Chapter 51

It was snowing.

I woke on a frozen bed, skin burning from the ice pressing into the exposed places of my dress. The numb pain forced my eyes to open, and I looked up through the snowflakes gathering on my lashes, staring through freezing fog and into a flurry-filled sky. A clock tower chimed an early hour in the distance, singing the same tune I'd heard for twenty-one years.

I'd returned to Lynchaven, then. Be it coincidence or fate, I spent little energy worrying over the reason and more on where exactly I'd ended up—in the middle of the River Ada.

The ice was solid, though I could feel the rush of the current beneath. Like walking on the second floor of an apartment, it was sturdy enough to stand and walk across, but with a hollowness to insist it might not remain that way.

The biting nip of the wind skirted over the river, and the rush of it beat my skirts wildly and practically turned the blood in my veins to slush. My gown was no longer wet, my hair similarly dry, and sand no longer weighed down my flats or clung to my fingers—like the entire thing had been a dream. Whatever part of Oblivion I'd collected had remained there.

But my head throbbed from the gash on my face where Giver hit me with his chain, a painful keepsake to ensure my time beyond the veil had been anything but a dream.

The Wet District was close. From here, I could smell the ash floating from their chimneys, the sounds of a distant party. Through the whirl of snow and fog, something glowed from the riverbank, approaching quickly. The form of a man decorated in the symbols they'd painted on him earlier.

Aramis.

I took controlled breaths to cool the rising flame licking my throat. I was furious with him, straddling the border into hatred territory. It hadn't fully processed in my head what he'd done to Nico. It didn't make any sense. My heart couldn't catch up to all I'd seen tonight, and I was left just... angry. Just hurt and hollow and fucking angry.

Felix appeared behind him, too close now for the misty wall to hide him. Before they got any closer, I drew a line they couldn't cross, melting the river with my remnant and splitting the ice into two sides.

"Leave no name forgotten," I whispered to Nico, to the place in my heart he'd remain forever. "Give no easy death."

My brother shook from the wind beating his bare chest, still fighting the urge to look at me. Felix didn't appear as satisfied as when I left. That smug smile had gone at last, replaced with a fierce glare that tempered some when he neared.

I'd sink him to a cold ending for what he did to my husband.

"Camilla," Felix said softly, like we were standing in my courtyard six months ago. "You'd never believe me, but this isn't the way I wanted to do things."

I scoffed. "What exactly wasn't a part of your plan? Me rejecting your offer of marriage or the consequential death of most of my family?"

A muscle in his eye twitched. "What does this have to do with your family? Blood remnants murdered Giles and Jasper. I wasn't the one who tore out their throats, and yet you blame me over those monsters—"

"They were under your orders!"

"They had choices," he hissed. "We did not. You gave everything to the Attanos after we made a deal. Your family screwed us over and tried to run from it, so your family dealt with the consequences of their betrayal."

But it was my betrayal, not theirs. I dragged my stare away from the alchemist long enough to linger on Aramis, give him his fair share of my loathing.

"Then why are you working with my brother again?"

Felix smiled. "Because he came to me and explained how you were seduced by Nicolai Attano and that you alone made the choice to give him your company. That you—and I quote him—fell in love." A snide laugh filled the silence between his accusations. "Aramis reached out to me the day after you were taken, and we made a deal. I'd forgive you for what you did to my family and my company, and in exchange, he would deliver the Attano to me and help me destroy your remnant."

My limbs were freezing stiff, but I still needed him to show his last card. "Why does my remnant matter in a world where magic can be controlled and managed? Why not take it for yourself like you and your family has done for generations with other remnants?"

"Because Order, Camilla, cannot exist alongside Chaos." His voice fell on the next part, as if afraid the wind would carry his words to unwanted ears. "Did you open Oblivion? Did you free him?"

My hesitation answered for me as the two-faced saint nudged into my thoughts.

Felix nodded slowly, his gaze set on something far away. "Damnit." He looked to Aramis. "You understand now, why I cannot let either of you live."

He shivered violently. "But we had a deal!"

"Deals change with the circumstances, as you should know all things considered," the alchemist replied. "Especially one made in a verbal agreement."

Hells, I'd tear him apart right now—peel the flesh off his bone and grind his skeleton into dust—if I didn't want that fucking book. The wind matched my wrath, tearing the loose ends of my hair from their pins and whipping it across my face. Flurries blurred the riverbank until all I could see was the faint glow of light coming from the windows of the warehouse.

"Where is the book?" I asked him outright. The weather alone was lethal enough in Lynchaven without anyone making threats. Yet still, the snow came down thicker, the breeze howling between us.

