“I wish I could,” she said, her voice filled with regret.
Nassar watched her for a long moment. “What do you remember about your encounter with the dog? What did you feel?”
Grace frowned. “It was twelve years ago. I remember being scared for myself. And for the dog. He was my friend’s dog. I knew that if he bit me, he would be put down.”
Nassar strode to her, a determined look on his face.
“What are you doing?”
Nassar kept coming.
She realized he was going to cross the line. “Liza isn’t here to save you!”
“No.” He gave her the familiar half-smile. “Only you can save me now.”
Nassar stepped over the line. The worm streaked to him. It skimmed the surface of his magic and clamped onto his shoulder. Nassar’s magic shrunk. He staggered and ripped the worm off. Grace cried out.
The worm flipped in the air and slid over him. Nassar tried to knock it off, but it slipped past his hands and leeched onto his side. Nassar gasped. His face went bloodlessly white. He spun, tripping over his feet, pulling at the writhing body, and stumbled to her. The worm slithered from his fingers and swooped down on him. Nassar fell.
Grace lunged forwards. She meant to thrust herself in fron
t of it, but instead magic pulsed from her in a controlled, short burst. The worm hurtled back, swept aside.
She pushed harder and the worm convulsed, squeezed between the press of her power and the glowing lines. “Nassar?” She knelt by him. “Nassar, are you OK?”
Nassar’s green eyes looked at her. His nose bled. He wiped away his blood with the back of his hand. “Protective instinct,” he said. “You’ve done it.”
It felt so right. As if the pressure straining at her from the inside suddenly found an outlet. So that’s what she’d been missing. All these years, she had suspected there was something more to the magic coursing through her and now she finally found it.
“I guess I did,” she murmured.
“Were you scared for me?”
“Yes. How could you have done that? That was so reckless. What if I couldn’t save you?”
“I hoped you could,” he said.
The way he looked at her made her want to kiss him.
“Your family is free,” he said.
“What?”
“I’ve let Clan Mailliard go,” he said. “I signed the order before lunch.”
She sank to the floor. “Why?”
He sat up. “Because I decided that’s not what I do. I don’t force people to fight our battles. I don’t want to be the man who blames children for their parents’ mistakes. And I don’t want you to be the last of the Mailliards. Whether you have children should be your choice alone. I don’t want to take it away from you.”
It slowly dawned on her. “So I’m free?”
“Yes.”
She stared at him. “You don’t even know me. I could just take off right now and leave you here to deal with the game on your own. Do you have any idea how scared I am? I don’t want to die.”
“Neither do I.” He gave her another sad smile.
She hung her head, torn. She was deeply, deeply afraid. But walking away from the children wasn’t in her. She wouldn’t be able to look herself in the eye. It was as if they stood in the road with a semi hurtling at them at full speed. What kind of person wouldn’t push them out of harm’s way?