“What’s the question?” I rasped, eager to get this over with before I spontaneously combusted.
“Our question is a simple one. Are you willing to sacrifice everything, and everyone you know, in order to kill Katherine Shipton?”
All my previous worries came rushing back in a dark wave. This question was definitely one that I hadn’t wanted to be asked, because… well, because I didn’t know if I could answer it truthfully. And that was almost definitely why they’d asked it. After all, good people didn’t sacrifice others, did they? Or did they, for the right reasons? I didn’t know. And, honestly, I didn’t know if I had that in me.
The enormity of this question loomed over me, holding up a horrible mirror to make me face the depth of my determination.
Even with the pain building inside me like an inferno, I couldn’t bring myself to answer. As I saw it, I had three options. I could tell the Truth. I could Lie. Or I could say I didn’t know, which would slip soundly into the category of good old Ignorance. That wouldn’t bring me any bliss here. Chaos was going to judge me, one way or another.
The problem was… how could I tell the truth, when I hadn’t figured it out myself?
Thirty
Harley
The trio of floating specters were waiting, and the pain was only getting worse. I could barely hold my astral self up, my knees shaking, sweat dripping down my back. My chest felt like it had a giant elephant sitting on it, crushing my ribs into my spine.
But I couldn’t answer.
This was the wrong time to have a bout of introspection, but I couldn’t help it—my life was on the line here, and I needed to make sure I answered right. I’d played out the last fight a thousand times, and it had always ended with only me and Katherine, face-to-face, locked in a final battle. Naturally, I’d assumed that my friends and loved ones would be safe, but now I wasn’t so sure. What if, to reach that final moment, I had to give up everything in the most terrible way? What if I was the last woman standing, in that scenario, because everyone else was gone? What if I was the last wedge between Katherine and her goal, but that battle was taking place upon the sacrifices of my friends?
No matter how many times the questions repeated in my head, my thoughts always hovered a moment longer on the idea of whether or not I could actually bring myself to go to those lengths. And if I’d even have the strength left, if Katherine had taken everything from me before it reached that point. I had no qualms about the actual ending of Katherine. I’d killed a cultist before, in Marie Laveau’s lily garden. It had been her life or mine, for the sake of my friends’ safety, too. I’d done it because I’d had to, and I’d kill Katherine because I had to, even though that moment in the garden still haunted me, deep down. Sometimes, when I was asleep, I’d see her face and watch the light go out of her eyes again.
I wasn’t like Katherine—killing wasn’t something I was comfortable with. But I would do it again if it meant ridding the world of Katherine. I could find the courage and strength to do that, knowing what Katherine had done to countless people. She would never have hesitated. She would have me killed without a second thought. I’d give her the same courtesy. But that wasn’t the question they were asking. They were asking if I could sacrifice everyone I cared about in order to end her. And I really didn’t know if I could.
I crumpled to the ground as an agonizing jolt of pain crashed through me. I was riddled with questions, but I was running out of time to answer theirs. Burning spikes of white-hot pain snaked up my arms and across my chest. A creeping iciness shivered underneath the pain, making everything both numb and excruciating at once. I knew that was my body shutting down, trying to block out the pain.
“You have the chance to retreat, if you so desire.” That had definitely come from Truth. “It seems as though you are struggling. Perhaps you are not ready to answer such a question.”
I blinked to clear the black spots dancing in my vision. “Wait, you’re helping me? Like you helped my brother just now?”
“No, we turned your brother away,” Truth replied. “He was not yet prepared, and so we made the decision to grant him as much time as he required to contemplate matters. Many of his wrongdoings were a result of a desperate desire to gain his mother’s approval. We do not punish the sins of the son for the sins of the mother. His soul is broken, but it is not evil in nature. We are able to see that. He is at liberty to try again or step away and never enter here. It is our purpose to ensure that a heart is pure, but we cannot do so until a person is ready to reveal their heart to us. You do not seem ready, either. We function on objectivity, and it does not seem fair to us that you should put yourself at such grave risk without being truly prepared for the… repercussions.”
