City of Thorns (The Demon Queen Trials #1)(67)

He stared up at me, transfixed. “What makes you think it was me?”

“I remember you from that night.”

“No, you don’t.” His lip curled. “I never lied to you about what I am. I don’t hide my faults or what I’ve done. If I’d killed your mother, I would have told you as soon as I met you. Except now I have a new flaw, and it’s my worst one.”

“What?”

“I could have killed you five times over in the last two minutes. I could kill you now. And something fucking idiotic is stopping me.” His jaw tightened. “I have never loathed myself more than I do right now, and believe me, that’s saying something, because I have plumbed some amazing depths of self-loathing.”

“Stop changing the subject.” Tears streamed down my face. “You have the five-pointed star. I remember it from the night my mom was murdered in the woods with fire magic just like yours. It was you.”

“You might want to look in the mirror, Mortana,” he spat. “I’m not the only one with fire, and it seems Lucifer has blessed us both. You and I are both marked as the Lightbringer. But if you think you’ll take the throne from me, you’re mistaken.”

Dread bloomed in my chest. Horrified, I rose and stumbled away from Orion. With tears streaking my face, I reached into my jeans pocket for my phone. It was half-melted, no longer working, but in the black gleam, I could make out a reflection—one shining from my forehead.

A five-pointed star. The image hit me like a fist to my throat.

Without another word to Orion, I started running through the tunnels at full speed.

But I wasn’t running from Orion now. I was sprinting from the memory I’d been running from all this time. The reason I was so obsessed with finding my mom’s killer. This had been my worst fear—the darkest truth buried in the depths of my mind, the thing I so desperately wanted to prove wasn’t true.

What if I killed Mom?

We’d had a fight that night. She’d kept wanting me to move from one apartment to another. She’d seemed paranoid, delusional. She’d thought someone was after us but wouldn’t tell me who, and I only remembered that I hadn’t wanted to go with her.

Orion had said he couldn’t control his fire when he was younger…

I thought she’d lost her mind. I remember yelling at her, and I was so angry—

Sickness rose in my gut, and I hardly knew where I was running. I felt like the walls were collapsing around me.

Was I Mortana—and I’d forgotten?

Deep down at my core, under the lies I told myself, what if I was truly evil?

I ran and ran until I saw the moonlight in Osborne. I slipped into the shadows, my feet pounding along the waterfront. I sprinted past the brewery, the Cirque de la Mer. I didn’t know where I was going, just that I needed to move.

But I could never outrun what I was really fleeing.





Chapter 38





I leaned back on my bed in my basement apartment, staring at the wall. I poured myself another paper cup of cheap red wine, no longer caring that the spiders were crawling all over my bedspread.

Let them crawl.

I’d been down here for nearly a day, and I was on my second bottle.

If Orion wanted to come find me and throw me in prison again, it wouldn’t be hard. I hadn’t bothered to hide. I’d just come back to where I’d started—the mildewed basement I shared with six other people. Now, I had less fear but a lot more self-loathing. If Orion dragged me back, I’d go dressed in old leggings and a David Bowie T-shirt covered in wine stains. And I’m not sure I’d put up that much of a fight.

My gaze wandered around the room, then landed on the fire extinguisher. I broke out into a sort of hysterical dark laughter and spilled some of my wine on the duvet.

Guess I could get rid of all the fire safety equipment now.

My phone buzzed—another text from Shai, desperate to know what was going on. I hadn’t been answering, because frankly, I had no idea what to say.

I was a demon, yes. But I wasn’t going to deliver that news over text. Still, I should let her know I was alive.

I flicked open my new, extremely cheap phone. Unable to come up with anything better, I texted her a smiley face and a bottle of wine emoji.

That should cover it.

My head was swimming, and I was starting to feel faintly nauseated. When had I last eaten?

The room seemed to be wavering. Apparently, being a demon made you faster and stronger, but it didn’t raise your alcohol tolerance.

And yet, I didn’t want my head to clear. I couldn’t face the possibility that my own fire magic had killed Mom.

When my phone buzzed again, I found a frantic all-caps message from Shai:

ARE YOU OKAY??! WTF IS HAPPENING? TWO MORE DUKES ARE DEAD?? I saw Legion in the Sathanas Ward. I got up the courage to ask him where Mortana was. He said no one had seen you, and rumor was that you’d burned two dukes. ARE YOU OKAY?

I dropped my cup of wine on the bedside table and started typing back to her.

I’m fine!

You know what? Fuck it. I was always so worried about what people would think or that I’d make them uncomfortable with the darkness I carried with me. I never wanted to burden anyone with my most disturbing thoughts. Maybe I could actually learn a thing or two from Orion. Maybe I could try…just coming out and saying things.