The good thing about meeting Clementine down here was that there was no way she could ambush me, since there weren’t any trees for her to hide behind. No thickets of brambles for her to crouch down in. No high spots for her to snipe at me from. Just the stone path, the boathouse, and water, water everywhere.

The bad thing was that I was out in the open for everyone to see. No cover for Clementine meant there was no place for me to retreat to either when things went to hell, as they most surely would.

By this point, I was fifty feet away from the boathouse. My gaze locked onto the entrance, but I didn’t spot Clementine, Opal, Dixon, or, more important, Eva. All I could see ahead of me were darkness and shadows—a metaphor for my life if ever there was one. But this was the path I’d chosen, in more ways than one, and there was nothing to do now but see it through to the end.

So I stepped forward and went to meet my enemy.

Chapter 23

23

As I neared the boathouse, I thought about reaching for my Stone magic and using it to harden my skin. If I was Clementine, I would have ordered Opal and Dixon to shoot first and search my body later.

But in the end, I decided not to use my magic. I’d already depleted some of my power fighting the other giants, and I had a sneaking suspicion that I’d need every scrap of magic I had left to take out Clementine. Besides, with any luck, she would want to make sure that I actually had Mab’s will on me first before she killed me.

I hoped so, since I was betting my life on it.

I walked slowly down the path, scanning the shadows in front of me for any hint of movement, any sign that one of the giants was going to pop out and start shooting at me. The closer I got to the boathouse, the more I felt like there was a target on my chest. Then again, this was nothing new. There was always a target on me these days, a big red bull’s-eye I’d put there myself just by killing Mab, just by being the Spider.

But like I’d told Owen before, I had to do this. And not just because my friends were being held hostage inside the museum or the fact that Eva was in danger out here now. An innocent woman was dead when I should have been instead, and Clementine had to pay for her mistake, simple as that.

I kept walking until I reached the front of the boathouse. I waited a moment, but Clementine didn’t call out to me, so I stepped inside.