What repercussions? My mind was on fire. It could barely think straight, let alone try and figure out the riddle of these three sphinxes. Nobody had mentioned anything about repercussions—unless they were referring to the whole death thing.
“I don’t understand,” I gasped, my astral hands clutching at my astral chest in a vain attempt to stop my heart from blasting right out of my ribcage in a bid for freedom.
“We may have been stationed here to guard this entrance,” Truth continued. “But we are not servants of the New York Coven. We bend to no mortal. We answer solely to Chaos. We know of Katherine and what she plans to do—her terrible deeds to gain dominance on a global, and ethereal, platform. In truth, this is no simple test of your good intentions. We are here to ensure that you and your friends are truly ready, because the battle ahead will be unlike anything you have ever encountered. And not all of you will survive it.”
That made things a million times worse. If they hadn’t said that, I might have confidently replied I was willing to give everything to kill Katherine, knowing there was a strong chance everyone would live, and their question was purely hypothetical. But now they’d said, explicitly, that not everyone was going to survive… Did that mean that some of my friends were going to die as sacrifices? Did that mean the responsibility for their deaths would be on my shoulders?
“I don’t know… I don’t know,” I rasped, clutching my stomach as another jolt of pain shot through me.
“War is never without its sacrifices, Harley. Death is bound within its very essence. As a soldier of this imminent conflict, you must make peace with that, or you will never be strong enough to endure,” Truth said.
Somehow, their words had cleared a path in my mind. It was as though my brain was taking over, answering the question that my heart couldn’t. That seemed strange, since this was supposed to be a judgment of my heart, but I supposed the two were intrinsically connected. Despite the vast horror of the question, all my doubts simmered away, replacing my fear with bitter determination.
“I will give everything I have to, in order to kill Katherine.” I took in a painful breath. “Without hesitation. No matter what may come.”
Truth bowed their head. “Very well. You have answered, and we shall take our time to review your reply.”
Before I knew what was going on, the spectral trio spat me back out into reality. I was on my knees in front of the library door with Finch peering at me in concern. The pain had subsided, but not by much. I could still feel my muscles burning, with a deep ache lingering in my chest.
The chains unfurled and the doors creaked open. I let loose a huge sigh of relief, though it was tinged with guilt. I did it. I’d passed their test, even though I’d admitted that I was willing to sacrifice whatever it took in order to kill Katherine. Even with that, they’d judged that my heart was pure. I had to take comfort from that, regardless of how sickened I felt.
Wade and Garrett stood waiting on the other side, both reaching out to help me as I dragged myself to my feet and staggered through. I had a moment to look back before the doors slammed shut behind me, leaving us on one side and Finch on the other. I could still see him through some cracks in the wood, but he wasn’t paying attention to us. His eyes were fixed on the chains
, which had slithered back into position around the handles. The clatter of the chains echoed through the dark hallway.
“We’re here for you, Finch.” I pressed closer to one of the cracks. “You can do this.”
He glanced at me, then back at the chains, then back at me. No hint of his usual comedy timing. Instead, he looked petrified, like he wanted to do anything but touch those chains again.
“Hey, it’s going to be okay. They’re not the enemy, Finch. You’re ready for this.”
“What if I’m not?” He sounded torn. “What if I’ll never be ready? Maybe you just got an easier question than me.”
Blocking out the burning in my veins, I kept my gaze on him. “What was your question? Maybe we can help.”
His expression darkened. “They asked me… They asked me, do I love my sister enough to sacrifice myself for her?” Bitterness lurked in his voice. Is that what it would come to? Was he the one I’d have to lose? “It’s a toughie. They gave me a way out, because they thought I wasn’t ready, or I wasn’t sure of my answer. They were right. I’m not ready to answer something like that. No offense. I know I said I was ready to pull out all the stops, but… maybe not that one.”
