“No,” I said, my true self fearing what was in it. “Do not.”
Alexandra gave a dark and unsteady laugh, and I sensed her nerves and anger mixing beneath it.
“Why not?” she asked, hitching the straps back up onto her shoulders.
The dominant voice wanted the secrets of the Spellmasons, but my inner voice was determined to keep them from it. These were new rules set upon me, and like the old ones, I needed to choose my words carefully if I was going to bend the dominant voice away from harming Alexandra.
“I have been tasked to claim what is rightfully my father’s from the Belarus Building,” I said.
“So you tore the place up because Kejetan the Accursed told you to?” she asked. “Did you ever think, ‘Hey, maybe I just won’t do it and say that I did’?”
“I cannot do that,” I said.
“Why the hell not?” she asked.
“Because I have been bound,” I said, forcing my true voice to take control of the conversation for a moment. “I serve another. Listen to me carefully, Alexandra. I must do as I’m told. Exactly as I’m told, which is why I must ask you to keep your bag on your back.”
Another wave of confusion filled Alexandra’s eyes. “Why?”
“You must keep quiet for a moment, and you must keep your bag upon your back,” I said with my true voice, choosing my words with care to keep the dominant one from stopping me. “I think I can guess what might be in that bag, but I do not know for sure. And for your own safety, do not tell me.
“As I said, I have been tasked to claim what is rightfully my father’s from the Belarus Building. That would mean that if Alexander’s master book of arcane knowledge were here, I would have to take it . . . by force, if necessary. I am bound to destroy anyone who interferes with that. But if I do not technically know the book is here, I cannot take it from the Belarus Building. Do you understand me?”
Alexandra nodded, but said nothing.
“So,” I continued, “for both our sakes, I think it is best that the contents of your backpack remain a mystery to me.”
Alexandra kept her hands on the strap of her backpack but did not move to take it off. “I see,” she said when she finally spoke. “You’re playing around with the rules.”
I could not help but smile at that. “You taught me to bend the rules when and where I could.”
The two of us stood there in the silence of the night, in the silence of the familiar building, simply looking at each other, taking a quiet comfort in that.
“So what now?” she asked.
“I must return to my masters,” I said. “I must tell the Servants of Ruthenia that I did not find the book on the premises. That will not satisfy them, but it will buy us both some time.”
All life and color ran out of Alexandra’s face.
“No,” she said, taking my hands. “Don’t go back to them. Stay with me. I’m sure I can figure something out. We can work this out. It’s been far too long. Please.”
The desperation in her voice pained me, but I shook my head. “I must return to my masters,” I repeated, unsure of what else I could say. I stepped away from her, but she would not let go of my clawed hands.
“At least tell me where they are,” she said.
The dominant voice rose in me, not allowing me to betray the location of Kejetan and the Servants of Ruthenia.
“Please let me help you,” she pleaded.
I stepped back farther from her, pulling my hands away from her. “Do not do this. If you interfere, Alexandra, I will be forced to harm you. Do you remember the bargain that I made with my father the last night you and I were together?”
Alexandra nodded as she wiped away tears forming at the corners of her eyes. “Yes,” she said. “You promised that you would go with him, to protect me.”
“Correct,” I said. “And what did I make you do?”
“You made me release you from my great-great-grandfather’s rules. I released you from protecting my family.”
“That is correct,” I said. “But why?”
Alexandra thought for a moment, puzzling it out before answering. “If Kejetan had chosen to hurt us just then, bound by my great-great-grandfather’s rules, you would have been forced to fight him. And you would have kept on fighting until you were destroyed.”
“And the binding that holds sway over me now is much like that,” I said. “Kejetan has set me a task, and I cannot violate his rules. If you interfere, you will push my hand, and I will . . . I will be forced to kill you.”
I saw how the words stung her like a slap, and I felt the pain I caused her deep in my soul.
“Do you remember the last words I spoke to you?” I said, hoping to distract her with something more practical.
“Yes,” she said. “You said, ‘Prepare yourself. This does not end things.’”
“And have you done just that?”
Alexandra gave a grim smile, frustration radiating from her. “Rory and Marshall have been helping me.”
I smiled at the mention of their names. “I am surprised to find I miss them,” I said.
Alexandra gave a dark and pained laugh. “I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to hear it.”
“And how goes the preparation?”
“Somewhere between promising and impossible,” she said. “You were the culmination of my great-great-grandfather’s decades of arcane study. Spellmasonry isn’t something mastered in a few months. Every time I think I’m making progress, I run up against a wall. I feel like I’m at a dead end. You remember Bricksley?”
“Of course,” I said.
“He’s still up and running. It’s just when I try to do something more grand than that, things sort of . . . fall apart. Nothing stays bound together. I’m getting better at exerting my will over things, but what good does that do if I can’t maintain it? I just end up with a pile of bricks or a poorly molded statue that shatters into a thousand pieces. The only thing that has gone right are the wards I’ve placed on the new building as the contractors work on the structural damage here down in the catacombs, so who knows if the building is even going to remain standing. We’ve got builders down there reinforcing everything, but we can’t live here, really. I’ve moved the family down to—” She clapped her hand over her own mouth
For her safety, I needed to leave before she triggered the dominant voice in me any further. I stepped past Alexandra, heading back toward the torn-off doors of the terrace.
“I am sorry about your library,” I said as I went. “Truly.”
Alexandra ran along behind me, trying to catch up, climbing over the debris that I simply crashed through. “You’re leaving? Now?”
“I must,” I said. Once outside, I let the cool night air wash over me.
“Wait,” she said, grabbing for my arm, but as much as I wanted to feel her touch, I did not think I could bear it. I stepped off the edge of the roof, my wings spreading to catch the wind. I spun back around to face her.
“When will I see you again?” she asked. “Seeing you like . . . this, I can’t take it. I need to know.”
“I am unsure,” I said. “I am subject to the will of others and bound to return to them. This I cannot fight.”
“Tell me what to do,” she pleaded. “There’s no one I can talk to about this, no one who even understands the power at work here. I need guidance.”
“Nothing has changed since I first instructed you on this,” I said, leaping into the air. I looked down at her trembling figure on the terrace below. “Learn what you can. For my part, I will try to do the same. But prepare.”