He scowled and lowered the defenses of the Landmark, but threw up a fragmented Warrior’s Helm to shield himself—he might be soft, but he wasn’t foolish.
Isobel continued to stand outside in the rain, waiting, though the Cave’s barriers had clearly fallen.
“Well, come on,” he snapped.
She blinked in surprise and hurried in after him. Disheveled as she was, she still had a confidence in her walk that no rain or curse could take away.
“I don’t have all day,” he said in a low voice.
She wrung out her red hair, glaring at him. “I’m sorry. Were you busy plotting someone else’s demise?”
“Careful. I could’ve been plotting your demise,” he muttered. “I still might be.” As soon as she stepped toward him, he lifted his hand, brandishing his fistful of cursestones. “In fact, you have ten seconds to explain to me why I shouldn’t end you right now, rival.”
She paled. “I think we could help each other.”
“Champions standing outside my door in the rain, desperate and alone, don’t seem like they could offer me anything.”
“That.… that isn’t true,” she huffed.
They walked deeper into the tunnel, where it opened into the Cave’s central room. It was sparsely furnished and smelled strongly of mud. The muted, flickering candlelight made the stalactites of the cavern’s walls look like fangs. To the right, another hallway that Alistair had explored earlier led to a massive grotto, where the Landmark’s stone pillar—less impressive and more cracked than the original—jutted out from the black lake water.
Alistair nodded for Isobel to sit at the desk.
Isobel examined the barren decor with amusement. “Do you feel like a proper monster now?” She ran her manicured fingers across the coarse, glistening stone of the Cave’s walls, its edges sharp enough to cut. “Surrounded by darkness and filth?”
That seemed unfair—the claw-foot furniture and ruby velvet duvet were just to his taste.
“Yes, yes, you peered into my head,” Alistair grumbled. “You must be so smug! You know everything there is to know about me! That explains why you’re sitting here, entirely at my mercy.” For effect, he cast a Scythe’s Fall. One of the stalactites behind her cracked and fell to the ground like a guillotine’s blade.
It was a foolish move to cast it. The curse’s blowback knocked him painfully in the stomach, and he groaned and blinked back startled tears.
Isobel yelped as the stalactite crashed beside her feet, but rather than cower away, she watched him in confusion. “Did you just hurt yourself?”
He scowled and straightened. “A shoddy curse, that’s all.”
But Isobel’s eyes widened. “You got your spells from all the best spellmakers in town. They wouldn’t sell you faulty work by accident.… They must’ve wanted you to fail.”
Alistair cursed under his breath. He couldn’t let any of the other champions learn he’d been sabotaged. Which meant Isobel couldn’t walk out of here alive.
Which left him in the unfortunate predicament of figuring out how to kill her without accidentally killing himself.
“Seems like I’m not the only one who needs help,” she told him.
“I don’t need anything,” he drawled, his mind racing to come up with a solution. His gaze fell to her neck. A magickless murder, he considered. But he was hungover. And he wasn’t very strong.
“But you have nothing but broken spells. And you’re alone.” Her words sounded more like a question than a statement.
He laughed bitterly. “I’m not tempted by companionship.”
She picked up something from the floor—the teardrop cursestone he’d thrown earlier. “You know, the Macaslans and the Lowes aren’t that different. I didn’t have spellmakers lining up to ally with me, either.”
“I don’t care about a popularity contest.”
“I’m not talking about popularity.” She stood up from the desk, still clutching the cursestone. It was a dangerous play, and Alistair kept his hand raised, prepared to fire back at any moment. “My mother is one of the spellmakers who gave you these stones. One of the best in the town. I was trained by her and the Macaslans. And it seems to me that, more than anything, you need a spellmaker on your side.”
This was Alistair’s weakness, and if he didn’t find a solution, soon every champion would learn of it. Every champion would try to use it against him.