Incendiary (Hollow Crown #1)(121)

He watches Lucia weigh her options, clearly knowing this is a trick. He keeps his expression neutral, not wanting to scare her off yet.

She grabs his hand and closes her eyes. He feels the probing of her foul magics.

Cebrián’s head pops up. Silver eyes and a terrifying smile spreading across his face.

Lucia gasps, jumping back, and drops Méndez’s hand. “You can’t! You have to let me go!”

He steps back, as do the guards. “A promise is a promise.”

Lucia runs to the door, but Cebrián beats her there, his speed and agility inhuman. Before she can utter a scream he is upon her, hands tight around her neck. Her body convulses, color draining by the second. Her skin turns nearly translucent. New veins, pulsing with a faint glow, begin to appear, tracing a path up her arms, her legs. . . .

Justice Méndez is thrilled at the progress.

The door to the cell bursts open. “Stop this.”

Justice Méndez turns to face the intruder. Spoiled, wretched prince.

Prince Castian. His eyes are wild. He points a finger at Méndez. “I am ordering you to stop this immediately.”

Justice Méndez burns with irritation at the prince, who remains a constant thorn in his side. Turning slowly, unhurried, he waves a hand at his creation.

“That’s enough, Cebrián, you’ll drain her dry. Remember, you can’t control magic that isn’t there. I won’t have repeats of the others.”

Castian crosses the room to Méndez. Cebrián pulls out a crude weapon hidden in his tunic. He jams the sharp point into the prince’s shoulder.



I can’t move. Lucia was still alive? How did she recover? Then it hits me. The new Ventári was Lucia, and I saw right past her.

“No,” I say. I say it over and over again because it can’t be.

I step out of the washroom and grab a cloak. Rush through the crowded house and out back to the patio. Here in the port everything smells of the sea and I breathe deep as if I could scrub myself clean from the inside.

A troubling thought digs at the story I’ve built for myself. Castian stopped the experiment. Castian had a shoulder injury at the ball. The man had stabbed him. That was why Castian had circled Soledad on his map. Why Méndez and Castian had been gone from the palace at the same time. They’d been together. But what is the prince playing at?

The weapon was never in the wooden box Prince Castian had in his secret study and it isn’t the alman stone in the vault.

You don’t want to see what’s right in front of you.

Right in front of me. I look down at my hands. The memory of Méndez healing scarred hands wasn’t about me. It was that man—that Cebrián.

Because it is not an object at all.

The weapon is a person.

A Robári like me. It’s like a living, breathing alman stone. I think of what he did to Lucia. He drained her power, like a memory, twice. The light that emitted from him was brilliant, a ray of light, a beam of alman stone. Somehow, the justice used alman stone to alter the Robári’s magics.

I’m going to be sick.

I take several steps to the fence and cough up my meal and when all that’s left is acid and bile, I heave. I go to the well and fumble in the dark to bring up a bucket of water. I drink until my mouth stops feeling so dry. I have to tell Margo and Elder Filipa.

When I take a step back into the house, I know that I can’t. If they know that the justice can turn memory thieves into magic thieves, that will only prove that I am as dangerous as they think I am.

You were born to be a weapon, Méndez told me.

I didn’t want to hear those words because he was right. That’s all I’ll ever be to anyone. My parents. Friends and neighbors. Dez.

I look up at the house and the people who are eagerly awaiting a new life. A ship that will help them regroup. I can’t take that hope away from them. There is one thing I am good at, better at than stealing memories, better at than hurting the people I love—and that’s being alone.

I lift the hood of my cloak and sidestep the house, making my way down the narrow alley that leads back to the boardwalk.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Sayida asks, appearing from nowhere like a figure out of the Gray. Her eyes are dark as coal, and the smile leaves her face when she realizes what I’m doing.

“How long have you been there?” I ask.

“Not long. Despite my injuries, I could feel your anguish, Ren. This metal Nuria gave us is strong.” Sayida holds out her forearms wrapped in fresh gauze and linen.

“Good. How are you?”

“Better after Filipa’s tonic for the pain,” she says. “You should know we got the ship. It leaves in two days’ time.”

I turn to the house. The lights dim enough that they won’t cause attention. “Go inside. Tell them.”

“Why do you do this, Ren?” She tries to grab my hand, but I don’t let her.

“Don’t use your power on me.”

She winces and rests her hands at her sides. “I’m not! I’m worried about you.”

“You don’t understand what’s happening.”

“Then tell me! Ren, I’ve trusted you with my life. You’re the closest thing I have to a sister, and no matter how much I try to be there for you, you push me away.”