“Is the tea to your liking?” Dewey asked.
As if a warm beverage would be enough for me to forget that he’d just sliced through another human being.
“Smells lovely,” I replied evenly.
Shadow magic. That was how I charmed without jewels. So if Dewey could use shadow magic, too . . . did that mean Dewey could travel without aging?
But he had aged. His premature wrinkles were proof.
He watched me as if I were a cornered animal, ready to run. But he wanted to trust me. In all those crossed-out timelines, he wanted me to choose him.
He wanted a queen.
Taking a careful sip of my lukewarm tea, I studied Dewey over the rim. After what the Strattori had said, I couldn’t risk peeking at his lightstring, but he seemed thrown by my reaction to his abrupt violence. He expected me to understand why he’d done it.
Think, Luxe. My family had taught me plenty of ways to ease someone’s mood. To loosen lips.
I rose from the table, giving my chaste nightgown a small tug to lower the neckline. Without looking up from his untouched tea, Dewey stilled. I lowered myself to his lap, rested my arms over his shoulders, and kissed him. Wrong mouth, wrong mouth, wrong mouth, a wicked voice inside me sang. I pushed it down. “Talk to me, Dewey.”
His eyes were still guarded as they scrutinized me. “Trevor, is Luxe using her magic?”
He knew. He knew my magic didn’t require jewels.
Trevor’s voice trembled as he replied, “No, sir.”
“And did she use it during that kiss?”
“No, sir.”
“Interesting.” Dewey’s arm slid around my back. “You know, we’ve had this conversation many times, yet you’ve never done that.”
Every part of me wanted to leap from his lap. How many times had he rewound the clock? Two? Ten? More? And what had happened all those times I couldn’t remember?
I schooled my face to a mask of calm. “I’m glad I can still surprise you.”
“You must have questions.” His thumb traced circles on my lower back.
“I do.”
“Ask away.”
I leaned into his touch as if he didn’t repulse me. “So you can do what I do?”
“We are the same, my sweet.” His arms tightened around me.
“How?”
He hesitated. Without my magic negating his insecurities, he didn’t trust me.
I shifted in his lap so that I straddled him. His eyes widened, his lips parting as I rested my hands on his chest. “Tell me.”
“You are laying it on thick.” His hands trailed over my shoulders. “You can transfer the cost of your magic. I can do the same.”
Panic flooded me, the rush of blood to my head dizzying, deafening. If he could travel without aging, he was unstoppable. He had endless do-overs, endless opportunities . . .
“But you’ve aged!” I blurted.
He flinched, and I nearly reached for my magic to smooth away his disgust. “Not that I don’t like this more sophisticated you,” I added, running my hands through his hair.
“A mistake I plan on correcting once I see if I’ve gotten this timeline right. Like I told you, my brother tried to kill us both.” His face pinched. “I didn’t have time to use shadow magic. I wasn’t prepared, but next time, I’ll travel back even further, and I’ll stop him long before he pulls the trigger. This wrinkled timeline will cease to exist.”
It was an effort not to panic, not to run away screaming. But there was no escape.
Magic always has a cost. Pain was too transient, too cheap a price for what it allowed me to do. But if the pain was truly shadow magic . . .
No. There had to be a limit, a weakness for us both. One I could exploit.
“How does it work for you?”
He hesitated. “I have questions of my own, you know.”
“A question for a question?”
He appraised me, his hands still caressing. “Trevor, if either of us tells a lie, please interrupt. Understood?”
Trevor blanched. “Yes, sir.”
“I’ll answer your question first,” Dewey said. “Like you, I have my familial magic, and my other magic, as you call it. To access my other magic, I need the assistance of someone with magical blood. Once I draw blood the right way, a string of light appears.”
The right way? Did he perform some sort of ritual? Did his victims suffer?
I swallowed. Hard.
“I imagine it works differently for you, as a Revelle, but the lightstring leads me through their past. It weaves through whatever door they’ve entered, and keeps going, back and back until the moment they were born. With their lightstring, I can travel backward through time, and I can stay in the past until their lightstring dims entirely and the connection . . . expires, then I’m back in the present.”
I turned over every word, searching for a weakness. “And you’re free to do as you please in the past?”
“As long as I stay near their lightstring, I’m free to do as I please. Time is shaved off my blood donor’s life, not mine.”
Blood donor. Lightstrings. My head swirled. “So when you use your family’s magic, you take over your past self, because there can only be one. But what happens to the, ah, past you when you follow a lightstring?”
