Page 29 of Cherish

Would I search forever for a way to make it right? Abso-freaking-lutely.

But would I risk anyone’s death just to give him a chance at a better life? I don’t think I could do that. More, I know he would never want me to do it. It’s one of the million reasons I love him so completely.

“What happened then?” Flint looks as grim as I feel. “Did the Crone give her a way to save her daughter?”

“Of course she didn’t,” I murmur. Because I’ve met the God of Order.

I glance down at my arm, at the tattoo delineating the magical bargain I so naively made with her—and the favor I still owe her.

“You must not know her if you can ask that,” Jikan says to Flint, shaking his head. “She took the poison and then upheld her end of the bargain. She told the Shadow Queen exactly what she knew about severing a soul bond between two twins. Namely, that it’s impossible and can’t be done.”

After dropping that bomb, Jikan forks a huge bite of pasta into his mouth and makes rapturous noises as he slowly chews. Once he finally swallows, he turns to my grandfather and asks, “So, Alistair, are we going to talk about the fact that you’re obviously too infirm to referee a football game, or are we going to pretend everything’s normal?”

“I don’t know,” my grandfather answers as he twirls his own pasta around on his fork absently. “Are we going to talk about the fact that you act more like a spoiled toddler in need of a timeout than a god, or are we going to pretend everything’s normal?”

I wait for Jikan to explode—my grandfather did just fire a cannonball across the bow, after all—but the God of Time just raises his glass to Alistair.

“Wait a minute.” Flint jumps up from his barstool next to Jaxon. “That’s it? You’re not going to tell us the rest of the story?”

“What else is there to tell?” Jikan looks truly mystified. “Considering what you’ve been down to in the past several months, I have to assume you know the rest.”

He means “up to,” but I don’t have the heart to correct him. Not when I realize that so much of what’s happened in the last year can be attributed to this one moment, this one bargain. When the Shadow Queen went to the Crone over a thousand years ago, she set in motion all the events that we’ve lived through—and that the people we love have died for.

It’s funny. I’ve always known someone has been playing chess with our lives. I just thought it was Cyrus and the Bloodletter. Now I realize that it’s been the Crone all along.

Not that there’s anything concerning—or terrifying—about the fact that we’re at the mercy of a sadistic god who has been in the wind for months. Nope, nothing disquieting about that at all.

“That’s why you punished the Shadow Queen,” I say slowly as Hudson squeezes my hand again. The look on his face says he’s already realized what I’m just now figuring out. “Because she gave the Crone a poison to kill the gargoyles, forced the Bloodletter to give up her own child, and your best friend,my grandmother, was suffering.”

Jikan takes another bite of pasta, chases it with a sip of his latest mimosa. “Let’s just say that I had no choice but to seal their fate in that realm with my time dragons. The Shadow Realm was created by a fury so wild and unchecked, its very existence is as unstable as the magic holding it together.”

“Well fook,” Hudson mutters, and I couldn’t agree more. Unstable magic is not something any of us should be messing with. Ever.

“Yes,” Jikan says, his gaze narrowing on Hudson and me. “So you see, there’s no point in asking. I can never release the Shadow Queenorher people from their prison.”

“How did you—?” I start, but I realize it doesn’t matter how he knew what I was going to ask. At least now I won’t have to beg for mercy for that bitch.

Hudson crosses his arms. “And if we wanted tovisitthe Shadow Realm without disturbing time, without awakening a time dragon?”

I hold my breath, waiting on Jikan’s answer. Maybe there’s still a bargain we can make with the Shadow Queen, a way to convince her to help save Mekhi.

Jikan shrugs. “There’s a proper way to do things, of course. Visitors are allowed—even in a prison.”

“So what is the proper way to visit the Shadow Realm?” Hudson asks, sliding the question in so smoothly that I can’t help being impressed.

Especially when Jikan starts to answer. “You have to find the access points, of course. Where the shadows are—” He breaks off, eyes suddenly focused over our heads.

“Where the shadows are what?” I wave my hand, determined to get his attention again.

But it’s too late. Because when I turn to follow his gaze, I realize the Bloodletter is back. And she doesn’t look good.

17

Pretty Freeze with a

Cherry on Top

“Cassia?” Alistair springs forward to wrap her in his arms. “What’s wrong?”

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