Felix reached into his coat, but instead of the book I sought, he pulled out a gun.

Before he could shoot either me or my brother—because a stupid, stubbornly loyal part of me still wanted to protect the bastard despite how much he broke my heart—I fisted both my hands above the ice and, when I opened them, released Chaos.

My power splintered through the glaze over the river. Black lines cobwebbed between Felix and me, him and Aramis, me and my brother, until all of us were separated on our own block of floating ice. The cracks ran deep enough, far enough, that the entire sheet over the river shifted and moved, beginning to float downstream.

Felix was a wide-framed man, stocky and sturdy, yet incapable of moving at any sort of speed. The jolt through the ground set him off-balance, and he dropped the gun to catch himself. My brother leapt across the widening crack to snatch it.

"He's got a knife!" I shouted at Aramis as a flash of iridescent blue appeared in Felix's hand.

Aramis grabbed the hilt of the gun and—tossed it to me, and I nearly didn't catch it, expecting him to use it to defend himself. Just as the revolver left his fingertips, Felix's came down, slashing at his outreached arm. The knife sunk into my brother's shoulder, tearing through pale skin, deep flesh, and arcane rune.

The scars on my body ceased their glow.

"Aramis!"

He stammered something between a curse and a cry of pain, and it cleaved something inside of me, separating the person I loved from what he'd done. Tears leaked down my cheeks as I stumbled with the gun, my fingers numb and stiff and poorly pliable. The ice beneath the pair quickly stained red.

Regaining control, I shifted my power from fire to destruction, aiming my focus on the knife in Felix's fists, already high over his head, ready to strike again. Shadows swirled at my silent command, dismantling the fabric of his knife until it reached his fingers.

I took those too.

Felix screamed, snatching his arm from my Chaos to his chest—his eyes gaped where nothing but a cauterized wrist remained.

"Move, Aramis!" I shouted so I could finish Felix the way I wanted to, careful where I stripped. If he had the book still in his possession, he needed to stay whole until I had it in my hands.

Aramis shifted his weight, throwing Felix on his back and sending the block of ice teetering in the rippling current. River water slipped over the ice, slicking the surface as the pair wrestled for control.

"For my brothers," Aramis hissed as he grabbed Felix by the throat and squeezed. "And for Sera. For taking every last thing I wanted and the life you made a living hell. I'll fucking drag you to the bottom of the river myself."

It was the first time he'd spoken of their deaths, the first he'd said her name. I wondered if he'd been holding them back for this moment—until he had the power to do something about his silent mourning.

Felix threw a connecting punch with his remaining hand to Aramis's jaw, following his temporary stun with a boot between them to kick him back. Aramis stumbled off the side of the ice platform and onto another, collapsing across the plate. It took him too long to stand, as Felix was already on his feet, wiping blood off his lip.

It was just me and the alchemist and no one left between us. The wind wiped away my tears, replacing them with the urge to finish this once and for all.

I opened the chamber of the gun and emptied all the bullets. All but one. Felix watched me as I carved his name into the lead with my remnant—and popped it into a random slot. My thumb spun the chamber before snapping it shut.

"You have six chances of dying, Felix." I aimed the gun at his head. "And you have six chances to save yourself. Are you a gambling man?"

He sneered, teeth bared and furious. "I don't play games. If you want to kill me, then be done with it."

"I want the book."

His brow cocked.

"The book you stole from Delilah. She took it from my mother. It is mine and I want it back."

"I don't have it."

I pulled the trigger, a tight wince crossed the alchemist's face in reaction, but the slot was empty.

Felix was still for a moment before a cackling laugh bubbled from his lips. "That's what all this is about? A fucking diary?"

Another pull of the trigger, another click without the bullet. I hummed a thoughtful sound. "You're pretty lucky, Felix. Might want to reconsider your profession if you make out of this."

"Why not just finish the rest of me? You have the power. Why not use it?" He held up his wrist.

Because I didn't associate my magic with being powerful like he did. It wasn't about using my remnant to make him do what I wanted, to force his hand. Having magic wasn't equivalent to having power, only the feeling of it. I wanted something better. Something my mother, my father and brothers, my husband, my best friend, something they all deserved.

Justice. The ability to deliver it, to offer it, that was true power.

I pulled the trigger twice to make a point. Both empty, though Felix began to sweat despite the cold.

"Alright!" he gasped, reaching into his jacket. "Alright, just relax. Don't... don't shoot anymore. I'll give you what you want."

I waited. The hair on the back of my neck stiffened as a bated breath hung trapped in my chest. A shiver hollowed my spine. Slowly, like a frightened animal, he pulled the book from the inner lining of his coat.

"I know why you want this," he said. "It's why I kept it from you."