He was playing the joker again, forcing a smile, but it came off twisted. I could tell he wasn’t bitter at being made to decide something like that. It was his angst, and his confusion, seeping through and morphing into something he could deal with, something that wouldn’t make him look vulnerable in front of me. That was pretty much his worst nightmare, having his tough guy façade hacked away, to leave the soft and gooey center that he claimed he didn’t have.
Although, his question from the chains brought me some comfort, ridding me of some of the lingering guilt about my own answer. Sure, that eerie trio had asked me if I was willing to sacrifice everything to kill Katherine, but they hadn’t taken one thing into account: the free will of everyone else. When all was said and done, it wasn’t up to me if they sacrificed themselves. That would be their choice, and their decision, given freely, one way or another. There were no assurances that it wouldn’t happen, or that I wouldn’t try to stop it if it did. I wouldn’t know the true will of my heart, and my determination, until I was faced with that situation.
I smiled through the narrow gap, feeling a little better. “No offense taken. It’s okay if you can’t answer that.” He wouldn’t look at me. “You don’t owe me anything. I care about you, Finch, but we’ve only really known each other for a short time. We were brought together because we both want to nail Katherine to a post, not because we shared a life together as siblings. If you’re not ready, or willing, to sacrifice yourself, I won’t hold it against you. How could I?”
“If he’s not coming, we need to move,” Wade said brusquely.
Finch finally met my gaze, looking totally heartbroken. “Then I guess I’ll be out here, waiting for you guys to get back.” He smiled a small, sad smile that let me know he was thankful for my understanding. “Don’t have too much fun without me. I’ll be standing by the door with a big old plank of wood, to knock out anyone who might be chasing you.”
He was trying to cover his disappointment with humor. Same old Finch. And yet, it stung that he wasn’t coming with us.
But his behavior confused me. If he wasn’t willing to sacrifice himself, all he had to do was tell the trio that, and they’d let him through. The fact that he was hesitating spoke volumes. I realized, with a sudden sadness, that he might actually be thinking a different way, and he just wasn’t ready to voice it or make peace with it yet. Until he was, he couldn’t touch the chains again. If he did, and he tried to bend the truth somehow, the chains would kill him on the spot.
“We’ll be as quick as we can,” I said.
“Yeah, if you could, preferably before my balls retreat back into my body. It’s freezing out here.”
Oh, Finch… Turning my back on him and hating myself for it, I took the first steps into the creeping shadows of the gloomy library. With Wade and Garrett following, it was time for stage two.
Stealing the Merlin Grimoire.
Thirty-One
Jacob
I blinked slowly, and instantly regretted it. A bomb had gone off in my head, and it was in the middle of shooting up my back. I heard fuzzy voices coming from somewhere. But they sounded swampy. Like I was in deep water and they were far away, muffled.
“Jacob? Jacob, you have to wake up. Jacob, can you hear me?”
Alton? I struggled to open my lids. The lights were too bright, and everything looked wrong. It took a moment for my brain to catch up. I was lying on my side. My head on the cold floor. Staring across at two cells. Two blurry figures stood at the bars. Santana and Alton, almost side by side but separated by a thick wall.
“Jacob, mi amigo? Jacob, can you hear us?” That was definitely Santana. “Louella? Louella, mi querida, please wake up. Louella?”
I groaned, and their eyes snapped to me.
“Jacob? Oh, thank God.” Alton gave a low sigh. “Are you okay?”
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. Everything hurt. I tried to shift to look for Louella through the painful light. But it only sent a fresh jolt of pain behind my eyeballs. Blurriness followed, and I figured it was best to lie still and let my body settle. I’d just closed my eyes again when I heard footsteps. They ran right toward me. When I fought to open my eyes again, there were two figures standing over me.
“Dude, what the hell happened?” Dylan peered down at me.
“Can you move? Does anything feel broken?” An angel stood beside him. She was talking to me.
Dylan knelt down. “Yo, Taty, I think he’s out of it.”
“This is bad. This is very, very bad.” Tatyana glanced over her shoulder. “Try and rouse him, and I’ll see to Louella. She doesn’t look good, either.”
