Page 2
The words are as sharp as knives hitting my heart, and I suck in a short, pained breath.
“I know what I did,” I say, even though there’s no combination of words that can fix this. “Nothing I say will make it okay.”
“You’re right.” She holds my gaze without blinking. “It won’t.”
Logan uncrosses his arms and pushes off the railing. “You want to talk about lying?” he says, the quietness of his tone worse than shouting. “Let’s talk about what happened on this deck two hours ago.”
The flames at Evie’s fingertips lengthen, but they’re snuffed out by the wind. “I know what happened.”
“Do you?” Logan steps forward, and wind stirs around him, tugging at loose ropes overhead and making the sails snap. “Because your version of what you just did to Jade is very, very different from both of mine.”
Kieran draws one blade from the sheaths crossed at his back and holds it low at his side, angled across Evie.
Logan doesn’t spare him a glance.
“I was angry.” Evie’s voice is steady, but the flames at her fingertips gutter in Logan’s draft. “My magic responded to the worst moment of my life. That’s what happened.”
“What happened,” Logan says, as terrifyingly calm as ever, “is that you sealed Jade inside a heat dome and tried to cook her alive. What happened is that she dropped to the deck, and when I got to her, her heart wasn’t beating. The only reason she’s here right now is because I went back and saved her. So, when you stand on this deck and call me a monster, just remember that I’m not the one who killed her today. You are.”
The silence is so thick I could drown in it.
“She’s alive.” Evie’s chin lifts, but a tremble runs through her jaw. “Whatever happened in your other timeline—”
“She’s alive because I saved her,” he says. “Not because you stopped.”
Evie’s face is white. Her fists hang at her sides, the fire gone, and she barely looks like she’s breathing.
Kieran’s blade is low and ready, his eyes locked on Logan with the flat, patient focus of a man who’s already decided where to cut.
Evie turns her focus back to me, her eyes harder than I’ve ever seen them. “Fine,” she says. “You’re right. In that moment, I wanted to kill you.”
The words land in my chest and stay there.
In that moment, I wanted to kill you.
Not “I lost control.” Not “my magic responded.” She wanted to kill me. She would have killed me, if Logan hadn’t stopped her.
Logan reaches forward, and the air around Evie’s throat contracts, her words cut off mid-breath. Her mouth opens, but nothing comes out, and her eyes widen with panic as her fingers claw at the air around her neck.
“Logan!” I grab his arm and pull, but his muscles are locked tight beneath my grip, and his eyes are fixed on Evie with cold, focused intent. “Let her go.”
He doesn’t stop.
Evie drops to the deck, both hands at her throat, and a thin, airless wheeze pushes past her lips. Her face is turning red, the veins at her temples standing out against her skin.
“Logan!” I yank at his arm with everything I have, but it’s like pulling at a steel beam. “You’re going to kill her!”
“She killed you first.”
His words come out flat and certain, and for one horrible second, looking into his gray eyes that aren’t really gray, I don’t see the man I fell in love with. I see the weapon the Geryon warned me about. The Revenant wearing the face of the man I loved.
No—not loved.
Love. Present tense. Because even though it should, it doesn’t matter what Logan is. He’s the same person I fell in love with. It’s my perception of him that changed—not him that changed.
But I can’t think about it for a second longer, because Evie’s fingers are leaving red marks on her throat from how hard she’s clawing, and the murderous look in Logan’s eyes makes me think he’s not going to stop.
Kieran draws his second sword in a flash, brings both blades up, and clangs them together above his head. The blades burn with a light that comes from inside the steel, white-gold and pulsing. His eyes are glowing amber, and the heat pouring off him hits my skin from ten feet away.
