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“Just tell me and I’ll do it, if you set him free.”
A strange, slithering smile crawled across Adair’s lips. He reached for his glass of wine on the table, so content on his throne in a world of his making.
I lunged and backhanded the glass from his reaching fingers. It shattered on the floor. “No more games.”
His smile twitched, and his gaze dropped to the snow globe.
I scooped up the globe and drew my arm back. “We’ll see how you smile with this precious globe shattered against the wall!”
Adair shot to his feet. “Wait! Do not—!” He thrust out a hand, so desperate to protect his toy.
Fear. Sharp and true. I’d never seen it on his face before.
I lowered the globe and peered inside. Snow swirled, the manor’s windows blazing inside its tiny storm.
“Devere, break that and you will breakhim. Put it down.Slowly.”
The globe had to be a precious thing for him to reveal it as a weakness. “Perhaps we were meant to be broken.”
“You do not remember, but we have been here before. Devere, my love, do not act hastily.”
We had been here before in this very dining room. The memory flashed to life—Valentine had fled into the night. He hadn’t seen me waiting in the woods. I’d entered the house and argued with Adair, who’d been enraged by Hush and denied lust. I’d picked up a knife and stabbed Adair in the chest.
I hadn’t remembered trying to kill him, but I did now.
There were plenty of knives here, but none would end his life. These knives were silver. Pure iron would burn him up. The poker in the fireplace. A pistol shot. Iron horseshoes. It had to be iron—
“Devere, I only wish to protect you.” He reached out. “Put the globe down.”
“Protect me? By trapping me here and making me dance on the ends of your strings? No, that is not protection. It’s obsession. You cannot have me, so you hurt me.”
He swallowed, still reaching for the globe. “It is obsession. And it is cruel. But this game we play is not of my design.”
“What?”
“I have tried to change its outcome every time. I try to make it right. But I do not have the power. I cannot stop it, only steer it.”
“If you cannot stop it, who can?”
“You.”
I laughed. “I have no power. I never have.”
“All you see and hear and taste and touch, it is all fantasy.”
“Ofyourmaking.”
He shook his head and slumped back in the chair. “Which of us is the toymaker’s son? Which of us fashions machinations from tiny intricate pieces? I cannot do that.”
“But I…” Did he believe I’d done this? “What new game is this? I am not the puppet master. I do not control any of this. It has always been you. All of it is you!”
“We are the same. You have your store, and I have this house. We each have our sanctuaries. The clocks on your wall, the toys you craft… It isyourspell woven through Minerva, Devere. Not mine.”
“No.” I tightened my hand around the globe. “I would know. If this were my doing, I’d know how to end it. I wouldn’t trap myself here. I wouldn’t do this to Val. You’re lying.”
“You have lived this life a thousand times, each time seeking love, and each time it has ended in tragedy.”
“No.” Sickness simmered inside. A horrible sense of gravity pulled on my heart, trying to tear it free. He was wrong. This was just another way to hurt me, to hurt Val. “Love? I don’t… need love.”