“Hey, buddy, you alive in there?” Dylan nudged my shoulder as the angel walked off. I wanted her to come back. But I had Dylan instead. I let out a gasp of pain as he took me by the arms and lifted me up. He sat me against the wall. Everything ached, but things were slowly coming back. I remembered Raffe with his red eyes. And him throwing me against the wall. And him running off… somewhere.
“Where’s Raffe?” I croaked.
“No idea. He was down here. We got an alert from Astrid that he’d Hulked out. Nobody can find him. But that was twenty minutes ago—you’ve been out for a while, man. You okay? Do you think you’ve busted anything?”
I shook my head slowly. “No, just sore.” I looked at him through one half-closed eye. “You really don’t know where Raffe is?”
“He’s going to do something terrible.” Santana’s voice echoed from her cell. With her behind bars, there was nothing she could do to help. We couldn’t let her or Alton out. Levi was the only one with the keys, and I didn’t exactly have the energy to build a portal right now. “It’s not Raffe we’re dealing with anymore. Kadar’s on the warpath. You need to stop him before he does something really bad. Something he can’t take back.”
Dylan nodded. “Astrid tracked him through the cameras for a while, but he was too quick for her. He’s been knocking cameras out. Good arm on him. But that’s why we’ve lost him.”
Panic made me lurch forward as I tried to stand. “He’s going to go after Levi. We have to find him.” Dizziness hit me, and I sank back down.
“You’re not going anywhere right now,” Dylan said. “Take a breather, dude. You’ve just had your head cracked against a wall by a djinn. And Kadar hasn’t gone for Levi. Astrid’s watching the cameras by his office. No sign of Kadar anywhere. No security magicals running around. No alarm. Nada.”
I looked up as two figures walked toward us. Tatyana had her arm around Louella’s waist. Louella looked worse than I felt, but she managed a dopey smile. Her eyes weren’t quite in focus, but at least she was on her feet. I needed to be, too. Remembering about Raffe had sobered me up a bit. I might not have liked Levi, but things would get really bad if Raffe did away
with his dad. Not only for the SDC, but for Raffe himself. He wasn’t in control right now. But he’d be the one who’d have to live with the consequences.
“Help me up,” I said. Dylan put his arms out and lifted me up like a sack of wrenches. I held on to him for a minute while my knees steadied.
“We should get these two to the infirmary.” He looked back at Tatyana. Or Taty… I envied him for being able to call her that. My heart was solely fixed on Suri, but Tatyana had been my first major crush. That hadn’t changed overnight.
Tatyana nodded. “I agree.”
“No, we can’t do that,” I blurted out. “We need to go after Raffe. We need to go to Levi’s office and wait there all night if we have to. I can walk. I’m fine.”
“Me, too,” Louella added.
“If you insist. We can’t waste time.” Tatyana looked worried. Instead of making us go and see Krieger, she turned with Louella and headed up the hallway. Walking was slow, but it was probably the best option. I was in no state to use my portal powers. If I tried, we’d probably end up in freaking Poland or something.
To my massive embarrassment, Dylan scooped me up like a baby and set off after Tatyana. When he reached her, he took Louella and slung her over his shoulder. At least it’d be quicker this way, thanks to Dylan’s Herculean abilities. But man, was it degrading. Dylan powered up the stairs, heading for Levi’s office, with Tatyana sprinting after as fast as she could.
We came to a halt in the corridor to Levi’s office. Dylan dove behind a towering bronze dragon. Tatyana squidged in beside us. And not a moment too soon. Up ahead, the rest of the California Mage Council members were pouring out of Levi’s office, including Imogene. She looked majorly pissed off. Levi had come to the door, and she glowered back at him as she turned around, her arms stiff at her sides. She was about to have the last word, I could tell. She stopped, like a beautiful bull ready to charge at the weaselly matador. Her voice rang through the hallway, laced with polite but unveiled anger.
Harley Merlin 7: Harley Merlin and the Detector Fix Page 25