Gods & Monsters (Serpent & Dove #3) by Shelby Mahurin

“Why did you get to keep yours?” Manon whispered behind us.

Sadness clouded Lou’s face as she gazed back at me. “I didn’t.”

One by one, we squeezed through the window onto the roof. My head pounded. My heart raced. Twice on the furniture, my foot had slipped, and I’d nearly crashed to the floor. Though Lou had maintained a steady stream of encouragement, I longed to wring her neck. This rooftop could’ve been a steeple, a needle, so pitched was its slope.

“I will kill you for this,” I promised her.

Crouching low, she peered over the eave to where the others scaled rock with their knives. Their limbs trembled with effort. With strain. “I look forward to it, believe me.” She slipped her own knives from her boots. “Until then, do you think you can reach that turret?”

I followed the direction of her knife. Directly below us, at the base of the tower, a spire jutted from the side of the castle. It looked likely to collapse at any moment. “This is madness.”

“You go first. I’ll follow.”

Peeling each finger from the shingles—they’d become my lifelines—I scooted down the slope. Lou crab walked beside me. “That’s it.” She nodded with excessive cheer, her eyes too bright. Her smile too wide. She either worried more than she said, or she enjoyed this more than she should. Both were unacceptable.

When I inched over the eave, my foot slipped a third time.

A rush of wind.

A sickening, weightless sensation.

And a hand.

Her hand.

It caught mine as it slipped from the edge, and her second followed, wrapping around my wrist. My vision swam with black spots as I dangled midair. As the wind roared past my ears. My heart thrashed wildly. I couldn’t see her properly, couldn’t hear her panicked instructions. There was only the ground looming beneath me, my body suspended midair. Helplessly, I clawed at her. Her arms shook beneath my weight.

“Lift me up!” My shouts sounded delirious to even my ears. “Lift me up now!”

A shadow shifted in her eyes at the command. She flashed a feline grin. “Tell me I’m pretty.”

“I—what?”

“Tell me,” she repeated in a hard voice, “that I’m pretty.”

I stared at her for one heart-stopping moment. She couldn’t be serious, yet she was. From her weak arms to her spiteful eyes to her sharp smile, she was serious. She could drop me—she would drop me—if I didn’t appease her soon. She couldn’t support my weight indefinitely. But what was she asking? For me to lie? To flatter her? No. She wanted something else. Something I couldn’t give her. Through gritted teeth, I spat, “You said you wouldn’t let me fall.”

“You’ve said a lot of things.”

I’d told her the truth. I wanted to kill her. To kill all of them. I couldn’t concede to this heresy—this grand romance she’d dreamed up between us. As if it were possible. As if a witch and witch hunter could be more than enemies. I remembered none of it. I wanted to remember even less. In that second, however, the wind swept past with terrifying glee, and I glanced down. A mistake. Black edged my vision. My hand slipped a millimeter within hers. “Fine,” I said quickly, loathing myself. Loathing her more. “You’re . . . you are very pretty, Lou.”

“The prettiest you’ve ever seen?”

I nearly wept in frustration. “Prettier, even. I can’t think when I look at you.”

She beamed, and the tension melted from her face as quickly as it’d come. Her arms stopped shaking. Too late, I realized her game: her magic couldn’t work on me because of the Balisarda, but she’d used it to strengthen her own body instead. She’d been pretending to struggle this entire time. Stoking my fear. She probably could’ve lifted me with a single finger. Fresh anger burned white-hot in my chest. “Now,” she said, immensely pleased with herself, “tell me that I’m an excellent singer.”

“You—you—”

“I’m waiting,” she trilled.

“You’re an excellent singer. You sing like a bird. An angel. And if you don’t lift me up this second, I’m going to snap your pretty neck.”

She waited another second just to spite me. Then another. And another. “Well, now that we’ve sorted that.” With a mighty heave, she pulled me over the eave once more. I collapsed beside her in a pool of shaking limbs, nearly retching at her feet.

“Don’t you ever lie to me again.”

She poked my cheek. “I wouldn’t have dropped you.”

“Lies!”

“Well”—she lifted an easy shoulder—“maybe I would’ve, but I wouldn’t have let you splatter.” Her smile turned almost self-deprecating. “Come on, Chass. I would’ve moved the entire castle before I let you die.”

“Why?” The word burst from me, sudden and unbidden. This wasn’t the time for such a question. This wasn’t the place, either—not with witches crawling within and without. They probably gathered below even now, waiting to devour us. Manon would’ve told them. She would’ve pressed their advantage. No shouts sounded from the ground, however, and no magic ensnared us. “Why did you save me? Why did you let the witch go? You—you comforted her. You wiped her tears. We both want to kill you.”