Nocturna (A Forgery of Magic #1)(105)

As the carriage zoomed down the sugarcane-lined road, whipping the stalks forward in forced bows, the scenarios played in her mind. Each one had the common thread of Ignacio standing over her, watching her take her last breaths. Even after she’d slashed his eyes, she’d always assumed that he’d be the last thing she saw. Now it seemed that she would be right about that, no surprises there.

But she’d never expected her death to be entangled with the fate of a prince who had more book recommendations than sense, and the fate of a kingdom she’d told herself meant nothing to her. Yet here she was, steering a careening carriage in hopes of getting to the palace in time to stop Ignacio from retrieving those eerie stone hands.

But she supposed these things were supposed to be a surprise anyway.

And then there was the surprise of the prince himself.

She would never forget the way he looked at her when she’d found him in Xiomara’s cell, as if the world had been swathed in darkness and in her eyes she carried the light. His face had softened and he’d bowed his head, as if embarrassed by something he thought. Or felt. She was afraid to know what he was thinking and afraid not to know, afraid of the answers that her mind was supplying.

His voice echoed again in her head, soft and insistent. I believe you.

His words had formed into flesh and bone—a hand held out to pull her to her feet and out of Ignacio’s grasp. Even when the despair of what had happened to her parents had razed her to the ground, his words had found her, promising that she could break free of the fate that Ignacio had sewn into her skin years ago. His voice in her head pushing her forward had felt more intimate than anything she’d ever experienced, and he didn’t even know it.

He never would. She was never going to tell him.

But the fact that she knew it was enough to make her face burn hot under the cool moonlight pouring over her.

The carriage rocked as the prince climbed carefully from the back into the seat beside her at the carriage’s head. Finn didn’t turn to look at him. She stared ahead at the winding dirt road, willing her face to cool. She didn’t want to see how drawn and sallow his face had become from using the magic. They were already dashing toward death; no need to speed the process further.

“I told her . . .” Alfie’s words ground to a halt. He seemed to struggle with something. “I told Xiomara the plan.”

Finn raised an eyebrow. She’d never heard him use the girl’s name, and from the way his nostrils flared, it took a toll on him to utter it even once.

“Which is?” she asked.

“We get to the palace and warn them of what’s to come, and ask the due?os to set up protections to stall Ignacio and his soldiers from getting to the hands. When he comes for the hands, you and I will take him on. If we’re lucky, we kill him, and I successfully trick the magic into the toy dragon. Xiomara will stay hidden under the vanishing cloak until the time is right and then open the void for me. I’ll toss it in there and there will be no bodies for it to infect, no way for it to use its power again.”

“And if we’re not lucky?” Finn asked, her voice worn thin.

A silence spread thick between them.

“If we’re not lucky.” Alfie tilted his head back, his eyes closed. “Then we’ll have nothing to worry about any longer.”

“A sweet way to say we’ll be dead,” Finn said.

“Would you rather I say it the sour way?” he murmured to the moon.

The prince’s face was bathed in moonlight as he bit the inside of his cheek. Her mother had always told her that keeping one’s softness in the face of a world that was tough and callous was a strength unto itself. It struck her that her mother would’ve liked Alfie very much. “No,” she said. “Sweet’s all right for now.”

Silence reigned for a long moment, and Finn wondered if he’d fallen asleep.

“Did you really kill someone when you were eight years old?” Alfie asked, his voice soft. His eyes were closed and his head leaned sideways. The dragon sat against his chest. He must have made Xiomara give it back to him when they’d spoken in the carriage. If he leaned a hair more, his forehead would press against her shoulder.

The moonlight silvered him, tracing the delicate cut of his features in its cool light. Finn wondered if this was what magic looked like to him, lush color licking the skin. Or was it a softer glow, trapped beneath the flesh like a flush blooming up the neck to claim cheeks and lips. Maybe a shimmer, like sweat.

“Why are you asking me that now?”

“Because I don’t believe you,” he said, his eyes meeting hers. The gold of his gaze took on a new life, the brightness pronounced and dazzling. “And if we’re going to die together tonight, I want to know who I’m dying with.”

Silence stretched between them.

After what Ignacio had done to her, a fear of him had taken root, black and crooked inside of her. Finn decided that if she feared one man that much, she couldn’t afford to fear anything else. So then, when she was afraid of something, she chased it down, taught it that it ought to be afraid of her instead.

But still, she could never stop fearing the truths that lived inside of her. She’d told Ignacio about what she’d done to that little girl when she was eight, her darkest secret, and he’d used it against her. He’d taken her words and fashioned them into a collar to choke her with. No matter how many wild heists she’d pulled off, knife fights she’d won, or encounters with this dark magic she’d survived, she could never stop fearing herself—the parts of her that made her wish she could tear open her own skin and crawl out. The parts that made her hide herself under face after face. The parts of her that had killed that little girl and, in turn, killed her parents too. Her throat thickened at that thought.