Into Darkness

36

The harsh intakes of breath from the Assembly were loud in the silence of the cave. For a moment, Honor looked stunned, which left him stunned; was she . . . hurt?

“No,” Honor whispered, shaking her head. “That’s not . . . I’m not . . .”

“Yes, you are,” Lumina insisted, stepping closer to her sister while everyone else in the room began to edge away. Christian pulled Ember against his chest, Demetrius stepped in front of Eliana, Hawk yanked Jacqueline to his side. Xander merely shook his head and muttered, “Women.”

“You tried to choke me the minute we met. Why, because you didn’t want any competition? You liked being the strongest one? The most powerful? So that everyone else has to do whatever you say or face the consequences?”

Honor’s mouth dropped open. She looked crushed. Lost.

Between Magnus’s fear at what might be imminent and his anxiety for Lumina’s safety, lurked his astonishment that someone—finally—had gotten Honor to show any kind of emotion. He’d known her since she was born, and had never seen her be anything but . . . cold.

Okay, angry, too, but mostly just cold.

Lumina stepped closer to her sister, until they stood just a few feet apart. “That’s it, isn’t it? You like being feared.” She tilted her head, examining Honor with a shrewd eye. “You know who that reminds me of?”

Don’t say it, Magnus thought. Dear God, please do not say—

“Sebastian Thorne.”

As Honor stiffened, the air in the room went frigid. Ice formed in crackling long fingers along the walls. The group behind Magnus took another few steps back.

“Well,” said Honor in a furious whisper, “at least I’m not a coward!”

Lumina flushed, looking as if she’d been slapped. “What did you just call me?”

She’d said it slowly, enunciating every word, and Magnus knew that if he didn’t intervene quickly all their lives were in peril. He said, “Ladies, this really isn’t the time or the place for—”

“Butt out!” Honor and Lumina yelled in unison, and a low tremor rumbled through the floor.

Behind him, Ember squeaked in terror. Magnus held still, calculating the time and distance it would take him to get to Lumina. With his Gifts, he could get her to safety, unseen, at least giving her a chance to escape aboveground and get a head start before Honor came looking for her. His own head would be on the chopping block for it, but there was no way he was about to let Honor hurt Lumina.

So you’ve chosen sides after all. Apparently one of your Gifts is Epic Stupidity.

“I said you’re a coward,” snarled Honor, her mouth skewed in the identical don’t-cry grimace he’d seen on Lumina so recently. “You’d rather hide out and pretend to be something you’re not than be with your own kind!”

“That’s a lie! I never knew where you were! I never knew who I was!”

“Because you wouldn’t let me! You blocked me every single time I tried to reach you!”

“I was just trying to live my life! I was doing the best I could! I was just trying to fit in, to be normal, and not get killed in the process!”

They’d drawn closer to each other as if magnetized. The low rumble in the ground amplified. Around the table, the chairs rattled. A fine dusting of grit drifted down from the ceiling above, and a candelabra near the entrance toppled over, falling with a clatter to the stone.

Christian warned, “Magnus.”

“Lumina. Honor. Please.” Magnus eased closer to them. They ignored him, staring at each other with blatant hostility, rigid and silent, fire and ice, opposite sides of the same coin. “You can sort out your differences later, after you’ve both had a chance to—”

“Not get killed?” Honor repeated with an ugly laugh. “Are you kidding me? That’s what you’ve been afraid of? That’s what kept you living like a scared little mouse, hiding under the baseboards? Your fear of getting killed?”

Her voice had risen to a shout. Magnus knew his time was up; he had to act now, or risk Lumina’s life. He inhaled, feeling his muscles relax into the loose readiness they always held before battle, feeling his mind sharpen, all his senses honed to the task at hand. When he exhaled, his breath frosted out in front of his face in a plume of pearlescent white.

Honor said, “Time for a reality check, little mouse.”

And because his senses were so heightened, he sensed rather than saw the sword that flew through the air toward Lumina, wrenched from its sheath on Xander’s back by an invisible force. It parted the air with the barest, sinister hiss.