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A weapon she’d forgotten.
How could she have forgotten this side of her? This beautiful, deadly Witch she’d fallen in love with?
"Yeah, she did," Alice said, placing a soft kiss on Joy’s cheek, savoring the feeling of the mask under her lips. "It won’t be hard to find. From the looks of it, they've set up a beacon to welcome us.”
They followed the shadows.
Kallista made it easy, directing them through the city streets, her dark shadows leading the way. But the Blood Witch made it even easier.
The lights from the top of the building were visible from half a city away.
When they finally reached the building, Joy didn’t speak. She simply raised her hands, and a gentle current of wind lifted them both into the sky and toward the roof.
Chapter 64
AMALIA
Amalia was cold.
It felt stupid, at a time like this, to feel something as ordinary ascold. But kneeling on the brick rooftop, dressed in nothing but her flimsy white nightgown, there was no protection from the cold night breeze. Amalia shivered violently, wrapping her arms around herself.
The lights did nothing to keep the chill of the night air away. Amalia glanced up at the towering flood lights above them, casting near blinding white light over the rooftop.
A few feet away, Vee paced. Gone were the lights she’d strapped to herself. She didn’t seem to need them now. Gone, too, were the invisible binds that had held Amalia immobile on their journey here. Gone was the invisible gag that had kept her quiet.
Her body was her own again.
“Aren’t you worried I’ll scream?” Amalia asked, watching Vee pace. She walked the same path, over and over again. Vee paced forward just a few feet, turned, then stalked back over the same steps. She never ventured too far from where the lights intersected. Like she was scared of getting too close to the dark areas of the roof.
Vee shrugged, not bothering to look at her. “You can scream, if it’llmake you feel better. But it doesn’t matter now. If they don’t know where we are, they will soon enough.”
Amalia swallowed.
“Why are you doing this?” she forced herself to ask. Her voice wavered as she spoke. “I thought … I thought we were friends.”
Goddess, she sounded pathetic, didn’t she?
“You thought what I wanted you to think,” Vee snapped. She did look at her, then. But all too quickly her eyes darted away, and her pace faltered.
No, that wasn’t true. They were friends. Vee had been nice to her. They’d had fun together, they’d…
Kissed.
“You’re lying,” Amalia said, steel rising in her voice. “You do like me, you even said so yourself. I know you do. I know?—”
“Do you want to know what your problem is, Princess?” Vee asked, stopping her endless march and turning around to glare at her. “You’re so trusting. You’re like a newborn fawn—so awkward and clumsy, and just so sure that no one in the world would ever hurt you.”
Tears stung the corners of Amalia’s eyes. She tried to blink them away.
“You don’t mean that,” she insisted. But she didn’t sound as sure this time.
Vee laughed, harshly.
“You’re right, Princess, Idon’tmean that. You’re not a fawn at all.” Vee stalked toward her, and there wasn’t a trace of that laughing, relaxed girl in her eyes. No trace of the girl Amalia had called her friend. “You know what you are? What youreallyare, Princess?”
She tried not to cry, she really did. But as Vee knelt down, angling her face until it was right above hers, Amalia blinked and the tears that had been clouding her vision slipped out, spilling down her cheeks.
“You’re nothing but a little doll,” Vee told her. “You’re just there to look pretty and play dress up and stay nice and safe up on your shelf. But you’re not even a real person, are you? You’re just their little toy—something for people to dress up and pamper. What are you, under all that frilly lace? What are you, without anyone there to pull your strings and tell you what to do?”
