Nocturna (A Forgery of Magic #1)(100)

“No,” she said, gripping him hard by the shoulders. “We need to get out of here.”

Alfie pushed against her, but her resolute stare stopped him. He hung his head.

“Prince. Prince, look at me.” Alfie raised his head, his throat burning. What would they do now? How would they trap the magic without that girl?

“Do you think we could use the dragon to transport the two of us?” she asked.

Alfie wasn’t sure. The dragon had wrung him dry, taking nearly every drop of strength he had to offer, but they didn’t have much of a choice, did they?

“I can try.” He held out his hand. It would likely kill him, but he had to try. “Give it to me.”

Finn froze, her eyes wide.

The realization struck him square in the chest. “The dragon was in the cloak pocket, wasn’t it?”

Finn nodded. Xiomara had it. If she was still alive, that is. In the silence he could hear the rock shifting in the collapsed stairwell. Those creatures were still coming, and they had no way off this forsaken tower.

Alfie ran a shaking hand through his hair before walking to the edge of the roof. A staggering drop and a boiling moat stared up at him.

He’d been foolish enough to wonder if he could become a king who would change his kingdom for the better, a king who would be different from the way Finn had described them—a foot hovering overhead to stamp her into dust. Instead, he’d destroyed Castallan with his carelessness, and maybe the rest of the world too.

Alfie crouched down and sat at the edge, his legs swinging over the open air. Before him the sky was a spill of pink and orange as the sun set. He would find the view beautiful if not for the circumstances. Soon night would fall, the ball would begin, and he would be here, waiting to die. “Well, that’s it, then.”

It was over. The horde was going to dig through the rubble Finn had made. It was only a matter of time, and there was no way out of here. No way home. No way to stop the magic from destroying everything he knew.

“I could try to make a bridge of rock to walk down or something, but . . .” Finn plopped herself down next to him. “But collapsing a hall of stone is one thing; holding things up for us to walk on all the way down is another. I don’t think I could hold it. And you haven’t got the energy to do some fancy magic, do you?”

Alfie shook his head.

“Prince.” She looked at him as if she had already resigned herself to her fate, as if the decision had been made ages ago but she was only just letting him know now. He knew what she would say.

He shook his aching head. “No.”

“You should try to transport yourself home. The regular way. With your doorknob.”

Alfie looked at her, shame welling up inside him like sap from a tree. “You think I would leave you here to die?”

Finn shrugged. “It’s the smart thing to do.”

Alfie desperately wanted to go home, to run to his family and hide from what he’d done. But his mouth would never move to say those words of magic.

“It’s the wrong thing to do. I won’t leave you here, Finn.”

“People leave each other behind all the time,” she said, her gaze pointed ahead at the horizon.

“Not me,” Alfie said. If this dark magic took the world and everything he knew, it wouldn’t take who he was as well. “Not today.”

Finn’s eyes flashed at the sound of her own words coming from his mouth. “I give you permission to go. I absolve you of whatever guilt you’re building in your head. Ignacio wants me, then he’s going to head to the palace for the stone hands. I can stall him. You’ve got to go warn them. You have to go home, with or without me.”

There was truth in her words, but still, Alfie could not move. “I won’t leave you.”

“I’m not your family!” Finn shouted at him, her eyes shining as she rounded on him. “Don’t be stupid. Protect them while you still can! If I had mine, if they were still here, if Ignacio hadn’t—” She turned away from him then, her chest heaving. They’d never spoken about her family, about who beyond Ignacio had called her their kin, and Alfie had a feeling that she’d lost them in the worst way—early and painfully. His heart ached at the thought. He’d lost Dez and he still couldn’t fathom losing more. “Just go. Leave me here.”

He knew not to reach for her even though her body seemed to beg for comfort. So he hoped his words could replace touch, could double as a warm arm about the shoulders, a hand cradling the back of her head. “I love my family with all my heart,” he said. “But they would scarcely forgive me for leaving someone behind for my own gain. For leaving behind a friend,” he corrected himself. “I’m not going anywhere.”

First her face held nothing but confusion and surprise, as if she’d stepped outside expecting a summer day only to find a snowstorm, but swimming beneath the surface was something more.

“You’re an idiot.” The sharpness of her words clashed with the softness of her voice.

He couldn’t help but smile at that. “So you’ve said.”

Silence fell between them, smooth as silk, but Alfie did not want his final moments to be spent in silence, inside his own head. He’d spent too much of his life there, wrapped up in tangles of worries.

Instead, he asked the first question that popped into his head. “Is your last name really Voy?”