Page 43 of Premonition of Peace

Guilt and rage consumed me. I never should have let her go to Carissa’s by herself. This is what happened. My magic whispered that we should have been there. That this is whathappens when we’re not with her. The demon couldn’t protect her. Marcel had one foot in the grave. Someone had hurt her, and even though I struggled as my emotions warred for control, I had to know so I could kill them slowly. “Who did this to you?”

“I did it to myself, August,” she said quietly. I felt like I’d been slapped.

“Why?” I demanded, and the moment the question came out of my mouth, I realized what she’d done. I narrowed my gaze in understanding. “That’s the Eye.”

“I need to find the objects of fate,” she said simply, even though there was nothing simple about it. “The only was to use the Eye is to, well”—she pointed at her face—“see with it.”

“I can’t believe you did this without talking to me.” The words unintentionally came out in a low, rumbling tone . “We could have discussed it and figured out if there was another way?—”

“I don’t need your permission, August,” she retorted, her tone defensive. She pushed away from me, rising from the bench. Nathalie walked away while I dragged my hands through my hair. I got to my feet and ran after her, my legs eating up twice the distance hers could. I caught her by the wrist, pulling her back to me.

“Listen to me. No, you don’t need my permission. Not for anything you do. You know this. Never once have I held you back in any decision you’ve made.”

The tension in her jaw released. “I know.”

“Then why did you hide this from me? I could have helped you weigh your options. Talked through it first. This is irreversible, Nathalie.”

“I wasn’t trying to hide it from you. I just had to act fast and get it done. You’re the first person I came to.”

“No one else knows?”

“Señora Rosara did the procedure. Lucifer took care of me afterward.”

Jealousy burned in my chest, but I kept that beast on a tight leash, refusing to let it show. Those feelings might be natural in this situation, but it wasn’t what Nathalie needed.

This time when I reached up to cup her cheek she didn’t shy away. “Tell me what happened with Carissa and how it led to this.”

Nat sighed but leaned into me as she filled me in on what led up to her surgery. Every detail seemed to get worse. In all reality, the Eye was the least concerning out of everything she’d said. When she got to the end, my chest constricted.

“What do you mean she’s coming for you? She can’t?—”

“She can,” Nat whispered. “It’s not Kat she wants. It’s me.”

“Why?” I cupped both her cheeks, my thumb brushing under the Eye.

Nat pressed her lips together. I wasn’t going to like this next part.

“My magic. We’re both chaos witches. That’s apparently what she’s been trying to create the entire time.”

I closed my eyes, pulling her close to me in a comforting embrace. I could smell magic’s signature, but I couldn’t identify it. I had no way of knowing what kind of magic Nat carried, until she told me.

“Why chaos?” I asked, keeping my features as neutral as possible.

She shook her head. “I don’t know what would happen if she was able to consume my magic, but obviously nothing good could come of it. That’s why I had the Eye put in me. It’s the only way to use it, and I need the objects of fate to break the bonds between Morgan Le Fay and me.”

“What’s your plan?”

“She can’t kill a body she occupies. So right now, I’m assuming she killed Carissa, so that makes me think she’s using Sasha’s body to hunt Kat and kill her too, thereby skipping over next in line and jumping straight to me. If I can knock her out of Sasha, I can trap her in Kat’s body. Temporarily. She can only make the jump into whoever is next in line by order of birth. Kat’s next, which buys me time, but only as long as my sister is alive.”

“What’s the contingency?”

“There isn’t one.” She pulled away from my arms and shook like a leaf in the wind. Her words were so quiet, I barely heard them. “My body is forfeit. Like every Le Fay before me, I’ll be pushed out of the driver’s seat, and she’ll take over, except this time, she has her coveted vessel.”

“Fuck,” I growled, stepping back and running my hands through my hair roughly before settling them on my hips.

Nathalie crossed her arms as a cold gust of wind cut through the park. “I need to cut the bonds so that she can’t body jump again, then find a way to separate her from Kat so we can end her. For good.”

“What’s to stop her from jumping to someone else once she’s in Kat?”

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