“At the very least,” Lilith continued, “procuring such a trinket could facilitate another friendly chat between us. Another heart-to-heart to determine whether or not you do still have any value to me, and if I am quite as transparently devious as you proclaim me to be. Kill him, though, and you ensure a sentence served in vain, since we seem to agree I will only begin again. This time without the hassle of your obstruction.”
Isobel burned to move. Thinking on Lilith’s words, she had to wonder why Varen continued to stand idle. Hadn’t Reynolds himself admitted that Varen could turn the dreamworld against him? That he had the ability to change what was happening? So why didn’t he try?
More important, Isobel thought, wavering where she stood . . . why didn’t she?
“While it is truly fascinating,” Lilith said, her crooked smile twisting into a sneer, “how you would all unanimously stake the fates of your souls upon one another in this manner, without even realizing you are doing so, your shared delusion that there is a way out, amusing as it is, tries my patience. We have reached an impasse, and one of you must now make your move so that I may know mine.”
“I could kill him,” Reynolds said, “and still take possession of the charm.”
“No!” Isobel cried, starting forward.
Without looking away from Lilith, Reynolds pressed the blade closer to Varen’s neck, and Isobel halted, sneakers squeaking.
Varen kept his eyes locked on hers, asking her again through that pointed glare to stand down. But why? He couldn’t truly believe Reynolds was telling the truth about taking her home, could he? And even if he did, how could he allow Reynolds to end his life, to enslave him eternally to the demon Isobel had fought so hard to save him from? Hadn’t he believed her when she’d promised him they would find another way?
“You would rather start an unnecessary war between us,” Lilith asked, her voice softening, “one that you know you cannot win, than accept my offer of peace?”
“Can peace be made with a demon?” scoffed Reynolds.
“Oh, Gordon.” Lilith sighed. “Creature of few words that you are, I doubt you would bother to ask if you thought you knew the answer. So I will respond with a question of my own. Can a weak, puerile, lovesick girl offer you better?”
When Reynolds glanced in Isobel’s direction, she sent him an entreating stare.
“Reynolds, please,” Isobel said, her voice small and shaking. “You told me there was a way. If that’s true, if there is a way to free Varen, then there has to be a way for you—”
“Enough,” Reynolds barked, and, hardening his expression, he returned his gaze to Lilith.
Several moments passed in which no one moved. Then . . . click.
The snapping of the hamsa’s chain echoed loudly through the silent foyer when Reynolds jerked his sword forward, freeing the charm from Varen’s neck.
Lilith laughed, her mouth stretching into a too-wide smile as, with one unceremonious shove, Reynolds sent Varen to the floor at the demon’s clawed feet.
Released from her self-inflicted paralysis, Isobel scrambled to Varen’s side and dropped to her knees.
Wrong, she thought as she threw her arms around him, glancing back at Reynolds to catch sight of his captured prize—the hamsa—its chain now hopelessly wrapped about the hilt of his cutlass.
Varen had been wrong to hold off. To ask her to do the same.
She’d been wrong too. Wrong ever to have believed Reynolds again. Wrong not to have acted when she’d had the chance. And wrong, especially, not to have heeded Pinfeathers’s warning about him when the Noc had been right about so much else.
“Predictable, Gordon,” cooed Lilith as she drifted to stand a mere foot from Isobel and Varen, those black eyes turning down on them both, “but a commendable decision, all the same.”
A flash of bright white sparked from overhead. Isobel looked up to see Reynolds raise his arm.
The opal embedded in the hamsa glinted again as Reynolds reared back with his blade as if preparing to—
“Get down,” Isobel heard Varen snap the second before he yanked her to the floor with him.
Singing high, Reynolds’s sword sailed over their heads, spinning handle over tip as it spiraled straight toward—and then into—the center of Lilith’s chest.
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Impaled, the demon arched her back.
A beat of silence pulsed.
Then, with head thrown back, Lilith emitted a low and grating croak.
The demon grabbed for the blade, trying to wrench free the sword sunk deep in her chest. Upon contact with the metal, however, her hands shriveled and crumbled, flaking to nothing.