My Marionette Lover novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: The Cut

The shears shook at Arlen's throat.

His arm was rigid, and the tendons stood out in his wrist, but the point had not yet touched his skin.

He was fighting her.

I could see it in his eyes, which were the only thing in his face that Augusta had not taken.

Both of my arms were wrenched behind my back by the knot on my wrist.

I still had the Prince's bar in one fist and the jester in the other.

I couldn't see them.

But I have worked a marionette in the dark since I was seven years old.

"Arlen," I said. "Blink once if I can pull you."

His eyes closed and opened.

Once.

I tied the silver to his wrist by feel, behind my own back, and I pulled.

His hand jerked away from his throat and hung in the air between us, shaking.

The black net roared down his arm.

I felt Augusta's weight arrive, a river against a hair, and my knees nearly went.

"Hazel," Augusta said, from the foot of the stage. "You are going to lose."

"Maybe."

"You have one strand left."

"Then it's enough for one thing."

I turned my silver thread on my own left wrist.

I laid it against the black knot and let it bite.

It ate the knot in four breaths, burning all the way up my arm, and the knot parted and fell away.

My arms came free.

I dropped both bars on the boards.

The silver thread to Arlen went slack, but his hand stayed where I had left it, open in the air.

I took the shears out of his fingers.

They came as easily as a gift.

"Don't," said Augusta.

She was on the steps now, climbing, one hand gripping the rail and the other closed around her brooch.

Behind her, every person who had been caught in her fist still stood with their arms lifted and their faces blank.

Her knuckles were white.

"Hazel Pemberton," she said. "I held your mother's life in my hand once."

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