"You know nothing of what I want."

He shook his head. "The Sons of Order made the connection a long time ago, Camilla. We know you are the daughter of Chaos. We know how powerful you are, which is why you cannot walk away from this."

"Who are the Sons of Order?" My pointer finger wrapped around the trigger. He caught the movement.

"The Sons of Order have gone by many names over the last century," he said with the beginnings of a grin tipping his thin lips. "The Order of Saints. The Order of Inner Courts." He winked. "But first, we were Sons of Greed."

"Greed?" I whispered. He was speaking of the saint, of the one I'd met in Oblivion—that I might have let out. "Order isn't a thing, is it? Not even something you're trying to achieve. It's a divine."

His smile fell. "It's not really something you'd understand as the daughter of Chaos."

"I'm smarter than people give me credit for."

I pulled the trigger. Felix jerked, but it was empty. One last shot, and this one would kill.

"There are people hunting what you hold, Camilla. I only wanted to provide Order to my city, to my country, but there are those who will bring it to the entire realm once your power is purged from the world."

"You want control," I corrected him.

"Order is control," he replied. "Chaos is corruption. Your mother taught me that much." He held the book up an inch higher.

There was too much he was leaving out. Perhaps an entire realm of history he was purposely avoiding to keep me in the dark. He tossed me the leather-bound journal, and I snatched it midair with my gun still aimed at his chest.

But then... he pulled out something else from his pocket. A small, silver orb I recognized from Nico's wares. He must have taken it that day they infiltrated Sabina's.

A bomb.

"They'll kill me anyway if they find out Chaos is free again," he murmured. "At least this way, Order has a chance to return to the realm. If I let you live, you could destroy him."

"Felix..." I tried to step back, to pull the trigger, but my body no longer obeyed me. I was repressed from my thoughts. Only a passenger in my head.

"If you would have just married me all those months ago." His teeth gnashed together. "None of this would have happened. Your family would be alive. The Attanos would never have risen to power. Everything would be as it should be. But you are truly Chaos, and I see now why we must destroy you."

"Felix, wait—" My heart raced, panic replacing my foolish confidence. I still couldn't move. Couldn't shoot him. Couldn't run.

He lifted the pin to his lips. "I'll fight fire with fire if that's what it takes. And if I go down, I'm taking you with me, Camilla. Let's see which hell our shadows belong to."

Arms wrapped Felix from behind. The alchemist thrashed once to free himself, but Aramis sent a small knife into his neck, one coated with a faint blue glow—giving the alchemist a taste of his own medicine.

But he had already pulled the pin by the time I could pull the trigger.

Jarred from the kickback of the gun, I watched as blood stained his starch shirt, a glossy saturation spread like a starburst over his chest. The bullet sunk into the space above his heart, giving Felix Firenze a moment to count his last breaths. He used his final one to spit the pin at me before falling to the ice.

"Aramis, he's got a—"

My brother instantly noticed the triggered explosive, palming and tossing it as far upriver as he could, where it exploded in the near distance. Heat brushed our faces, stirred the hair on my neck, and flitted away some of the coldness under my skin.

"Off the ice!" my brother shouted. I followed him, lifting my skirts to run toward the riverbank as the ice beneath our strides shifted. One plunge under the river's icy crown and we'd be swept away in the forceful current.

When I hit solid ground, I nearly fell to my knees in relief.

But Aramis was still panicked, tugging me by the hand he snatched while we ran. "Come on. We need to get to the station."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'll explain on the way, but first we need to—"

Fire scourged the greenhouses behind the warehouse like a flame to a dry wick. We both stopped in our tracks, staring up at a burning wall that seemed to grow higher by the second. A noxious smell hit us immediately from all the herbs decomposing in the heat, and I covered my face with my hand to breathe through the stench.

"You're fucking late!" Aramis shouted at a figure beginning to emerge from the smoke.

Jeremiah walked casually, a cigarillo hanging between his lips. His shirt was half unbuttoned and his face and chest were covered with a sheen of sweat.

"Looks like I'm right on time," he murmured.

"You wouldn't be if this entire night hadn't gone to hell. Where's the carriage?"

"Private drive near the last greenhouse—if the fire hasn't spooked the horses."

My mouth gaped, unsure what was going on. Had my brothers been planning this all along behind my back? First the betrayal, then Aramis had helped me, and now Jer was burning down the remainder of the Firenzes' stock.

My head spun hopelessly.

Aramis pulled me down the gravel drive toward the hidden carriage Jeremiah had mentioned. I planted my feet before I joined them.

"I'm not going anywhere without Nico. Where is he and what have you done to him?"

