Free The Flame in the Mist by Kit Grindstaff

like a mortally wounded butterfly. Nocturna ground it with her heel. Jemma gripped the Stone as hard as she could, but herattention was caught, and her strength dwindled with every twist of Nocturna’s foot on the shawl.
It’s just a bit of fabric!
she thought, frantically trying to regain control.
Why should it matter so much?
    “I’m losing my patience,
Jem-
mah.” Nocturna moved her face up to Jemma’s, her sneer folding back into a snarl, like a hyena about to devour its prey. “Do I have to call upon a little help, perhaps, for you to be persuaded?” She threw her head back and laughed, then said, slowly,
“Morda-morda-mordalay …”
The stone around her neck began to glow blood-red, and as it did, Jemma’s Stone cooled in her hand.
    No, don’t desert me now, please!
she begged silently.
Please … help.…
But her faith was draining, and all help seemed to have gone. The book was splayed open on the ground, ordinary and old. She was lost. Defeated.
    “Nocturna, Jemma!” Nox’s voice boomed through the shadows. “What in Mord’s name is going on?” Lamplight flickered. Nocturna turned toward it, and Jemma saw her chance. She thrust a fisted hand past Rook and out of the window, hurling her Stone into the stormy morning air.

CHAPTER TEN

The Littlest Dungeon
Monday, early hours
    Nocturna and Nox marched Jemma down the Corridor of Dungeons. At the end they stopped. Nocturna shoved her through an iron-barred door, clanged it shut, and locked it.
    “You have little more than five hours to tell us where the Stone is, my fine wench,” Nocturna snarled, nursing her wounded hand, “else things will be the worse for you. And don’t think you can get the better of Drudge again. I shall be keeping the keys from now on.” She turned and stormed away.
    Nox gripped the bars of the door, his face haggard. “Jemma,” he sighed. “I don’t want to see you in here, but you give us no option. Just tell us where the Stone is—come join us! We can have fun again, be a truly happy family, with no more secrets—just your Powers, combined with ours—”
    “Never!”
    “Please, think about it. Please! Pretend, even, and at least continue to live with us as you have been—”
    “Pretend? Like you, you mean, pretending I was weak and sickly to keep me inside, and imagining I’m your twin sister?”
    Nox’s face turned ashen. “Oh, Jemma, Jemma,” he said,“if you knew what a cruel thing you say! Yes, it’s true that you remind me of my twin. Malaena … But she died when we were four. It’s you
—you
, Jemma—whom I care for now.” A tear glinted in the corner of his left eye.
    Jemma felt a stab of guilt, then fury took over again. “And do you expect me to believe that your lovely birthday Ceremony wouldn’t kill me if I wasn’t really on your side? Just like all those others you murdered! I saw their bones. I know what you’ve done, you and Nocturna—”
    “No, no! We haven’t … not for years—”
    “Why? Because you were afraid I’d find out, and be so disgusted with you all that you’d lose the chance of … of
converting
me?”
    “Yes—no … I mean, I would never hurt you, Flamehead! You belong here, you do! Why—the Mark … your birthmark … It shows you
are
one of us!”
    Jemma’s words stuck in her mouth; her head spun. The Mark? He and Nocturna had mentioned that earlier. It couldn’t mean she was one of them, could it? Surely it was just a coincidence! Cruelty felt wrong to her. Helping those bats—that was what had felt right. Yet she had been unkind to Nox, just seconds ago. Did that mean—?
    “I see you are wavering,” Nox said. “I knew it! My dear Jemma …”
    Rage seized her again.
His
dear Jemma? Whoever she really was, he and Nocturna had ended that life. Ripped her from it. And for what?
    Nox was smiling now. “Oh, Flamehead, think of how marvelous everything will be when you are truly one of us.…”
    “Ruling over all of Anglavia?”