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Loren watched in horror as a witch a block away dragged herself across blood-soaked asphalt, to where her lynx Familiar lay. Hand and claw reached for each other before their dying breaths were expelled, death pulling them into its cold embrace. Some people were lucky enough to be holed up in one of the shelters throughout the city; the panic rooms in their houses; the underground bunkers.
But many weren’t so fortunate. Hundreds of people had been pulled through windows shattered by demons, where they were flown into the sky or dragged into alleys to be eaten, their magic, if they had any, too weak to put up a worthy fight.
The grisly sight threw Loren back into her memories of the tragedy that had befallen this city on Kalendae.
But she refused to let those memories linger, refused to look any longer at the deaths being dealt out around her in the North End, as she sidled along the circumference of the tower, taking care to lean back against the structure instead of into open air, gravity waiting for the opportunity to suck her into its grip.
Erasmus followed, grunting with effort, shoes scraping the sheer ledge. A wind kissed with unnatural frost blew their hair and tore at their clothes. Singer was alert in her shadow, and as for Mortifer, he was clinging to her left ankle, the little Hob weighing next to nothing, his presence so undetectable that she sometimes had to glance down see if he was still there.
The panels of cristala on the Control Tower were broken up by needle-thin veins, visible to the mortal eye only up close. They looked exactly like the strange and colorful webbing that cut through the ground in the spirit realm, only these ones here were as silver as the cristala, the shades nearly exact.
There were two columns of panels that had webbing. Only two, though the columns stretched from the wide base of the tower all the way up to the sharp finial that pierced the starless sky.
Loren understood that these were channels for the anima mundi, the veins providing a swift and unobstructed flow of magic that rippled up from the core of the planet, all the way to the tip of the finial. The reason she had made the decision to climb up to this first ledge was to lessen the distance that her magic would have to travel. Anything that might aid her in this task, she would gladly take. But with the demons swarming the sky, it was too great a risk to climb any higher than this ledge. The flocks of them were so large, they looked like massive thunderclouds. They blotted out the moon every time they passed in front of it, plunging the city into shadows thick enough to feel.
When she reached one of the two columns that contained an innumerable amount of silver veins, she pivoted to face the tower, horribly aware of the sheer drop into open air at her back, and flattened her right hand on the panel.
Erasmus’s voice floated through the night as he stopped beside her. “I need you to understand the risks that come with doing this, Loren.” He placed a hand on her elbow, but the gesture was not meant to restrain. It was to comfort and implore; to beg her to see this moment clearly, without any rash behavior clouding her judgement.
She understood his concern. She did. But she had to do this. Never again would she live through the same horror as Kalendae, when she had opened her eyes to a living nightmare. Darien had died that day, and if she didn’t at least try to fix this mess, if he collapsed down there in those tunnels like he had at the carnival…
Loren closed her eyes. “I already know,” she whispered. “The Widow told me that if I use my magic, I will die.”
A beat of silence spread between them. Erasmus’s hand tightened, ever so slightly, on her arm. “Then why are you doing this?”
“Because if I don’t, they will die,” she said, gesturing behind her, eyelids flying back open. The wind pushed the tears from her eyes and sent them sliding down her cheeks as she gritted out, a knife twisting in her heart, “And I can’t live with that.”
The creatures of the Blood Moon were making their way into the sewers. She could see them from here; there were droves of them, their numbers too great for the Fleet soldiers to keep up with. Now that the demons were heading below the streets in search of prey, Darien and the others would soon be facing attacks from all sides. Not just from the creatures that were coming from Spirit Terra, but the ones right here in this city. And even hellsehers—even Darkslayers—had their limits.
She’d made it this far, which was a win in itself. Maybe she could spend this night using her magic to fix everything that was broken, and maybe afterward she would have another shot at a normal life. Maybe it wasn’t too late for her.
But even if it was too late, and even if she knew that she would die after doing this, she would still move forward with her decision. Shots were fired deep below ground, the rattle of bullets ricocheting through the streets, the sound telling Loren that the Devils and Angels were still holding the line.
She prayed to every god that had ever existed that none of them had fallen during this time.
With a deep breath that filled up her lungs with as much air as they could fit, Loren focused on conjuring her magic, drowning out the sound of every shot fired; every clashing blade; every battle cry; every snarl; every scream.
At the core of her concentration was an image of Darien’s face. It was a memory. A memory from when she had dined with him at Rook and Redding’s, minutes after he’d saved her life in the alley between The Salted Caramel Ice Cream Parlour and Medea’s Magic Tricks.
She would never forget that day. The way Darien had looked at her, as if she were made of magic and stardust and every good dream he’d ever dreamt. He’d looked at her as if he had finally found something he didn’t want to lose. Something he would die to protect.
And he had protected her. He’d done such a great job of it, too.
Now it was her turn to protect him.
The conduit hanging from the chain around her neck began to glow from the emotions flooding her body. It warmed her chest with its comforting presence, a feeling that reminded her of a warm bath.
It was time.
She pressed her hand harder into the cristala panel…and poured her magic into the Control Tower.
A soft white light spread beneath her palm. It lit up each of her fingers and seeped into her wrist, spreading until her whole hand and forearm were limned in white. Magic flowed into the silver veins in the panel, like water coursing through small riverbeds. It spread swiftly, climbing up and up. It was a river of white light, but there were colors in it too. Every color. There was no black or gray, though. There were only bright colors here.
Soon, the whole tower was radiating energy and rainbow light. Sweat prickled across her brow as she pushed herself harder, shoving the magic out of her body and into the tower. She tipped her head back, watching it climb higher, willing it to reach the finial way up top.
It did. And when it got there, the bladelike object lit up with a light that was blinding.
With a pop and a sizzle that sounded like fireworks combusting, a dome of rainbow colors bubbled above the city. It spread all the way out to the city’s perimeter, where it latched onto the ground, encompassing every building, every district, every defense post. She could feel it as if it were a part of her; could see it as if she were omniscient. It was as if an eye had opened deep inside her, one she hadn’t been aware of having, never mind that the eye had been shut her whole life.