“I love how inquisitive you are. Every single time.” He took a sip of his tea, watching me over the rim. “There can never be two of the same person at once, whether I use regular Chronos magic or shadow magic. With Chronos magic, my ‘past self’ ceases to exist because a new timeline begins. But with shadow magic, whenever I land in my donor’s past, my own past self is rendered unconscious. I faint, like you. I’ve even seen myself lying there, which is strange, to say the least. Once I return to the present, the past continues, only altered.”
Dewey unconscious on the alley floor. Frank Chronos rapidly aging. Dewey unconscious in the fire. Rose Effigen growing old like a Chronos.
He was using shadow magic the whole time.
His eyes glowed like embers as he leaned closer. “My whole life, my family treated my fainting spells like a weakness—but really, it was a sign of power beyond their wildest imaginations.”
Dewey had made Rose set that fire. Somehow, Dewey had made his uncle attack Jamison in the alley. “Why—”
He pressed a cool hand over my mouth. “I gave you three questions. My turn.”
I swallowed my growing nausea, not letting myself think about his fingers pressed to my lips, his thighs beneath my buttocks. “I’m all ears.”
“Your magic makes you faint, too.”
Not a question, but I nodded.
“Why?”
I hesitated. For years, my magic had been a private, unspeakable thing, and Dewey was the last person I wished to know anything of it. But I needed him to trust me. “My magic isn’t limitless. If I push myself too hard and use it up, I pass out.”
He considered that. “How long have you been able to charm without jewels?”
“Since I was eleven years old. After my mother died.” An easy truth, at least.
“Eleven?” Dewey looked to Trevor, who nodded. “Interesting. Your grief probably helped. I believe shadow magic is born out of a certain desperation. But how did you draw blood?”
The Strattori’s words echoed in my mind. You’ve drained your own lifeline. . . . I don’t even know how you’re still alive.
I flicked his nose playfully. “Question for a question, remember?”
His fingers grazed the bare skin of my neck. “Ask away.”
“Who taught you shadow magic?”
“You did, my sweet.” He laughed at my surprise. “Well, not the particulars, but you inspired me. That timeline no longer exists, of course, so you don’t remember. You passed out during a dress rehearsal, and I realized that when you were awake, I was in bliss. When you were unconscious, I was a wreck. Eventually, I persuaded you to admit to charming me, even though I’d gone to great lengths to never give you a jewel. You’d found another way. And after some trial and error, I did, too.”
His calm, teasing tone sent a chill down my spine. Persuaded? There was no way I had willingly told him anything. “I had to,” I said quickly. “I needed to make sure—”
“You were wise to use every advantage you had.” He pushed back a wisp of hair from my forehead, the gentle motion so like Jamison’s that I held my breath to keep the flood of emotions in check. “Have you drawn my blood?”
I shook my head. Dewey turned to Trevor, who nodded in confirmation.
“I can’t figure out how you get away with it. No one seems to disappear, except my donors.”
The missing Effigen children. The Strattori boys. “I’ve been really careful to make sure they don’t, ah, expire. I’m still figuring it out myself.”
His brows lifted. “Perhaps you can teach me.”
“I’d like that.” I buried my panic, forcing myself to smile at him.
“You and I are unparalleled,” he murmured, trapping my hands in his. “Think of how unstoppable we’ll be in the mayor’s office. I can rewind time for any do-overs, and you can control the people’s hearts. Everyone will love us. Even your family. Even my family.”
Charming the Chronoses. Further ensnaring ourselves in this battle with his family.
“And imagine what our children will accomplish,” he continued. “Enchanting time travelers, not limited by aging or gems. They will bend life to their every whim.”
Children. With him.
Catherine dead, Jamison alive. Luxe is the star, magic strong, but still chooses Jamison. Act like Jamison?
Those scribblings were timelines. Ones that no longer existed.
Dewey was searching for the proper combination to have the life he wanted. He’d traveled over and over again—killed over and over again—so he could have power. Money.
Me.
His thumb traced circles on my hand, and I fought the urge to pull away, not letting myself think about the fact that this vile man had been tampering with my life—my pain and grief and loss—to get me exactly where he wanted me.
“I have one more question.”
The walls of the cavernous dining room crept closer, his words echoing.
With gentle hands, Dewey pushed me from his lap, rose from the chair—and dropped to one knee.