"I'm trying to take you to him," Aramis growled. "If he was smart enough to heed my words, he's getting those fucking cars to the Row, and we need to ensure they make it there."

"Why?" I asked. "You stabbed him with a Niner blade. He's as good as dead!"

Aramis threw open the door. "Because the Niner blade will not kill him, Camilla. Now please get in the car before the Watch comes to investigate the fire. I'll explain it all on the way."

"He's being honest, Milla. For once, I'd listen to him," Jer said softly beside me. He jumped in the driver's seat and readied the horses.

Reluctantly, and lacking other options, I joined my brother—if only to learn his secrets at last.

"He's not going to die?"

Aramis shook his head, seated across from me. "The Niner poison only works by tearing a shadow from a person, which is why it's a torturous death. Remnants have different kinds of shadows, allowing the poison to be more selective in nature. But Nico"—he canted his head—"doesn't have a shadow to poison. He'll be fine once it leaves his bloodstream."

"And you knew this all along?"

He nodded. "One of my deals with Felix, in exchange for your life, was to bring Nico in so he could end him, but I couldn't do that to you. I couldn't save your life just to take the one good thing you've ever had. Hells know I've done that enough recently." His gaze fell to the floor in thought. "Thankfully, Nico solved that problem for me by taking the deal with Desmond, and all I had to do was make sure Felix left me in charge of killing him."

Relief and rage battled for dominance in my heart. "How do you know Desmond?"

Aramis cleared his throat and glanced nervously at the windows. "We've crossed paths several times. He works out of the Vasilli downtown."

"Are you—"

"No," he replied curtly. "I have nothing to do with whatever Nico's transferring. In the days before I sought out Nico, I crawled back to the Firenzes to see if there was a way I could barter with them to keep you safe. It turned out Felix didn't know his men had taken you. They must have left Felix out of the deal, less men to split your bounty." He shook his head. "Anyway, I had an advantage, information to give them to gain their trust. They thought Chaos was dead and the key was gone. Sera's act had been most convincing."

"Sera should have never—"

"Sera was a very good friend to us both," Aramis said. "She didn't deserve what happened to her, but she's the reason this city hasn't gone to hell yet."

"You miss her," I stated the obvious.

He swallowed hard. "It doesn't matter what I feel. If Vanya was right, and the stuff on the cars is the missing mirkwood the Firenzes are expecting, we'll have finally beaten them. There won't be anything available until next spring, far too late for the Firenzes to bounce back. Especially after everything that happened tonight.

"When I learned Nico was part of the deal and what he'd traded, I figured it was all for the best. He'd find a way to get the stuff past the Watch, take the Firenzes most lucrative ingredient for their glint, and he'd be protected when I inevitably delivered him to Felix."

So, it wasn't betrayal—but a blinding white lie. It made me feel a fraction better he wasn't trying to kill my husband, but the weight of this—what he'd kept from me—formed a scar of mistrust that might not ever heal completely.

"Who is this client and how did they take such a thing out from under the Firenzes?" I asked aloud.

Aramis shrugged. "No idea. But when we find out, and Nico hopefully completes this deal and all is well, we need to burn the stuff. Client or not."

"I can help with that," I said, only jesting at first. My hands fell open in my lap, letting go of the book. Chaos magic still clung to my fingers, yet it didn't spread on its own accord. It listened to me, obeyed me in a way it never had before—like it recognized something new in my voice.

My fingers still stung from the kickback of the gun, and I folded them together, reminded of the life I took tonight.

"He deserved it, Camilla." Aramis noticed my fidgeting. "It was him or you."

"I know." He read my body wrong if he thought I was concerned about Felix. I'd have traveled to the void just to shoot him again for all the pain he'd caused my family. "Nico doesn't know about the Niner poison and his shadow, does he?"

Aramis shrugged. "I suppose not."

I bit my bottom lip in thought. "So, he still thinks he's dying."

He nodded slowly, his brows kissed in confusion.

"Does not having a shadow keep you from dying at all?" I asked, my voice shaking.

"No," Aramis replied. "The shadow and the body are two separate entities, either can die on its own."

I breathed a curse and urged Jer to drive faster. "If Nico thinks he's a dead man walking, he might do something to get himself killed. Hells, he'll be even more reckless than usual. We need to reach him before it's too late."

"We'll get to him, Milla. He can't be that far ahead of us."

I clutched the book, fingering the frayed pages nervously. I'd be more confident in his calculations if the man in question couldn't control the actual time.

Looking down at the journal, a seed of guilt blossomed in my throat, and I choked back a sob before Aramis could hear me cry. I'd gained a piece of my past... and it might have cost me the rest of my future—and my forever.