his grip with my strength alone, but Saul was strong too. “Couldn’t have been while you were hiding out in Greenland.”
He stood perfectly upright, shaking just a bit under the weight of my attack when he answered. “So you’ve been tracking me since we last spoke.” And he began squeezing the blade so tightly I thought it would break. “You remember, don’t you? What you did to me then?”
“I remember what you did.” The bodies of innocent people strewn about the La Charte hotel lobby. The train passengers screaming as they were torn apart by phantoms. “I remember.”
I let go of my scythe, banishing it quickly before kicking him back and summoning it again in another whirl of flames that licked the curtains—but all I could see was him. Saul. I had to capture him. Jumping at him, I brought it down, only to have him dodge. The blade plunged into the floor. “How did you even find me?” I demanded, yanking it back out.
“I heard you were here and thought I’d stop by.”
“Heard? From who? Only . . .” My breath hitched. Only the Sect knew we were here.
“Aren’t you happy to see me?”
There was a whimsical note in his voice that made me think of Alice, but the sociopathic, dead Effigy in his line wouldn’t have been this calm in the heat of battle.
“Nick. Is that who I’m talking to? Is it?”
“I’m sure you can tell. Though, strangely,” Saul said, his voice a breath, “it doesn’t seem to matter much these days.”
The two personalities were constantly warring, battling for control over Nick’s body. I knew what it felt like. But I had no sympathy for Nick, no matter how human he tried to make himself appear. Neither was to be trusted. He just so much as said it himself.
One strike. Two. He dodged well, grabbing my wrist with his metal hand and squeezing it tight.
“Relax, Maia. Don’t you notice?”
Releasing me, he shoved me back, not too hard, perhaps, because Nick was still trying to pretend to be a gentleman. But when he pointed to the bed, I finally noticed—the flames were eating at the gray covers, licking the walls. And for a moment, I was paralyzed. For a moment, all I could see was my house in Buffalo up in flames, the bodies of my family being carted out in bags. Mom. Dad. My twin sister, June . . .
No. I could handle this. I’d been training for two months for this. I could handle this. But the scythe had already vanished into the air, my hands trembling as I watched the fire spread.
“Banish the flames, Maia. Go on. Don’t be afraid.”
Saul was too close to me. I could feel his hard body against the dark curls spilling down my back, his chest a breath away from my head. If he wanted to kill me, he could have done it already. I had to concentrate. This time I would do it.
I breathed and raised my arms. It was like the reverse of trapping and releasing. I drew the energy back inside my body, like depriving the flames of oxygen. Releasing a deep, shuddering breath, I collapsed back—into Saul’s arms.
I stayed crumpled in them, too shocked to move at first, even with my brain screaming at my muscles.
“Good. Good.” Saul’s heavenly face beamed down at me, his sea-blue eyes glinting in the moonlight. “The better control you have over your powers, the easier it will be for you to find Marian.”
A sudden spurt of adrenaline shot through my limbs. He didn’t just have the power to disappear. He could take me with him if he wanted. Like last time.
I pushed myself out of his arms, but Saul grabbed my wrist before I could back away. “I’m not here to hurt you. I can’t take you yet. I have too much to do before then. You can rest easy for now.”
“Yet,” I spat. “So you’re still after me.”
“It’s not me you’ll have to worry about, Maia,” he said, sliding down his hood so I could see the long, loose silver hair that had been dark in the picture Director Chafik had shown us. “Truthfully, I was in an awful state after you hurt me in France,” he said. So Sibyl’s theory was right after all. “But I did gain control of myself. Control. Focus.”
His gaze wavered strangely, but for just a moment. Or did I imagine it?
“Right now there are other things I have to take care of before we can see each other again,” he continued as steady as ever.
“What do you mean?” A hard rhythm pounded against my chest.
“Alice and I are going to achieve what we’ve set out to for many years. Decades.”
He sounded as eerily calm as the night I’d faced him in France. It’d frightened me more than Alice’s murderous frenzy.
“I told you before. We both have a wish to grant. With Marian’s help, we’re going to reshape the world.”