Even though I wanted—no, needed—this to happen, I still felt traces of Jamison’s touch all over me. Still pictured his too-long hair, his messy silk tie loose around his neck, his black eye from trying to box a time traveler. Willing to fight, even when his back was against the wall.
Something inside me fractured.
“Trevor? The ring?”
My Revelle blood began to sing before I spotted the crushed-velvet box Trevor carried. Jewel magic, the answer to my prayers.
Dewey opened the box.
There it was, the largest diamond I’d ever seen, sparkling beneath the chandelier.
“Marry me, Luxe Revelle. You are my only equal. My queen.”
It wasn’t a question. Deep down, perhaps he knew it was a command.
We both did.
Marriage would protect my family from being on the wrong side of Dewey’s wrath. And it would break Jamison.
But with Dewey under my spell, they would all be safe.
Ignoring the sharp glass shards where my heart once beat, I said, “Yes.”
Dewey’s eyes widened. “Really?”
“I’ll marry you. I’ll marry you right now, if you’d like.” The steadiness in my voice surprised even me.
“Trevor, did Miss Revelle mean that?”
“Yes, sir.”
Dewey pulled me closer, his face full of awe. “Is Miss Revelle using her magic?”
“No, sir.”
“So this is real?”
I rested a gentle hand against his cheek. “This is real.”
His wide grin was so childlike, it was almost endearing. Almost. “Pardon my surprise, it’s just that you’ve never said yes before.”
“Well, I’m saying it now.”
“You’ll marry me,” he repeated. “Tomorrow night, at my victory party, in front of all my loyal supporters from Charmant and New York.”
From its crushed-velvet bed, the diamond called to me. So close. “Tomorrow night sounds perfect.”
Dewey wrapped his arms around me. I imagined he was Jamison and threw my whole heart into the kiss. I crushed him with my lips, giving him the goodbye we should have had at the beach: our mouths desperate, hearts breaking, knowing it was for the best. I kissed him like I might have done in countless erased timelines in Dewey’s journals. A murderous time traveler had kept us apart, over and over, and Jamison would never know.
I kissed him as if it were the last time I’d ever see him. As if I needed to let him go.
Once it was done, Dewey pressed his forehead to mine. That enormous diamond still beckoned, inches away. Any moment, it would be on my finger, and he wouldn’t be able to hurt another soul.
“Trevor,” he breathed, “during that kiss, did Miss Revelle use her magic?”
“No, sir.”
Relief flooded his face. “And was she thinking of me?”
My blood went cold in my veins.
Trevor looked distraught. His lips twisted as he tried to hold the words back, but his magic showed no mercy. “No.”
Rage flickered in those cold brown eyes as Dewey shrugged me off him. Damn the risks, I needed my magic, needed to calm his anger until Jamison’s ferry was long gone.
“Who was she thinking about?”
I was too slow, too late—
“She was thinking of him, sir. Jamison.”
“Because I feel bad for him!” I blurted, those pathetic tears finally spilling down my cheeks. “The reporters will be at the show, and they’ll write about our wedding in every New York paper. And it’ll break his heart.”
“She’s telling the truth, sir,” Trevor interrupted. He failed to mention the many other reasons I thought of Jamison—
No. I wouldn’t think of him now. Or ever again, if I wanted him alive.
Dewey studied me carefully. “I won’t be made a fool. If you’re double-crossing me—”
“He’s leaving. As soon as Trys is well enough to travel, he’ll be gone.”
“Trys won’t wake up for days.” He oozed certainty.
Horror froze me in place. He’d done this before—hurt his own sister so she couldn’t stop the fire. If he rewound the clocks to do it again, next time he’d make sure Jamison didn’t make it out alive.
“I know how to get rid of him. For good.” I took his hands and leaned as close as I dared, my nose brushing his. “Now can we please get back to the part where we’re ruling Charmant together?”
For a long moment, only the rhythmic ticking of the hall clock broke the silence. I didn’t look away, didn’t even blink as he weighed my words.
“If I ever see him again,” he finally said, “he’s dead.”
“That won’t be an issue.”
He looked to Trevor, who nodded. “She has a plan, sir.”
A plan to charm you into a docile little puppy.
“Good.” Dewey removed the ring from the box, stealing my breath. Power radiated from the exquisite diamond, and my Revelle magic hummed in anticipation.
The bastard handed it to Trevor.
Oh no.
“Trevor, will you put this on Miss Revelle for me?”
No!
The wrong man slid the engagement ring onto my finger.
