The Poison Season(81)

“Someone had to! I heard how uncertain you were when he tried to coerce you into leaving. I knew there was still a chance you would fall under his spell. Someone had to be strong. You’re too soft, Leelo. You always have been.”

Leelo wanted to scream at the way Sage repeated everything her mother said, like a starling. Instead, she made a final, desperate appeal to whatever loyalty she still felt for Leelo. “I told him no, Sage. I wasn’t leaving with him.”

“We couldn’t take that chance,” Ketty said. “Not with Endla at stake.”

Through the trees, Leelo could see the glow of torchlight moving toward them. Ketty must have alerted the council. “Just don’t hurt him,” she pleaded. “He hasn’t done anything wrong. He’s leaving now. He doesn’t know anything. Just let him go.”

“You know we can’t do that,” Ketty said. “Give him to me. The council will decide his fate.”

“No!” Leelo pulled her knife out of her waistband. The tiny blade glinted in the moonlight, and as Leelo bared her teeth, one arm still held out protectively toward Jaren, Sage actually took a step back.

But Ketty was not easily cowed. She strode forward and knocked the knife from Leelo’s hand, shoving her aside as she reached for Jaren.

He backed up toward the lake, his heels only feet from where the water lapped against the shore. Isola was crying great, heaving sobs, clearly traumatized from what she’d gone through with Pieter.

Fiona was trying to console her, but she, too, was crying. “Let the boy go, Ketty. He hasn’t done anything.”

“How could you be so foolish, sister?”

“I only just learned of his existence.”

“And then what?” Ketty spat. “Decided to let him take your only daughter?”

Jaren shook his head. “I would never do that. It was always Leelo’s choice. And she chose you!”

Ketty ignored him. “You already let one outsider tear our family apart,” she said to Fiona. “Do you really want to do it again?”

“You tore our family apart,” Fiona growled, the anger in her voice startling Leelo. “You could have let things be. You could have let me have one thing of my own.”

“You had responsibilities,” Ketty spat. “And you abandoned them for some stranger!”

“I didn’t abandon anyone. Kellan knew. He knew, and he forgave me. If it hadn’t been for your involvement, if Hugo had never found out...”

Leelo was more confused than ever. She was torn between pushing Jaren into the boat to save him before it was too late and trying to find some way out of this nightmare they hadn’t considered yet.

“Mother,” Sage warned. The other council members were nearly upon them.

Ketty turned away from Fiona toward Jaren, who had inched closer to the boat. If he jumped in, the movement might be enough to push the boat those last couple feet into the water. Leelo rushed to his side.

But it was too late. The other council members arrived, all nine of them, including several large men. They would kill Jaren, and they would make Leelo watch.

Suddenly, Isola broke into a sprint. She picked up the knife Leelo had dropped and dove for the rope.

“Go!” Mama screamed at Leelo, and everything slowed down as she turned and reached for Jaren’s hand, hauling him toward the boat. Isola slashed repeatedly at the rope, trying to free it, and Fiona, finding some strength Leelo had never witnessed before, was there at the stern, pushing with all her might.

Sage hurled herself at Isola, knocking the girl down. The rope was frayed but still holding on by a thread. Jaren was in the boat, taking up the oars and using them to push away from the shore. Sage screamed when she realized that Leelo was in the boat with him.

“Leelo!” Sage was at the stern, her boots perilously close to the water’s edge as she pulled with all her might in one last desperate attempt to stop her cousin from escaping. “Don’t leave me!” she screamed.

And then the others were there, pulling next to her. Sage collapsed in relief, sobbing like a baby, as Jaren and Leelo were hauled out of the boat—Leelo kicking and screaming like a wild animal, Jaren silent and resigned to his fate.

And as Leelo was torn away from the people she loved, she saw that Sage was smiling in relief, even as holes formed in her boots where they’d been splashed in the commotion. Sage didn’t care about the pain she caused anyone, not even herself, Leelo realized.

Just as long as Endla was sated.



Chapter Forty-Eight


Jaren stood at the center of the pine grove, trussed up like a turkey, surrounded by the Endlan council members. There had been an argument about what to do with Leelo, her mother insisting that she be taken home to avoid any further trauma, while Ketty insisted she stay and watch what her selfish actions had wrought.

Ketty, unsurprisingly, had won.

Leelo sat next to her mother on a log just outside the circle of council members. Her cousin was there, too, attempting to speak to her, but Leelo just stared dead-eyed at the ground in front of her. Her braid had unraveled in the chaos and her hair hung around her in soft waves. Jaren wanted nothing more than to hold her and promise her everything would be all right, to apologize for involving her in this awful mess, to tell her he loved her again and again.

“The punishment is clear,” one of the council members said. He was a large man, one of the ones who had hauled him out of the boat. “The Forest, or the lake.”