We met there in the middle of the courtyard, only five feet of empty air separating us from each other.
All around us, the courtyard was in total chaos, as Sophia, Owen, and Xavier fought the bounty hunters and giants, even as my allies slowly retreated and took Bria with them. This had been the plan all along. To make it seem like I'd come here alone, then let my friends sneak in behind and get Bria to safety while I battled Mab. I just hadn't counted on Gentry making things a little easier for us, but I figured luck owed me at least this much. So did the bounty hunter for my sparing her and Sydney that night outside Mab's mansion.
Nobody had particularly liked the plan, especially the part about leaving me behind to face Mab by myself. But we all knew that this was how it had to be. I was the only one with a chance of stopping the Fire elemental, the only one whose magic was strong enough. It was just-inevitable. Maybe it had been since the day the Fire elemental had murdered my mother and older sister just because I was some vague, nebulous threat to her. A threat she'd made a reality by her cruel actions.
Mab and I stood there in the middle of the battle, somehow untouched by all the blood and bodies flying through the air around us in the chaos of the courtyard. It was as if the rest of the world didn't even exist anymore, except for me and her and the snow slowly swirling in between us.
"Before we finally do this," I said. "There's one thing that I have to ask you."
"And what would that be?" Mab asked in a low, dangerous voice.
I stared at her, my gray eyes burning into her black ones, our mutual hatred writhing in the air between us like a living, pulsing, beating heart of darkness.
"Did you ever stop and think that maybe you brought all this on yourself?"
Mab tilted her head to one side, making her hair spill over her slim shoulders. The bright coppery color of her wavy locks reminded me of blood.
Everything about her reminded me of blood and death and fire and that horrible night when she'd so casually destroyed the people I'd loved, leaving nothing behind but dirty, crumbled ash and the hollow echo of my hoarse screams.
The spider rune scars embedded in my palms itched and burned at the brutal memories, the way that they always did. Or maybe that was because Mab was now fully embracing her elemental Fire magic. Her black eyes smoldered like coals in her beautiful face, fueled by her enormous power and her supreme satisfaction at finally arranging a face-to-face meeting with me.
"Whatever do you mean?" Mab asked in her low, sultry voice.
"Did you ever read about Oedipus? You know, the tragic Greek hero who was supposedly destined to kill his father and marry his own mother?"
"What's your point?" Mab snapped, more than ready to get on with the business of burning me alive.
I really couldn't blame the Fire elemental for her impatience. Seventeen years had passed since the first time she'd tried to murder me. A long time for anyone to wait to off her mortal enemy.
I shrugged. "It always struck me that Oedipus's parents went about things the wrong way. Instead of sending their son off to die, they should have kept him at home and loved him. That way, he would at least have known what his own father looked like. Then maybe he wouldn't have killed dear old dad when he met him on the road years later. But Oedipus thought that his father was just another stranger and not anyone important."
Mab frowned, not seeing my point.
"That's the thing that's always bugged me about the Greeks and prophecies in general. The more you try to prevent them, the more you hasten them along. Happens all the time in classic mythology," I said. "So I ask again. Did you ever think that if you hadn't come to my house that night, if you hadn't murdered my mother and older sister, if you hadn't tortured me, maybe we wouldn't be here today?"
Mab stared at me, the black fire burning even darker in her eyes now, sucking in even more of the twilight that streaked the wintry landscape in brooding purples and impartial grays. The snow fell silently around us, a steady torrent of fat, fluffy flakes that seemed at odds with the tension in the air. Despite the cold, I could still feel the intense heat radiating off Mab's body. Her Fire magic pricked against my skin like thousands of needles stabbing me one after another-a relentless wave of red-hot agony.
But I didn't reach for my Stone magic to block hers. Not yet. I'd need every ounce of power that I possessed if I had any hopes of defeating Mab, and I wasn't going to waste any of it now while we were still just taunting each other. No, I'd summon up my magic when she threw her elemental Fire at me-that's when I'd need it most. So I swallowed down the primal snarl that clogged my throat at the feel of the invisible, fiery needles against my skin and continued with my musings.
I figured that I could be forgiven my odd quirk of sentiment just this once. It wasn't like I'd ever get the chance to confront Mab again-as one of us would kill the other in another minute, two tops.
"Because let's face it. Me living on the streets, getting taken in by an assassin, becoming an assassin myself, becoming the Spider. That all goes back to one thing-you killing my family," I said. "If you hadn't done that, well, who knows what would have happened? I might have grown up to help people. Become a doctor or something. Learned how to save lives instead of being so very good at taking them."
"None of that matters," Mab scoffed.
"Of course it does-it's all that matters. Especially here in this place. Especially now."
Mab's eyes narrowed to slits, but the elemental Fire still burned in the smoldering depths of her gaze. "And why is that?"
"All the people that I've killed over the years? Yeah, I did most of them for the money, because being an assassin was a job and one that I was good at. But the biggies, all the folks that I've taken on in recent months, Alexis James, Tobias Dawson, Elliot Slater, Elektra LaFleur. You see, I've gradually come to realize something about them-and how they've each been different from everyone else that I've battled over the years."
"And what would that grand revelation be?" Mab asked.
This time, I tilted my head at her and smiled. "That they've all just been practice for you, bitch."
We stared at each other, the Ice and Stone magic in my gray gaze a perfect, natural enemy for the elemental Fire flickering in Mab's black eyes.
"Well, then," she said in her silky voice. "Let's see just how much you've learned, little Genevieve."
Mab brought up her hand and curled it into a fist. Fire spilled out from between her clenched fingers and dripped down them like water before falling away to the ground. Plop-plop-plop. The stones underneath our feet shuddered, snarled, and screamed as her Fire burned into them. The rocks' angry mutters blended in perfectly with the steady, evil hiss of the melting snow. Ribbons of steam twisted up into the frigid air between us, delicate ropes binding us together.