Nocturna (A Forgery of Magic #1)(93)

“Shit,” she cursed again as a guard ran past her screaming, his trousers alight from a firework.

Then all at once, it stopped.

The fireworks, like flaming bolts of colored silk, froze in place. The guards and prisoners too. The clock had fallen silent.

Her breath caught in her lungs as if they’d been sewn closed. She knew before he spoke that he was here, here to claim her once again.

“Little chameleon,” Ignacio called from below.

Something within her that he’d broken long ago splintered into even tinier pieces, grinding into dust. This was always how it felt when he found her, as if part of her were crumbling ever smaller. With a lump trembling in her throat, Finn looked down over the banister. There, on the ground floor, stood Ignacio, smiling up at her.

“I knew we would cross paths again,” he said. His voice was a whisper, but it echoed throughout the tower, as if birds flew about carrying his words. She could hear the sharp smile in his voice, the grin of a predator closing in on limping prey. Ignacio raised his hand and then he was floating up the open center of the tower to meet her. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. He hovered before her and gripped the banister, his eyes black as ever.

“Why are you here?” she bit out. “Did you follow me? Why can’t you just leave me alone?” She hated the quiver in her voice. Whenever he was around she sounded like a child again.

“I’m not here for you, Finny. Though this is a lovely coincidence.” He leaned forward, beseeching. “Come home to me. Don’t you see? Together, with this power at my fingertips, the world will be ours. What you saw with the strings, it was only the beginning. That was when I’d only infected weak men. But now, with all the men for me to take in this prison, I will have an army of soldiers, men dark enough, strong enough to carry the magic and not fall to ash. The magic will flourish and my power will multiply. Soon I will be powerful enough to take what is mine. Once I have it, I will wake a sleeping power, Finn—a god that will take the world in his hands and remake it as his own, and he will honor me for all I’ve done for him. I forgive you for that nonsense in the Brim. Come now, step into our future, Mija. We will wake the god and rule with him forever and always.”

Finn gritted her teeth and pushed his black-veined hand away. “The only future I’m interested in is the one where you’re dead and left for the scavengers to pick clean.”

Ignacio’s eyes hardened, all fatherly affection swept away. A silence trembled between them. In a flash of movement, his hand cracked against her face, a slap that sent her head slipping sideways only to have him grab her by the wrists, his blackened nails sinking into her skin. He jerked her forward, leaning so close that his breath ghosted over her nose. “I should’ve left you to become nothing with those fool parents of yours.”

Finn froze, her body brittle.

Ignacio found her days after her parents had been killed. He didn’t know anything about them. She wouldn’t have him sullying the few memories she had of them by speaking as if he knew them. “Keep my parents out of your maldito mouth,” Finn snarled. “What the hell do you know of them? They were dead before you found me. If they’d been alive I would’ve never been desperate enough to let you take me in.”

“As usual, you’re so sure of yourself, so sure of what you think you know.” His grip on her wrists tightened painfully and Finn refused to wince. “Your parents were dead the day I took you in, yes, but that was not the night I decided you were mine. I was there the night you killed that little girl for the bread, Finn,” he said, his eyes alight. “I saw your moving shadow, just like mine. I saw how you took what you needed and left her body in the alley. Then I knew you must be mine, no matter the cost,” he said, lifting his shoulder in a shrug. “Your parents were hardly difficult to dispatch.”

Finn’s blood seemed to stop its flow through her veins, her whole body falling still at his words, at the memory of that night. It unfurled in her mind, like a bolt of silk stained with blood.

She’d been hungry, so hungry, and though they’d tried to hide it, she knew her mother and father were skipping meals so that she could eat what little they had. Her mother’s cheeks had begun to sink inward, sharp cuts in her once round face, and Finn had decided that she had to help, do what she could for them.

She hadn’t meant to kill the girl as they’d fought over the lone, burnt loaf of bread in the garbage outside of a bakery, but it had happened. She remembered the girl’s chipped nails digging into her skin as Finn shoved her by the shoulders. Quicker than a flash of lightning it was over, and Finn stood above the girl’s corpse with the bread in her shaking hands.

She’d come home, the bread dusted with dirt, her eyes puffy. When she’d handed the loaf to her mother, she’d knelt before Finn, concern rounding her eyes.

“Finn,” she’d said. And when Finn refused to look at her, her mother had taken her chin in her fingers and gently tilted her face up. “Did you steal this?”

She hadn’t stolen it, she’d done much worse, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it. When Finn remained silent her mother had sighed, her warm hand dropping from Finn’s face.

“Nothing good can come of that, oíste? Bad things happen to people who do bad things and I won’t have them happen to you,” she’d said, warning stiffening her voice. “We’ll manage. Don’t do it again.”