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Georgie nodded his head. “I suppose,” he wondered aloud. “But Pete and the others didn’t get punished.”
“No, they didn’t,” Killian affirmed. It was true. Pete and the other crew members had been set free on probation according to a deal Killian struck with them. “But what Pete did isn’t as bad as what Elyse did,” he pointed out.
“It could have been,” Georgie said with some shame. “Mum set me down and told me why it was wrong to make those potions—how people could have been hurt if we didn’t make them just right.”
Killian bit the inside of his cheek. He had no doubt that his mother had firmly but lovingly explained the consequences of fooling around with magic. Had she explained to Georgie that she had personally been affected by a seller of defunct magical wares? That she had lost two children to such an atrocity?
His throat had gone dry, the pain of his own loss overtaking him. He didn’t know what to say, so Georgie filled the silence.
“Maybe Miss Elyse didn’t know,” he suggested, his eyes blooming with optimism. “Or maybe someone made her do it.” He shook his head and spoke in a serious voice, as if pondering the problems of the whole kingdom. “Sometimes good people just do bad things.”
Well if that wasn’t the damn truth. Except, Elyse wasn’t a good person. A good person wouldn’t have upended his whole world the way she had. Yet his mind wandered back to the moment Elyse shared with Sera earlier, when she had assuaged Sera’s guilt and assured her that she was not to blame for Prestowne.
“That’s my house right there! With the yellow shutters!” Georgie pointed down the road to a bungalow where three little girls played on the porch. “Come on,” he cried earnestly, shooting Killian a frenzied look. “I want you to meet my sisters.”
“All right,” Killian agreed, pushing aside thoughts of Elyse and treason and Prestowne. “Race you there? On your mark, get set—”
Before Killian could even say “Go,” Georgie was sprinting down the street, leaving Killian laughing and jogging after him.
Chapter 18
- Elyse -
Elyse looked up from her book to once again find Jaime glaring at Killian. She was grateful that Jaime had agreed to help them, and especially thankful that he’d allowed Sera and Killian back into his home. His obvious hostility, on the other hand, was exhausting. She kicked him under the table, stirring him from his trance, and gave him a stern look. Jaime returned the look, raising his eyebrows as if to silently say, “I allowed him in my home, but I don’t have to be nice to him.” Elyse rolled her eyes and returned to her reading.
It had been like that all day, each of them researching in a silent, tension-filled room. It didn’t help that it had been an especially warm day. Even now, hours after the sun had set, heat seemed to linger inside the library, trapped by the endless books and enormous window.
Apparently, Jaime was on edge too. The next time she looked up, he was back to glaring at Killian. She kicked him again, a little harder this time, and gave a pointed look at the book he was supposed to be reading.
If Killian noticed Jaime’s aversion to him, he didn’t show it. He hadn’t made a sound all day as he sat in the armchair in the corner, flipping through one book after another and paying no mind to any of the fugitive harborers in the room.
She allowed herself to stare at him for one long moment. To her surprise, she felt like picking up the sketchbook Jaime had given her and actually using it. Killian looked so picturesque, sitting in the chair, the candlelight illuminating one side of his face. The lighting made his already sharp jawline appear even more cutting, the shadows adding a sense of mystery to him. She wanted to capture the scene on paper, to have a piece of him with her.
The thought made her cheeks heat—which was intolerable in the stuffy room. She fanned herself as she turned another page and scanned the prose for anything worthwhile. After flipping through dozens of books on demonic language, she still hadn’t come across any of the symbols she’d seen in the church. They clearly weren’t common, a realization that had only made her grow more concerned about the level of power they were up against.
She leaned back in her chair and glanced toward Sera, who bit her lip as she read. Sera, bless her soul, had tried several times to ease the tension throughout the day, making light comments about the weather or asking Jaime about his business. Each attempt at conversation had been quickly shot down by either Jaime or Killian, and apparently Sera had given up, resigning herself to read silently instead.
A hopelessness washed over Elyse as she slouched lower. They had been researching endlessly for four, perhaps five, days—they all blurred together in her mind. They hadn’t found a single passage that was helpful, and she felt no closer to getting answers. When she’d made the deal with Killian, she’d been so confident that the four of them working together would be a sort of prodigious collaboration. Now they had an additional ally and nothing to show for themselves.
She sighed, and to her surprise, it was Killian who looked up at her. He didn’t move—only his eyes glanced in her direction—but their gazes met. She must have looked dejected because he gave her a small, almost imperceptible nod of encouragement.
The moment was over quickly.
“I think I’ve got something,” Sera said quietly. Her eyes were still glued to the page, but there was something in her voice that made everyone’s heads snap her way. “Listen to this: ‘The entire town must be sacrificed, sparing no one—not women, nor children. No less than one hundred deaths are required for the sacrifice to be successful.’”
Chills licked their way up Elyse’s back, all heat she’d previously felt replaced by icy shivers.
Sera swallowed and continued, her voice uneven. “‘The priest is to be killed first, his blood used to draw the symbols that will summon evil to the town.’”
“Does it show the symbols?” Killian asked, but Elyse was already moving to stand beside Sera. She looked over her shoulder at the symbols inked on the page. They matched the ones she had seen on the floor of the church, drawn in a hexagon around the priest’s body. She nodded to him, unable to speak.
This had to be the spell used at Prestowne, the answers they sought. Yet reading it on the page, seeing the instructions that had been used to slaughter so many people, it didn’t give Elyse any of the satisfaction she desired. She leaned against the table, steadying herself, trying to grasp the situation.
“It goes on to talk about how the town’s buildings will ignite, fire will blanket the town, and the citizens will just… drop dead,” Sera said, growing quieter with every word.
“That’s definitely it,” Killian declared. He sounded so calm, but Elyse looked over at him and saw her own dread reflected on his face.
“What is the spell for?” Jaime asked. He was the only one who hadn’t gone pale; he was also the only one who hadn’t seen the destruction at Prestowne, the only one who was able to think rationally without seeing the faces of those who had fallen. Elyse’s mind was flooded with images of bodies strewn across a street, a priest’s mutilated corpse, and hundreds of homes incinerated.
