Sebastian tightened his grip on the knife in my shoulder and yanked it out. I didn’t even have time to scream before he brought it up, determined to end me this time. I held my hand up at the last second, so that the blade punched through the center of my left palm, inside the circle of my spider rune, instead of into my chest.
We stood there, seesawing back and forth, with Sebastian trying to drive the knife down and into my heart and me trying to keep him from doing that.
“You know, Sebastian, your father wasn’t as strong an elemental as you, but he did have one particular trick that I admired,” I rasped through the pain.
“Really? What’s that?”
“This.”
I sent out a small, concentrated pulse of magic, shattering the crude knife in my hand, even though it caused me more agony. Sebastian hissed and jerked back in surprise, trying to duck the flying bits of stone. A long, thin, bloody shard split off from the knife and clattered to the table next to me. I snatched up the wickedly sharp piece of stone, the way I had my silverstone knives so many times before.
Then, before Sebastian could move, before he could react, before he could fight back, I surged forward and drove the point of the shard into his throat.
Sebastian’s mouth gaped open, and a soft hiss of air escaped his lips, along with blood that spattered onto my face, stinging my eyes like tears. He staggered back and sent out another burst of magic, shattering the shard, but I’d driven it in too deep, all the way into his jugular, and it was more of a last-gasp reflex than an actual attack. But he’d been holding on to a lot of power, and it rippled out from him in invisible waves, causing more of the stone planters and tables to shatter and sending chunks of rocks everywhere, including through the glass walls of the greenhouse.
Sebastian’s hands went to his throat. He pulled them away, once again staring down in disbelief at all the blood on his hands. Then he raised his eyes to mine.
“Good-bye, Sebastian,” I said in a quiet voice. “You were right. It was fun while it lasted.”
Sebastian made a choking sound in the back of his throat, causing more blood to spew out of his lips, as easily as all of his lies had. Then he crumpled to the ground and was still.
35
It took Sebastian the better part of two minutes to bleed out. But when the stone planters and tables finally quit shattering, I knew that he was gone. I stared down at the man I thought I had loved. I shouldn’t have felt anything but relief that he was dead, that he couldn’t hurt me or anyone else anymore.
But all I felt was empty—sad and empty—just like he’d said I was.
I had started to move away from him when I noticed a single blue rose lying on the table where we’d had our last struggle. Somehow it had escaped the destruction of our fight and was as perfect as if it had been cut for a bouquet. I picked up the flower and brought it to my nose. Despite the chaos, the rose smelled as sweet as ever. I hesitated, then tossed it down on top of Sebastian’s body.
It was the only bit of sentiment that I had left—and far more regard than he deserved after everything he’d done.
I stared at Sebastian another moment before turning and walking away.
I grabbed my knife from where it had fallen, then left the greenhouse behind and made my way through the grounds, across the lawn, and back up to the library. I picked up the knife that I’d thrown in here earlier at Sebastian, then went over to his father’s desk to conduct my long-delayed search for the file that Coolidge had compiled on Sebastian. It didn’t take me long to find it, since it was lying on top of a stack of papers on the desk, the folder wide open, as though Sebastian had been admiring his own handiwork over a drink. He probably had.
I took the file too. After that, it was just a matter of hobbling down the stairs, out of the mansion, and onto the driveway toward the front gate. At this point, I didn’t care who saw me leaving the scene of the crime. I doubted there was anyone left to look, anyway. If they’d been smart, all of the workers would have fled the mansion the second Sebastian had started to unleash his Stone magic throughout the structure.
So no one was around to see the Spider take her victory lap—such as it was.
No one except Fletcher.
The old man was waiting in his white van down the street from the open gate. I staggered across the sidewalk, opened the door, and crawled into the passenger seat, cradling my broken wrist and the folder against my chest.
Fletcher’s sharp green eyes tracked up and down my body, silently assessing my injuries. Broken wrist, stab wound in my shoulder, dozens of cuts and bruises from where Sebastian’s rocks had battered me. His shoulders sagged with a tiny bit of relief, although he kept his face calm and composed.
“Looks like we need to get over to Jo-Jo’s,” he said.
All I could do was nod.
He threw the van into gear and headed in that direction. Fletcher drove slowly and carefully, mindful of my injuries, but every bump and jostle of the van made me wince. So I concentrated on breathing, surfing the waves of pain as best I could.
It was several minutes before he spoke again.
“Seems like you caused quite the commotion in there,” Fletcher said in a mild voice. “The staff couldn’t drive away fast enough. They all piled in on top of one another, like a bunch of clowns all trying to get into the same cars.”
“Good for them.”
I hoped no one else had been injured inside the mansion.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I shook my head. “Not tonight. Maybe . . . later. Okay?”
Fletcher nodded back.
But I didn’t have any intention of talking about what had happened tonight. Not to Fletcher, not to anyone, not ever. Part of it was because I was still humiliated by how easily Sebastian had tricked me and how hard I’d fallen for him. And the other part of it, well, I couldn’t quite say. All I knew was that all of the things Sebastian had done and said were my burdens to bear now, more secrets to add to the ones I already had.
“Maybe in a few days, when you’re feeling better, we can go look at those apartments across from the Pork Pit,” Fletcher said. “After all, an assassin should have her own place. Especially one like the Spider, don’t you think?”
A quiet note of pride rippled through the old man’s voice. He’d called me the Spider many times over the years, but this time, I knew he meant it in a way that he never had before. Maybe one day soon, I’d tell him that I finally understood all the lessons he’d been trying to teach me for so long. About when to wait and when to act and how to find that delicate balance between the two. But knowing Fletcher, he realized all of that already. Just like I knew that I wouldn’t have survived tonight if not for him.