“It has been a long time, Cécile,” a familiar voice said from behind me. I lowered my eyes from the moon, and fear charged through my heart as I came face to face with the pistol leveled between my eyes.

Chapter 42

Cécile

I opened my mouth to scream, but only a pathetic whine escaped.

“Be silent. I know the powers you hold.”

“Esmeralda?” I choked her name out. “Why are you doing this?”

Her jaw tensed as though she were trying to speak but could not. The pistol wobbled up and down, but steadied when I took a step back. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “But the favor has been called due.”

The shot rang loud, tearing apart the stillness of the night. I’d closed my eyes as though not seeing would somehow protect me from the bullet. I held my breath, waiting for the terrible moment when I’d feel hot blood trickling down skin and the pain of metal rending my insides apart. But instead I felt nothing.

Forcing my eyes open, I stared at the flattened bit of metal hanging inches in front of my face, as though it were embedded in an invisible wall. Then beyond it to where Esmeralda lay on her back, the snow splattered with what looked like ink, but what I knew was blood. So very, very much blood.

The bullet dropped from the air to land silently in the snow, and I turned around to see Tristan standing at the crew exit, one arm stretched out in front of him. My gaze went back to Esmeralda, and moving sluggishly, I knelt down next to her, pushed back her hood, and felt for a pulse at her neck. It was a hopeless effort – I could have fit my fist through the hole in her chest.

“Esmeralda.” There was no inflection in Tristan’s voice, no emotion, but his shock made my own hands shake.

“A troll made her do this.” I pulled away my hand, convinced I could feel her skin already beginning to cool beneath my fingertips. “She owned Reagan a favor, and it was called due.”

“I didn’t mean to…” His voice was choked. “You need to help her.”

“She is beyond help,” I said. I did not add that what he’d done to her would have been enough to fell any living thing in this world.

“No!” He fell to his knees, heedless of the pool of blood. “Use magic. Heal her. Fix her. You know how.”

“Tristan, she’s dead.”

He shook his head, expressing utter denial of my words. “Help her.” Grabbing Esmeralda by the shoulders, he pulled her up off the ground, and I almost gagged at the sight of the gore beneath her. “Help her!”

I didn’t know what to do. Someone would have heard the gunshot, and it was only a matter of time before we were discovered. Never mind that we knelt next to a corpse, there would be no explaining the manner in which she died. We had to get away. “Tristan, we need to go.”