My lips part. I still know Ky. We’re not touching, but he remains. I can overcome this. I can—
Enter the cowardly lioness. The woman who wants it all but has nothing. An immortal who only takes and never gives.
“Loyal subjects.” The Lioness enters the room, in feline form once again.
The crowd parts. Masks lower. Music ceases.
No. Don’t let it distract you. Stay with—
Joshua pulls Ky away.
“Stop!” I don’t care who’s watching. I follow, push past, through, and around. Why won’t they get out of my way? Don’t they see this is a matter of life or death? And by death I mean a life, not without Ky, but in which I hate him. Which is almost worse.
If I forget him entirely, he might have a chance at charming me again. I fell for him before, right? Yes, I hated him once, or thought I did. This is different. The anger and spite I harbored were enough to turn me into a Shadowalker.
“I welcome you to the most splendid of evenings.” Voice booming, Her Grace is the female version of Jasyn. “For I have found the answer to our Shadowalker infestation.”
Not me, no, ma’am. How did we get here? This is a revival of my eighteenth birthday, complete with a new cast. Ky, not Joshua, is the one snatched away. The Lioness, not Jasyn, plays the lead. And me? I’m still fighting the Void, but instead of planning to take it on and become its vessel, I’ll do whatever is in my power to destroy it. Then we can all finally be free.
The Lioness roars. French doors fly open on cue, like two wings flapping, beating the walls, making way for the circus to come. Instead of Soulless—those mindless, lifeless drones forced to obey the Void against their will—these are people who have chosen this fate. A death march featuring those trapped by the darkness they’ve allowed to reside inside them.
And they’re all in cages.
Cage after cage is carried forth, some formed from bent branches, others fashioned from iron. All sit atop guard-supported poles. As if on display, each one is placed on a different platform throughout the room. Spotlights rotate toward them, shining bright gold and green filtered lights onto the accused. The lights cause a prism effect, bouncing off the glass walls and ceiling, like something from a dream.
But what’s inside is truly nightmarish.
Not because the Shadowalkers are particularly frightening. Aidan’s outlook makes so much more sense now that I see them for who they truly are—now that the Verity sees who they are. I see them through eyes of light, much in the same way I saw myself in the mirror minutes ago. These citizens aren’t dangers to society. They’re merely human, each and every one of them experiencing an indescribable pain that eats away until all that remains is darkness.
A middle-aged woman cries, fingers spread over her flat belly. Did she lose a child? I can’t imagine.
A balding man clutches his head, rocking back and forth as if tortured. Who did he lose? A wife? A mother? A friend?
The worst sight of all, however, is not a person entrapped. Not in a physical cage, at least. No, the sight that grips me, that has me bracing myself against a nearby column, trying to find my voice so I can do something, is the change in Joshua’s eyes. Not in color. It’s deeper than that. The eyes are the windows to the soul? The saying speaks truth. I’m witnessing it right now.
“Behold, your peers, men and women who have bowed to the Void.” Her Lioness prowls to and fro, looking as if she seeks to devour the Shadowalkers one by one. “It would be something if we gave them another chance. I am not called ‘Grace’ without cause.” Cheers of agreement and praise erupt from the attendees. “Yet I am afraid they have wasted all opportunities for redemption. Would you not agree?”
The people jeer. Shout. Call. At first their cries are inaudible, a jumble of yells and screams. But then I begin to translate what they’re actually saying, separating the words, picking them out. One. By. One.
My core trembles.
“Destroy them!” a Munchkin man demands.
“Throw them into the Deadly Desert,” the beak-masked woman yells.
“Bury them alive,” a couple shouts in unison.
I look to Ky. To Joshua, who continues to hold him back. Their expressions are polar opposites.
Ky’s brows draw together, shadowed veins covering his face. But he’s looking at me. Gaze never turning from the light.
Joshua’s eyes, however, look down on his brother. Anger fills them. The rage I felt for Ky plagues him too.
And, slowly, I sense my heart slipping away from the boy who can’t take his eyes off me, falling onto the one who can’t seem to let me go.
“Curse them!”
“I say we have a hanging!”
“Make it so they never come near us again!”
The more Her Grace’s subjects call for justice, the brighter her fierce teeth gleam. Her approval eggs them on, manipulating them into making the choice for her. Then her eyes lock onto the quarreling brothers. She licks her lion lips and rolls her ferocious head.
“No.”
I don’t have to read her mind to know what she’s thinking. The Shadowalker in Joshua is clear, the Void in Ky obvious. Both will become victims of her mass murder. Both will be destroyed.
Whatever her intentions for me, I can’t allow them to suffer the same fate.
I hitch my skirt and climb onto the nearest platform. One hand finds the bar of a cage. I curl my fingers around it. The distraught woman inside grabs my wrist.
“Please,” she implores, much in the way I pleaded with Joshua not to take Ky. “Help me.”
Swallow. Nod. This is what I was meant for all along. Because it’s here, Reflections away from my throne, where I may finally act as queen.
“Listen!” My outcry draws the attention of the people.
A tangible shift takes place as all eyes whip toward me. Some frown. Others show surprise, curiosity, interest.
But the Lioness? She’s the kicker. No longer the center of the Reflections, she wears a scowl that could bring an army of Soulless to its knees.
Been there, done that.
“You would do well to step down, Elizabeth.”
I turn my head to discover my someday-grandfather standing just below.
He reaches for me. “Come. Her Grace’s wrath is inevitable. You cannot save them.”
I narrow my eyes. “Why are you doing this?” I’m on the verge of tears, but who gives a crowe? Where is the compassion? The grace the Lioness claims to be? “I thought you wanted to be rid of the Void, yet you only aid in strengthening the darkness.”
His mouth turns down. “She understands me in a way Aidan does not. She accepts my darkness instead of pretending it is not there. Surely you can understand.” He glances from me to the Lioness and back again. “With Aidan, my shadow is something to remain hidden. But with Her Grace? I am free to be who I truly am.” His façade shimmers, and for a fraction of a second I see his Void-blackened veins. But then he seems to think better of it, conceals his flaws once more.
“The Void is not you,” I say to him alone. “And as long as you let the darkness define you, true freedom you will never know.”
I look away from him, speaking loud enough for all to hear. “Can’t you see what these Shadowalkers need is love, not punishment? Is their crime not one we all are guilty of?” My lip trembles. I steady it, momentum coursing through me, empowering me, mirrorglass in my veins.
The people exchange glances, murmur in hushed tones.