Page 88 of No Greater Sorrow

“What happened to him?”

The Messenger scoffed, her mask again frilling out to either side of her head. “We came here to talk about you, Aleja.”

“No. You came here to recruit me, and I came here to decide whether I’ll let you. If you need me as much as I think you do, you’ll answer my question before I decide to walk away. What happened to your husband?”

The Messenger leaned against the gnarled corpse of a tree. Everything at the edge of the Hiding Place appeared either freshly dead or in the process of dying. A place where nothing lived, but nothing rotted either. “I’m not above executing your friend, you know. She’s useless to me now.”

“I don’t think she is. Otherwise, Violet wouldn’t still be alive. What happened to your husband?”

“The previous Messenger killed him.”

“Why? Tell me or I walk, and your entire plan falls apart.”

“He committed a crime.”

“What was it?”

“He gave our secrets to a human. I don’t know the entire story. He kept it from me to keep me safe. I believe he loved her. He wanted to protect her from something, so he taught her some of our magic.”

“Your husband had an affair and now you’re throwing your entire realm under the bus to avenge him?” she asked, unsure if the Messenger would have any idea what a bus was.

“And your husband broke a peace agreement to rescue you, ensuring our realms would remain in conflict for centuries. My relationship with my husband is my business; it bears no relation to why the First must die.”

“If you’re asking me to help you, it is my business.”

“I’ve told you enough. If you’d prefer to go tit-for-tat, you can tell me why your Knowing One’s magic wasn’t at its strongest when you invaded our camp. We know enough about your kind to guess the reasons. Would you like to explain how you fixed him for me?”

Aleja knew her silence was damning, but the Messenger hardly skipped a beat. “I won’t ask. It doesn’t matter. All I need to know is that you’ll help me kill the First.”

“Only if we make a deal.”

Not a bargain, Aleja told herself.I can get out of a deal—if I decide I want to. And if the Second decides to punish me for that, perhaps I’ll take up the Messenger’s offer after all.

“Fine then,” the Messenger said. Aleja imagined she was rolling her eyes behind her winged mask. “What is it you want, Wrath?”

“I’ll help you kill the First, but in return, you help me kill the Second so long as we can do so without hurting the Hiding Place or any human witches. That was what you proposed originally wasn’t it?”

And somewhere along the way, I’ll tear out your heart, Aleja didn’t say.

The Messenger’s lips curled into a smile Aleja couldn’t interpret, and she was reminded that she was well out of her league. The Messenger was a master manipulator; Aleja might have just walked into a trap. But she’d gotten used to reading the minutiae of Nicolas’s movements, and the slight deflating of the Messenger’s shoulders looked a lot like relief.

“I have one more condition,” Aleja said. “Violet remains unharmed.”

“The woman who betrayed you?” the Messenger asked, sounding genuinely curious.

“That’s all you need to know. We don’t have to tell each other anything that doesn’t directly relate to our goal.”

“Fine, Wrath. I also have a last condition. Agree, and we have a deal. My son must return to the Astraelis realm.”

Aleja snorted, crossing her arms to mirror the Messenger’s posture. “Val came to us willingly. He’s terrified of you, if you hadn’t noticed.”

If this caused any emotion in the Messenger, neither she nor her mask reacted. She turned her head, looking toward the expanse of the Hiding Place, tinted red by perpetually sunset-colored clouds. “Be careful what you say. This alliance isn’t permanent.”

Aleja wasn’t sure which of her words had offended the Messenger, but she didn’t care to clarify. “Alliance? This isn’t an alliance. We’re just agreeing not to kill each other until our goal is achieved.”

“If you say so,” the Messenger said, with another shrug. “That suits me well enough. Fine. Val will remain where he is, for the time being. Now, let’s shake on it.”

She held out a hand that dwarfed Aleja’s. The Messenger squeezed so tightly as they shook that Aleja had to hide her wince of pain.

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