Page 158 of Incoronate
I could feel the demons at Temple now. Could feel them lined up along the perimeter, three deep at every door, throwing whatever passed for shadows in the rain. I could feel William inside the building, and the rest of the Council with him. The fear running through them, acrid and metallic on the back of my tongue. Even at a distance, even through the throne’s strange and indirect awareness, I could taste it.
Good. Let him taste mine for a change.
I poured another finger and turned to face the room.
“They’ll call,” I said, sure of it. “They have to. Even William’s not stupid enough to think he can fight what just landed on his doorstep.”
“He’ll try to negotiate,” said Dominic, who had drifted over from the fireplace to inspect the bar cart’s offerings with the unhurried judgment of a man who took his liquor seriously. He plucked the decanter from my hand and poured himself a glass without asking. “Buy himself time. He didn’t get to be Senior Magister by losing well.”
“I’m counting on it.”
Trace turned from the window. “And when he does?”
“Then I tell him exactly what I want.”
“Which is?”
“His head,” I said icily, the words sitting heavier in my mouth than they had any business sitting. And I meant every one of them.
The stunned silence that followed was interrupted by the shrill sound of my phone ringing.
I looked down at it and read the screen. Unknown caller. The number wasn’t one I recognized, but the moment I heard the phone ring, I knew exactly who it was. Every cell in my body knew.
I let it ring twice more, just to make him wait, before I finally picked up.
“Senior Magister,” I said, beaming like we were old friends. I leaned a hip against the bar cart, the glass loose in my hand. “I was wondering when you’d call.”
“What have you done?” His voice came through the line strained and tight, stripped of every ounce of the polished, paternal warmth I was used to hearing from him. The first time in my life I’d ever heard him sound afraid.
“Jeez,” I said pleasantly. “Good news travels fast.”
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” He was almost panting, the tremor underneath his words audible. “Do you understand what you’ve just become? You’ve made yourself an enemy of this Order. An enemy of every Anakim who has ever stood for what is good and just and—”
“I think you did that yourself, William,” I cut him off, my voice level. “When you tried to kill me. When you killed my father. When you sent Alford into my house in the middle of the night and shipped me off to Sanguinarium for good measure.”
A long, taut silence stretched on the other end.
“How do you know about—”
“About that little plan? Because it already happened on my other Timeline.” I let the words sit. “Yeah. That’s right. I got out. I came back. And I came back specifically to make sure you pay for every last thing you did to me and the people I love.”
The silence on the other end of the line stretched until I could hear his breathing. Heavy. Uneven. The breathing of a man whose carefully built world had just been pulled out from under him in the span of a single phone call.
When he finally spoke, his voice was different. Lower. Calculating.
“Jemma, listen to me. Whatever you are now, whatever you have…taken upon yourself, there is still time. We can talk about this. There is still room for an arrangement that—”
“There’s no arrangement, William.”
“—that benefits everyone. You don’t have to do this. The destruction you’ll bring down on this world if you turn that army loose—”
“That army hasn’t done anything yet. Notice that?” I rotated the glass between my fingers. “They’re standing outside your front doors. They haven’t kicked anything in. They haven’t touched a single one of you. That’s me being polite, William. That’s me asking nicely.”
His breath hitched and the sound of it was music to my ears.
“What do you want?” he asked finally, his voice low. The question of a man who had run out of cards.
“I want a truce,” I answered, sweet as sugar. “A promise written in blood that the Order will leave me and my family alone from here on out. And that includes my baby brother,” I said, not bothering to share Ares’ name with him. He didn’t deserve to know anything about him. “From now on, he is my responsibility and I will bear the full brunt of that, no matter what happens. But you…you don’t get to hurt us anymore.”
