Page 68 of We Are the Match
En morte libertas.
In death, liberty.
The only way to escape the Families.
It was a saying the girls of Troy had, a foolish, morbid, furious thing we said to one another. Cass had screamed it into the waves. Milena had it tattooed on her knuckles. Even Eris used to say it to us beforeshe, like Thea, left our home for whatever work awaited her. And Kore whispered it like a prayer.
I had said it to Helen, let it slip in a moment of weakness.
But once, surrounded by the girls I called my sisters, Kore had saiden morte libertasand I had said:
In our death?I had asked her.Or in theirs?
Yes,Kore had said, and the girls had laughed, but I had not forgotten.
Not in my death.
Notin mine.
En morte libertas.
They are fascinating, opulent, untouchable.
I am a nobody, a forgotten girl, hidden in the ceiling.
I twist one of my rings, push my thumb hard against the flame engraved there. One for the girls I lost. One for the brutal will to survive that kept me here when I had not earned it. One for the Families—not gods, no matter what they think—whom I will destroy.
And then I drop the solidox mixture into the vent, wait for it to hit the bottom with a small thump, just next to the wall where Zarek is seated. Some of the mixture catches on an exposed wire on the way down.
Helen is below, smooth and unruffled and far from me even though we are separated by only a thin layer of floorboards.
And suddenly it is not enough. Not enough to blow apart a room. Not enough to cave a wall in, ruin a party, scare Zarek a little.
I sit down behind Altea’s desk.
I lift her phone, the encrypted line she uses, and send a message to anyone in her contacts affiliated with Zarek’s house.
Clear the house. Clear Zarek’s wing.
I wait, watch lights flicker and turn off in Zarek’s mansion. Below, his phone begins to ring, loud and shrill.
The voices below rise, too, fury and unease, but I do not hear them.
I do not hear anything but the sound of my sisters laughing as our boat cuts the waves, Cass holding tight to Milena as Kore drives. We are limitless. We are free. We arealive.
En morte libertas.
So I remove the safety mechanism. I pull the trigger.
I light the fucking match.
And Zarek’s house begins to crumble.
Chapter 24
Helen
My father is shouting with rage.
