Page 55 of The Last One
“Do you ever go to bed with your stomach growling, Philia?” Elyn asks.
A glittering teardrop slips down Philia’s bright-pink cheek. “Yes, ma’am.”
Elyn smiles. “Oh, I’m too young to be a ‘ma’am,’ but I appreciate good manners.” Then, with a wave of her hand, Elyn summons an entire cartful of fat carrots, onions, cabbages, peapods and potatoes, all big enough to feed three families for a week.
The villagers gasp, and some reach with tentative hands out to the vegetables.
“Not so fast,” Elyn booms, her voice paralyzing the villagers. “I need your help with something before you can enjoy the food.” She paces before the villagers, a commander facing her pitiful army. “Have you seen this before?” She flicks her hand, and now she’s holding a necklace heavy with a ruby-and-gold-jeweled moth.
Olivia and I both take a breath.
The onyx stone in the moth’s thorax swirls with all the colors ever created. This amulet resembles the one hanging from my neck. But Elyn’s pendant is an illusion.
“Well?” Elyn asks.
An old man who presented me with twisted carrots as his thanks for saving the village peers up at the amulet, then shakes his head. “We’re not a rich village. Just farmers. Treasures like the one you’re holding? If someone ownedthat, they wouldn’t be livinghere. Not anymore.”
Elyn says, “Okay,” and flicks her hand again. The pendant’s gone. She furrows her brow, clearly frustrated. Even with all her power, Elyn can’t sense me. Her lips become a hard line, and the freckles across the bridge of her nose darken. She’s beautiful, and she’s plump. With that cape, with that flawless skin, she’s obviously rich. She’s also wearing an amulet around herneck: six small rubies on a swirling rose-gold vine surrounding a dove, a glossy black stone in its center.
Maybe she’s Emperor Wake’s daughter. Only a royal could afford an amulet with—
Wait!My amulet also boasts jewels. Maybe I’ve run away from Brithellum after all, deserting my position at the court and leaving behind my important and wealthy family. Maybe Ididattack someone before I met Olivia, and maybe Elyn is Justice Incarnate, searching for me, a fugitive, to mete out punishment.
“I’d appreciate any help you can offer,” Elyn says in her honeyed voice. “No detail is unimportant. Everything matters in this task. Kai may have forgotten, but we made an agreement, and she broke her half of that agreement. So much is at stake right now. Life and death, I must say, though that soundsincrediblydramatic.” She turns to Philia. “With that in mind, one last time. Any tidbits to share?”
Is that desperation I hear?
Philia closes her eyes, and she shakes her head.
Elyn tilts her head. “Really: Kai and I… We’re old friends. We go back,wayback, and I’d simplyloveto catch up with her and talkout our differences. Do each other’s hair, ha.” Another small smile at Philia before she looks back at the carrot farmer. “Have you thought of anything yet? Anything at all, old man?”
He shakes his head.
Looking at this group of villagers, I recognize most of them as the ones praising my name and showering me and Jadon with gifts. I see a few malcontents, but by the way they’re shaking, they’re now too scared to speak.
“You might think you’re protecting her.” Elyn’s gaze stays on Philia’s bowed head. “She is a danger to you.” Then she looks at the group. “She’s a danger to Maford. She’s violent, selfish.” She narrows her eyes. “Trust me when I tell you that she’ll turn on you just like she’s turned on her family, on me.”
Carrot Farmer shakes his head. “She’s been our savior. Our champion.”
“No she hasn’t. She’s the Vile,” another farmer says, finally working up the courage to speak. He then spits to the ground. “She’s trash.”
“Really?” Elyn asks, smiling at him. “Trash?”
Why is she suddenly smiling?
The farmer collapses. No light—not amber or blue—glows around his body. He’s dead.
“What just happened?” Olivia whispers. “Why is Old Milton on the ground? Didn’t he tell her what she wanted to know?”
I shake my head. He didn’t, though. He insulted me.
Maybe Elyn didn’t like him referring to me as trash? On that, Elyn and I agree.
“Take this seriously.” The stranger pushes a breath through clenched teeth. “If you don’t help me find her, she will bringeachof you death. She’s already brought you so much violence.”
A woman is now crying as she gazes down at Old Milton.
A blast of thunder booms from the skies above.
