Page 28 of Cherish

“Anybody want some?” he asks as he reaches for the plates, and both Flint and Eden shout “yes” in unison.

The rest of us decline—some of us more forcefully than others—but Jikan is so wrapped up in whatever he’s thinking about the Shadow Queen that he doesn’t notice the insult. In the end, he dishes up four plates, offering two to the dragons and one to Alistair…who takes it without so much as a grimace.

But now that the food is ready, Jikan must finally want to get through the story, because he stops glancing out the kitchen doorway, looking for my grandmother. And he stops stalling.

“Obviously, the parents weren’t particularly impressed with their daughter’s sadistic impulses, especially when the victim was their other daughter,” he says. “After trying everything they could think of to protect both their daughters—and failing spectacularly—the Shadow Queen decided the only way to keep both of them safe was to sever the bond between them.”

“Is that even possible?” I ask, wondering if my grandmother ever tried to sever her soul bond with her sister, too.

“Wingo!” Jikan gives me a fond nod, like I’ve finally done something to impress him. “The queen was told it was impossible by many people over and over again. Including me,” he adds with a sniff. “But desperate measures call for desperate times. And she wouldn’t stop, no matter how often she was told her quest was fruitless.

“Until one day she heard about someone who might know what she was going through, someone she believed went through something similar. So…” He pauses and sighs, then shoves a bite of peanut-butter pasta into his mouth and chews. When he swallows, he glances at Alistair, who is also eating his dessert, before continuing again. “The Shadow Queen went to find this woman who it was rumored also shared a soul bond with her twin sister and beg her for help.”

My neck starts to prickle at the realization of why Jikan has been trying so hard to wait for the Bloodletter to return before he finishes the story.

“And the woman could actually help her?” Heather looks skeptical. “Sever the bond between two souls?”

Jikan shakes his head. “Of course she couldn’t, but the Shadow Queen believed her when she said she could. She said she would tell the Shadow Queen what she knew about severing a soul, in exchange for a vial of shadow poison.”

“Who would just ask for that, knowing what it does?” Eden asks, and now she looks even more disgusted.

“Who do you think?” Hudson counters, meeting my gaze finally.

Nausea churns in my stomach as I realize exactly who it was—and exactly what she needed that shadow poison for. My voice is scratchy as I choke out, “It was the Crone, wasn’t it? She wanted the shadow poison. Because it was the only thing she could use to poison the Gargoyle Army.”

Jikan raises his glass in mock salute, and my stomach does a series of flips that leaves me dizzy. Sweat beads my forehead, and I take a few short, quick breaths as I attempt to swallow the bile down as best I can.

I frantically look back at Hudson, his gaze still holding mine, his phone completely forgotten. He walks over and reaches for my hand, runs his thumb along my palm, and leans into me, whispering, “It’s going to be okay. I promise.”

I shake my head. How can anything be okay? The Shadow Queen gave the Crone the poison that nearly killed the entire Gargoyle Army. The same poison that caused the rest to be trapped in a frozen Court for a thousand years, that forced my grandparents to give up their only child, and that ultimately resulted in the reign of Cyrus and the death of so many of our friends and family.

And now, to save Mekhi, I’ll have to beg for this bitch’s freedom and show her a mercy I don’t think she’ll ever deserve.

16

It’s Pasta Time

You Knew

“Holy shit,” Jaxon breathes as he looks among Hudson, Jikan, and me. “That’s what they used to poison the whole army?”

“It is,” Jikan agrees.

“And the Shadow Queen just gave it to her? Knowing she would try to kill an entire people?” Finally, I’m understanding why Jikan decided she needed to be punished. Forever.

“Maybe she didn’t know,” Heather says quietly. “Maybe all she cared about was saving her daughter, and she tried to ignore what the Crone would do with the poison.”

“Like that matters?” Eden asks, incredulous. “It was apoison, which by definition is used to hurt someone or something.”

“She probably didn’t let herself think about that,” Heather answers. “She probably only thought about her daughter.”

“Who was weaker but not dying.” Eden looks at Heather like she can’t believe she’s even trying to make a case for this.

It’s Heather’s turn to look like she can’t believe what she’s hearing, but I can’t help thinking that Eden is right. I mean, I love Hudson more than anything, but killing thousands of innocent people just to stop him from being hurt? I couldn’t do that.

Would I hate every second that he was hurting? Yes.

Would I despise myself for casting some kind of spell that made him suffer like that? Of course.

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