The Serpent's Curse by Lisa Maxwell (read an ebook week .TXT) 📕

not something I did. That, my old friend, is all your own doing. And it always has been.”

Viola watched numbly as Nibsy took the knife from the tabletop in front of him. It was sunk inches deep, like the table was made of bread instead of wood. Then he placed it flat in front of him, the handle facing Viola.

At first all she could do was stare at it.

She’d known. Of course she’d known that the blade wasn’t normal. It had a certain weight that seemed far heavier than its steel and an ability to do what no other could. But Viola had convinced herself that the lives Libitina took had nothing to do with her affinity. She’d believed that she could separate herself—what she was—from the things she did. As though that made any difference at all.

She’d been lying to herself. Willfully blind. Because this is what I am. What I’ve always been. Viola stared at Libitina, perhaps seeing it truly for the first time. Even now, even accepting what the knife was, her hands ached to hold the comforting weight once more.

“Nothing you can do with your affinity will save the person you’ve tried to kill, Viola.” Nibsy gave her a rueful look. “False magic can only be broken by false magic. You know that.”

“Tell me how to fix this.” It took all of her effort to keep her voice from shaking. She glanced up from the blade, looking at him with fire in her eyes.

Nibsy’s expression was unreadable. “Are we friends again, Viola? Because from your little display, I would have said you still consider me an enemy.” He paused, letting the challenge filter through the nearly silent room. “I find that I have very few reasons to help an enemy.”

Viola felt her temper spike. He was toying with her. Cat and mouse in front of an audience thirsty for blood—for her blood. But she would not give him the satisfaction. In the end, she would be the one to kill the snake.

She swiped the knife from the table and had it at Nibsy’s throat before he could blink. Around her, the room contracted, and she sensed the boys she’d once seen as allies coming for her.

“Call them off, Nibsy.” She nudged the point of the blade against his delicate skin. “You know what this can do, and I find that I have very few reasons to keep you alive if you won’t help me. How do I fix this? I know you have the answer.”

Nibsy raised his hand to stay the Devil’s Own, but his gaze never left hers. “Dolph was hardly a fool,” he told her, his eyes glinting over the rims of his lenses. “He would never have given you a weapon that strong unless he had some assurance that he could protect himself should you ever turn on him. Dolph knew how to reverse the effects of the knife,” Nibsy said. “I’m sure he left instructions behind, along with the rest of his books and his things. You’ve seen for yourself how carefully he recorded the details of his work.…”

Viola ignored the amusement in Nibsy’s tone as she thought of the sheet of paper he’d given to her just a few weeks before. A trick wrapped up in the truth. Viola had read over those notes countless times since then, hoping that she could find some sign that Dolph Saunders had not betrayed the one person he loved more than any other for something as small and as petty as power.

“You will give them to me now.” Viola again increased the pressure of the knife against his throat. “Or I will take them myself.”

Nibsy only laughed. Then he lowered his voice, so only the two of them could hear. “You can’t fight them all, you know. Kill me if you must. Make me into a martyr.” Nibsy’s eyes shone with satisfaction. “You’ll never make it out of this room. They’re mine now, Viola. The Devil’s Own, the Strega, and everything Dolph built. So have a care.”

Her chest ached with the truth of his words. If she killed him, the people surrounding them in the barroom would not let her escape, and she could not kill them all—would not kill them all, even if she could. They were no more than pawns in Nibsy’s game, the same as herself. But games were not something Viola had time for. Not when Jianyu was still so close to death. She’d done what she could, but his wound would continue to bleed. Unless she solved the problem, his death would be on her soul as well.

“Besides,” Nibsy told her, “it’s not only the instructions you need, Viola. Even if you killed me, even if you managed to find Dolph’s notes and escape with your life, you’ll need something more to reverse the effects of your knife.” He took the blade of Libitina between his fingers delicately and moved it away from his own throat. “You need an object that contains false magic as powerful as that in your knife. A seal, perhaps, like the one we took from the Metropolitan, might do the trick. It’s a pity it was lost that night, or you might already have the answer you need.” He looked up at her over the rims of his spectacles. “It was lost?”

“Yes,” Viola lied, her instincts screaming. “Along with the rest.”

“Pity.” He paused, the hesitation making her temper start to crack. “There’s one place, of course, one organization rather, that might have another such piece.”

“You mean the Order.” She shook her head. “We took their treasures already. I watched the building burn myself.”

“True, Khafre Hall burned, but you can’t really imagine that the Order lost everything? After all, the Mysterium was far below ground level and well protected, physically and magically.”

Viola disagreed. After all, she’d seen the walls of Khafre Hall crumble. She’d barely escaped them herself. If there was anything left, certainly it had been lost in the collapse.

“The Order still continues to