“You’re here to bear witness to his judgment?” he asked. “Brave of you.”
“Not exactly,” I started to say, but Wedderburn wasn’t listening.
“There is no doubt. Kian Riley serves you now, not me. And a tool that cannot be trusted to its purpose is irrevocably broken and must be discarded.”
Shit. I knew exactly what that meant.
I said desperately, “He doesn’t serve me. He cares about me. Surely you can understand the difference.”
“I gave him an order … and he did not follow it. Instead, he told you the whole of my plan and tried to help you escape, using my resources. I have the report here.” With icy irritation, he tapped the page on his desk. “That is … disloyalty. I saved his life, you know.”
Kian didn’t say a single word in his own defense. By the set of his shoulders, he was ready to accept the consequences. Though I didn’t blame him for it, he carried the weight of what the Teflon crew had done to me, the last day before winter break, and he regretted not giving his life for me then. I could hardly breathe for the pain tightening my chest. I had lost too much already.
Wedderburn turned to his desk and pushed a button. A tone sounded, then an inhuman voice said, “What do you require?”
“Send in the clown.”
At first, I thought it was a hideous, macabre joke, another of Wedderburn’s evil games, until the door banged open and a clown stood in the doorway. I narrowed my eyes on the smudged, faded “makeup,” then realized the cracked and flaking skin was imprinted with a huge red mouth with a white oval around it. The thing’s nose was bulbous and tinted red, and it had frizzy orange hair sticking out in all directions. Baggy clothes and giant shoes added to the disturbing picture, but that wasn’t even the worst part. In his hand, he carried a black case, and at Wedderburn’s nod, he opened it, revealing a shining variety of knives in all shapes and sizes: curved, straight, serrated blades, some more like scalpels, others for skinning or boning.
“Which one?” When the clown-thing spoke, it revealed sharp yellow teeth and a long pink tongue that snaked out to wet its mouth as it glanced between Kian and me.
Wedderburn inclined his head with an icy crackle. Kian held his silence, imperturbable in the face of death. In fact, a faint smile curved his mouth, as if he were glad to do this for me. Only this wouldn’t solve anything, and I wanted him with me, not as a martyr whose picture I could clutch and weep over.
“Wait,” I blurted.
“You have no cards to play,” Wedderburn said.
Inspiration struck; epiphany finally clarified into certainty. “That’s not true.”
Kian’s eyes widened and he shook his head, frantic. He tried to intercept me, but the clown wouldn’t let him.
You know me so well. But you’re not stopping me.
“I’m ready to ask for my final favor. Since Kian isn’t allowed to fulfill it, as you’ve disavowed him, then that falls to you, right?”
Wedderburn fixed on me an enigmatic look, steepling his fingers. “Correct.”
I hesitated, thinking about my dad and Davina, who might need protection down the line. But those were maybes. This was Kian’s definite death, here and now. I could not watch him die when I had the power to save him.
For someone like me, there could only be one choice.
“Edie, don’t. Let me go. It’s better this way. If you’re with me, you’ll never achieve what you’re meant to, and you’ll end up indentured. I told you in the note—”
“Then I want Kian set free, now and forever, truly free, untouchable by any immortal in the game. No tricks, no shadows on his timeline. Free.”
As I spoke, Wedderburn nodded, and a final line appeared at the bottom of my infinity symbol. Just like the first two, it burned as if someone held a soldering iron to my skin. I hissed as the sting faded. Asked and answered, now Kian and I have matching ink. Curling my left hand into a fist, I reached for Kian with my right. He looked as if I’d died for him, and I just didn’t know it. Yet he stepped to my side and laced his fingers through mine.
“Your services won’t be required,” I told the clown-thing.
“Today,” it corrected. “Ultimately, my services are always in demand.”
“You may go.” Wedderburn didn’t watch as his executioner strolled out. Instead, he was focused on me. Incredibly, he was smiling. “You’ve just won me a great deal of money, Miss Kramer, along with a fair amount of prestige.”
I froze. “What are you talking about?”
“From start to finish, you’ve behaved exactly as I predicted you would. A handsome boy, a forbidden romance … well. This outcome was inevitable. For a clever girl, you’ve been a bit of a disappointment in some respects. In others? You performed beautifully.”
“Because you wanted me to burn my favors. And I have.” Realization swept over me, along with a steaming hot burst of chagrin, but I couldn’t let Kian die.
“That’s been my goal from the start. If you think I care how you used them, then you don’t understand my strategy at all. Now, darling girl, you are precisely where I want you.”
He turned to Kian. “This doesn’t solve your problem with the Harbinger, though, does it? Since he’s not part of the game. But … that’s not my concern. I’ll have your watch back now, if you please.” The cold one touched a metal wand to the wristband and the thing fell off like a dead insect. I shivered. “The two of you may go.”
“Wait,” Kian protested.
Wedderburn leveled an awful smile on him. “Enjoy your freedom. I’ll ensure the others know you’re no longer in play and may not be used for ancillary maneuvers, either. Go. Be human.” He packed a world of scorn in the last word.
I tugged on Kian’s hand. “Let’s get out of here.”
This might not be a victory, only a reprieve, but I practically ran out of the office and I didn’t stop shaking until we reached the lobby. Iris came around the desk to block our path; she wasn’t smiling. The receptionist held out a hand expectantly.
“I’ve been informed that your employment has been terminated, Mr. Riley. I need your passcard back. Your security codes and clearances will be revoked immediately. I have also been instructed to inform you that if you appear on this property without a written invitation from any of the partners, I’m to have you arrested.”
“I understand,” Kian said, digging into his wallet and turning in his badge.
He seemed dazed as we stepped out into the wan winter light. People hurried about their business-coat collars pulled up and scarves wrapped about the lower half of their faces. I had never noticed how much the same everyone looked in their black coats, like a flock of ravens fluttering in the same direction. Some of them tapped at their phones as they moved and the motion put me even more in mind of pecking birds.
I pulled him toward the T station since he didn’t mention his car being parked anywhere nearby. If I guessed right, he hadn’t brought it, not expecting to need a ride home. “Let’s go to your place.”
That roused him and he fixed furious green eyes on me. “What the hell did you do?”
“The best I could. There was no other way to save you.”
“Now you’re at Wedderburn’s mercy. Trust me, that’s not where you want to be. Edie, you could end up—”
“Indentured. I know. But maybe I won’t. I refuse to believe who I date has that big an impact on my future. Anyway, I don’t care. The most important thing is that they can’t hurt or control you anymore.”