Page 5

Before me, Étienne reaches the man and bends down to whisper something into his ear. He breaks from his frozen state, blinks in confusion, and then whispers something back to Étienne. Étienne turns his head to listen, and as he does, his gaze meets mine in a taunting expression.

To break a hallucination, ground your focus on a real object.

Desperately, I look around for anything I can grab. My eyes fall on the briefcase that the man had dropped. Good enough.

I stretch as far as I can to seize its handle, then swing it hard against the chain shackling me to the floor.

The briefcase passes straight through the chain as if it is just a projected image and slams on the ground. The sight finally breaks the illusion for my mind. The chain vanishes.

I spring to my feet and bolt toward Étienne. As he rises to his feet, I throw myself at him.

My hand closes around his arm.

I’m surprised by the heat of his bare skin, as if it is infused with the sun. Étienne lets out a gasp, crumpling to one knee as my power pulls at his soul, siphoning the strength from his body. He tries to lift a hand to weave another lie, but he’s too weak.

I release him, letting him collapse onto his hands and knees, and turn to face my target. Behind me, I can hear Étienne struggling to regain his strength, but it’s too late now. I bend down, then seize the man’s wrist.

The man startles at my touch and lets out a strangled sound. A shudder racks him from head to toe.

I feel the heat of his soul and everything surges in me, wishing I could stop. Wishing I could grant him his life back, rather than take it. Sometimes, I think that if I wanted to, I could do it. I could breathe life back into him.

Raven had only frowned when I told him of this strange feeling. It is your mortal heart speaking, he’d said.

What do you mean? I’d asked.

It’s quite simple. He’d looked at me. You don’t want to take a life.

I keep my hand clamped on the man’s wrist as he struggles feebly, the energy draining from him. Facts dart through my mind—the rhythm of his heart has suddenly seized, the chemical balance in his body is changing. The brain is incredibly active right before death. A surge of gamma waves, a tsunami of memory and cognition. Dreams, out-of-body experiences. It explains why his eyes are darting around now, in his final moments.

What does he see? Does he regret leaving anyone behind? Will anyone miss him?

At last, his face goes slack, and his eyes roll back. The synapses halt, the heart stills. He collapses to the floor of the train car. My hand burns.

As always, revulsion fills me. I should be saving lives, not ending them.

I take a shuddering breath and look over my shoulder past the open doors to where Étienne had been crouching on the platform, half expecting to see him lunge at me, a new illusion bursting to life around him.

But he just stays there, leaning against one knee, his gaze fixed calmly on me. A small smile plays on his lips. “Congratulations, ma fleur,” he says.

He doesn’t sound like he’s lost this mission. “What did you say to him? What did you want?” I demand.

Étienne rises to his feet. “As you said earlier, his time was up today. Thorn didn’t send me to stop you. I just came to get one last secret from him. A final lie to comfort his loved ones.” He shrugs. “So it looks like we’ve both won today.”

“What was it?” I ask him.

Étienne just wags a finger at me in mock disapproval. “Come on, sweetheart,” he says. “Naughty of you for tempting me to break my patron god’s oath.” Then he turns and starts to walk away.

I rush out of the train car and in his direction. But my boot catches on the space between the step and the edge of the platform, and I trip, nearly falling to my knees.

“Mind the gap,” Étienne calls out over his shoulder.

I grit my teeth and fight for a retort, but by the time I catch myself and look up, he has already vanished into the thickening crowds on the platform. The real world has snapped into place once more, time continuing onward now that our missions are done.

Something about his absence stings. He always seems to get the last word. I swallow hard and try to shake off my self-loathing, reminding myself to be satisfied with a job completed.

I straighten, then turn away from the now-lifeless body and toward the station’s exits. Behind me, a cluster of people have already gathered around the fallen figure, and I can hear shouts for an ambulance. In a few minutes, when the paramedics arrive, they will take him to the hospital, where they will declare him dead from a massive heart attack.

A familiar emptiness fills my chest.