“And I think you give her entirely too much,” I grumbled.
Draven sighed and then grabbed me by the arm. “Come with me, Aoife.”
He pulled me along, down a set of spiral stairs so tightly curled my shoulders could barely pass between the walls, and into a kitchen lit by a single bare bulb. Most of the cabinets had been ripped out, and a chair was bolted to the tile floor. I recognized it as the sort used in madhouses to keep patients restrained.
My stomach lurched as I saw that the chair’s occupant was Dean, hands and ankles bound with leather straps, and blood running from a split lip. One of his eyes was blacked and there was a cut on his cheek. A Brotherhood thug stood to one side, flexing his hand.
“Tough nut, boss,” the thug said. “Won’t say nothing except to tell us to screw off. Trying to tenderize him a little bit.”
“That’s fine, Hobson,” said Draven. “Why don’t you leave us for a moment? We have something to discuss.”
I ran to Dean and smoothed the hair back from his forehead. It was thick with blood and sweat, and I tried not to show my anger as Draven watched us, his arms folded. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered as I cradled Dean’s head, pressing my lips to his forehead. “I tried, I really did. I thought this was the right thing to do.”
“It was,” Dean muttered. “You know they would have pasted all four of us, princess. You made the right choice.”
“Do you have any doubt, Miss Grayson, that I am willing and able to follow through on my threat?” Draven asked.
I kept holding on to Dean, and shook my head. “I know what you’re capable of. Now and before.”
Draven nodded. “Then you’ll do as we ask. There won’t be any need for more melodrama.”
He went to the door and pulled it open. I saw a plain hallway beyond. Strange, to think that all around this torture chamber there was an ordinary house on an ordinary street, surrounded by people who knew nothing of the Brotherhood. Nothing of the Fae, nothing of people like me or the creatures that stalked through their nightmares.
“No,” I said quietly. Dean looked up at me.
“Princess,” he said urgently, “what are you—”
“Just trust me,” I muttered.
Draven turned. He looked angrier than a bank of thunderheads, but I forced myself not to fall back into fear.
Draven couldn’t scare me.
He couldn’t even come close.
“What do you mean by that no, Miss Grayson?” he snapped, his mouth twisting. I recognized the look. It was the look that all powerful men got when you told them what they didn’t want to hear.
“Do you want me to repeat myself?” I said softly. “Because I will. As many times as it takes.”
Of course I knew this might be a stupid decision. I knew that I might be sealing my and Dean’s fate. But I couldn’t bring myself, after all I’d seen—the vast stars, the Old Ones, the face of the Yellow King—to believe it would be the worst thing that ever happened to me.
“Think very, very carefully about the next thing you say, Aoife,” Draven told me. “Because I would hate to have to do something unpleasant to you. Or to your little man-friend here.”
“It’s funny,” I said. “I’ve heard a lot of threats since I found my Weird, you know that? More than I ever did when I was just some poor girl who was a city ward. But you know what else?” I stepped away from Dean and faced Draven. “You’re not going to follow through on them. You’re not going to raise one finger to me. Because you need me. Without my Weird, you’re just scared little men, cowering in the dark and watching the last of your fire go out. You’re playthings for the Fae if they feel like visiting the Iron Land for their amusement. Without me, you’re nothing.” I curled my lip at Draven. “You’re human.”
“I don’t need to do anything to you, stupid girl,” he snarled. “Dean—”
“If you harm one hair on Dean’s head I swear I’ll never help you again,” I said. “You might as well just kill me, because you won’t get the benefit of my gift. You can do your worst to me, but face it—it will never be enough. I’ve seen what lies beyond it all, Iron and Thorn. I’ve seen the worst things in the universe. What on earth makes you think I’d be afraid of you?”
Draven said nothing, just stood there, chest heaving impotently and face growing crimson. I felt intense satisfaction at being on the other side of that outrage for once, to be the cause rather than buffeted by the consequences.
“We’re leaving,” I said. “And if I feel like helping you unwind all of Crosley’s sneaky little bargains with the Fae, I will. And if I don’t, and I see another one of your little trench-coat brigade anywhere near me”—I narrowed my eyes—“I’m going to make you regret the day you looked into the shadows. You’re going to wish with every fiber of your being you knew nothing of this world.”
I expected bluster and shouting, the things Draven was so good at. I expected threats and recriminations. I didn’t expect Draven to give a primal snarl and yank a shock pistol from under his tweed jacket, closing the distance between us and shoving it against Dean’s temple.
“What?” he shouted as I recoiled, my hands flying up in a gesture of placation. “No clever rejoinders, Aoife?” His face twitched in a crazed man’s imitation of a smile. “Maybe you’re not quite as smart as you think you are, little girl.”
“Aoife,” Dean choked out. He tried to pull away from the barrel of the pistol, but he couldn’t move under the restraints. I watched the muscles in his jaw twitch in panic and my stomach roiled in response.
I wanted to kill Draven. I wanted to leap on him and beat him with my bare fists until he realized the error of his ways, but I didn’t move. That was the anger, the rage that I’d kept down for so long begging to be let free. It wouldn’t help me, and it certainly wouldn’t help Dean.
“It’ll be all right,” I told Dean.
Draven grimaced and jabbed Dean’s temple again with the gun. “Will it?” he snarled. “Or have we beaten you again, just like we did in the Arctic?”
“Beat me?” I started to laugh. It was better than screaming, or crying. “You didn’t beat me, Draven. I used you to get what I wanted. I needed you and the Brotherhood to get my mother back. You let yourselves be manipulated by a little girl, someone you think is beneath you. No wonder you’re so angry now.”
Dean stared at me, his eyes wide and unblinking, and I looked back. I didn’t think Draven would kill him, not when he had my allegiance on the line, but I couldn’t be sure.
The thought of backing down felt like a leaden weight settling in my chest in place of my heart. But it wasn’t about my feelings for Draven. I wasn’t the only person in play here.
I had to think of Dean. Had I brought him back only to lose him again?
“There’s no more talking,” Draven said. “There’s you doing as I say, or his brains on the wall. Am I making myself clear?”
Dean still looked at me, and then, impossibly, he winked. “You’re better than all of this, Aoife,” he said. “I love you.”
I felt a small smile touch my mouth. All at once, the doomsday scenario I’d been playing out in my head vanished. Dean understood. He loved me, even if I’d screwed everything up and brought us here.
Dean trusted me, and his look told me now I had to trust myself.
“I love you too,” I said, and then turned my eyes to Draven. There was strength in the admission—I’d known ever since the first time we kissed that I loved Dean, but to say it out loud made it real, inevitable and final.
I loved him. I always had.
“I don’t care what you do,” I told Draven. “You might kill him. You’re a bad man. You have no morals and a soul that’s rotten to the core. But I’m not that person. I know what I have to do to close my eyes at night, and working for your corrupt little gang isn’t it.” I took a deep breath and put my eyes back on Dean. “Do whatever you’re going to do. My answer won’t change.”