She stood on the dew-damp grass, frozen like stone.
+ 27 +
In Which Maximilian Takes on an Unwelcome Debt
* * *
Max was ready.
He was bloody damn tired, could hardly see straight.
He’d watched Victoria leave with Vioget, and knew that for all his shortcomings, the man wasn’t about to let anything happen to her. He’d get her out safely.
And she’d carry on. She’d be as formidable a leader as Eustacia.
The vampire reared over him, where Max had finally collapsed on the floor, the broken chair leg he’d been using as a stake spinning out of his grip. The undead’s fingers were curled with menace, tipped with lethal claws, and his gleaming fangs curved like yellow sabers.
Lilith would have no one to torment, now that Max would be gone. The thought made his mouth twitch with wry humor, and he closed his eyes, ready.
But the pain never came.
He opened his eyes to find Vioget standing over him, stake in hand. He reached down to pull Max to his feet as the vampires battled onstage behind him.
Max shook off his grip. “Victoria?”
“She’s safe. Outside.”
A warning shout drew their attention as two vampires, fighting tooth and nail, rolled toward them. “Go,” Sebastian said, but Max was already moving toward the wings, toward escape. He turned back.
“I bear you no gratitude for this, Vioget.”
“Which is precisely why I did it. I told Victoria it mattered not to me whether you live or die.”
Max stopped, looking at him from around the edge of a scorched curtain. “Then why not let me out of my misery? Why play the hero? It so goes against your grain.”
“I didn’t do it for you. I did it for her.” And Sebastian turned back to the battle behind him.
+ + +
When the door to the theater opened and Max came out, squinting in the bright light, Victoria could only stare.
He stopped when he saw her. “You’re still here.”
Victoria took one step toward him. They stood there in the long shadows cast by the trees from the sun just rising above the horizon.
She didn’t know what to say. He’d killed her aunt, yet they’d fought side by side. He’d destroyed Akvan’s Obelisk, and helped her to escape. She’d walked away, leaving him to die.
“How—”
“It’s not important.” He stood with his hands on his hips, battered and clearly exhausted. “I told you your vengeance would be moot—I never expected to walk away from the stage once I’d swung that sword.”
“But you did. I saved you.”
“And so I have yet another reason to be grateful to you, is that it? You could not be more wrong.”
“Surely there was another way.”
He lifted his eyes. “In order to be there to destroy the obelisk at the precise moment it could be destroyed, I had to prove I was trustworthy, down to doing the most abhorrent thing imaginable. There was no other way, Victoria.”