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The glass vial hurtles toward me. I reach out into the air for it and snap it freely in my palm, then clutch my hand around it.
“Next time, try a wooden stake,” I say, before freeing the cap and letting forth a deluge of holy water. “It works so much easier.”
He catches himself mid-swing, and drops his sword, attempting to turn into a bat. But he’s not quick enough.
The sacred water flows over him, and his body bursts into flames as innocuous as the bonfire he earlier stood around.
His flaming body becomes ashes and dust in an instant, and the man who was once the greatest threat we ever faced is now gone with barely a trace. As cocky and as evil as he was, even he could be reduced to nothing.
“Did you just tell him to use a wooden stake next time?” Ren growls from behind me. “How is he going to do that when he’s dead? What are you, stupid or something?”
I shake my head.
“Let me have my one-liner,” I protest.
But even Rory isn’t siding with me on this.
“That was pretty bad,” Rory admits.
It would sure be nice if they would just let me have one small victory, but I feel like Rory was the one who most enabled our victory. If she had not come along, I am not sure how we would have won.
I turn back to Quinn, but hear the frantic patter of feet from behind the dislodged boulders that Rory caved in. Having lost the leader of their cause, the Moonlight Sentinels are no longer scratching to rejoin the fight - they’re scrambling away, bounding forward through the caves.
“Rory!” I call out, gesturing through the blocked pathway. “They’re trying to get away!”
“I’m on it!”
She utters one more incantation, and energy in the form of a blue hand appears next to the boulders, rapidly pulling away every obstruction, boulder by pebble. In very little time, the path is open, and Rory sprints forward, attempting to give chase. Ren follows after her, and in very little time, I can hear Ren’s authoritative declaration in the distance.
“In the name of PEACE, we order you to stop and return with your hands up!”
I can hear them running farther off, so I’m guessing they’re not cooperating very much.
Quinn’s eyes are closed now, and I don’t sense anything from her.
No, I say quietly.
I’m hurting immensely, but I’m still stronger than most humans. I look for the weak points in the chains that have bound her, thankful that they aren’t silver, and pull them apart one by one. I worry that I’m not moving quickly enough - that I’ll be a moment too slow and I will lose everything that matters in this incredibly long life.
The venom has nearly reduced her to almost nothing.
How could I be so stupid? I let myself believe that this was over - that Quinn wasn’t still suffering by the minute. Alistair’s death doesn’t mean our victory - if Quinn dies, what does any of this mean?
An epiphany rushes through me, and I feel stupid.
The amulet.
I find its sheen among the bone pile and run to it, knowing how little time I have. In my hand, I pick it up, letting its familiar, comforting metal caress my skin, before running back to Quinn and putting it around my neck.
At first, she is still, and I worry that it might not have worked. It’s such an old device, even I am not entirely certain how it works all the time.
But from within it, a golden light pours out, irradiating over Quinn’s body.
She coughs, and I feel myself breathe again, before remembering that I never needed to breathe in the first place.
The venom pours from her mouth onto the ground, and its effects are instantly reversed.
Such a rage overtakes me. I wish that we had not killed their leader, so that I had somebody to enact vengeance on. I know, in the place where my heart once resided, that even the underlings of the clan don’t deserve my ire. They were misguided, and PEACE will aim to rehabilitate them.
