And for the first time in her life, when faced with danger, Ellery didn’t move.
Without warning, the earth around them tilted. Like a dial turned, the sky dropped clockwise as the ground reared up into a great wall. Ellery’s balance tipped, and Barrow crashed into her, sending them both sliding into a tree. While she toppled onto her side, he scrambled up and fired another blast of nature magic at the ghast.
Decibel dodged as it advanced upon them. The spikes on its back seemed to grow sharper. The blue of its eyes flashed as a row of spikes sloughed off, then spun around its body, hovering in the air like throwing knives.
All at once, they launched toward them.
Barrow hastily conjured a shield, and as the spikes collided with its translucent dome, they disintegrated into speckles of silver. Keeping the shield intact, he whipped around to face her.
“Caldwell. Caldwell.” When she still didn’t respond, Barrow knelt beside her. “Ellery. I know you’re scared, but we’re in this together, aren’t we? I need you to…”
Whatever else he said, Ellery scarcely heard him. Magic writhed in her, but she choked it down, nearly gagging from the effort.
Barrow’s expression hardened, grim and resolute. He stood and turned back to Decibel. And as he raced toward it, the clearing brightened with Valmordion’s radiance.
Ice crackled around Ellery’s hand, welding it to her wand. Each breath was a tiny rasp, barely able to break through the frost crusted across her lips.
Valmordion had burned Alice Rhodes alive. But Iskarius was about to freeze her solid.
And part of Ellery, a terrible, selfish part, reached for the death it could give her. It would be so easy to fade into oblivion. There would be no more pain. No more terror.
But as her limbs went numb, as her lungs stiffened in her chest, she knew, sheknew: she had to live. Maybe she didn’t have proof of the prophecy yet, but she could no longer deny the unshakable feeling that she’d first had in the Citadel grove. That they truly were in this together.
Ellery’s gaze snapped to Iskarius, its glowing silver core, its hilt majestic and thorn-studded, engraved with her fingerprint and hers alone. She stopped fighting her power. Instead, she reached for it.
Instantly the gashes on her hand began to close, until the throbbing pain in her palm ceased. Awe rose in her, and with it came a rustling wind, a discordant whisper:
join an old legacy to a new fate
uncover the tangled roots of the past
Ellery clambered to her feet. Tears spilled down her cheeks and dribbled onto her chin, but she paid them no mind.
“Domenic!” she called.
He whirled around, and at the sight of her, his expression slackened with relief. “You’re up.”
“I’m with you. And I’m not going anywhere.”
Another row of spikes rocketed toward them at an impossible velocity. Cool silver light erupted from Iskarius’s tip. Beside her, Valmordion blazed with a matching gold.
Their combined spells met the spikes in a great explosion. Ellery gasped from the force of it, then reeled away, instinctively bracing her back against Domenic’s. She could feel each shudder of his breath, his form strong and reassuring against her shoulder blades.
Before Decibel could conjure another attack, Ellery raised Iskarius, magic already crackling across its thorns.
Again, the ghast vanished.
“That thing isplayingwith us,” Domenic groaned. “How the hell are we supposed to hurt it if it keeps disappearing?”
“We need to outwit it,” Ellery said. “Does nature magic actually hurt it?”
“Well, it definitely didn’t like my fire. It’s more of a matter of getting through its illusions to land a hit.”
Ellery’s heartbeat hammered with the rhythm she’d never wanted to hear, the pull she’d never wanted to heed.
“If I concentrate, I can hear Decibel’s heartbeat. I think it’s a Winter magic thing, and it might make me able to track it. If I can, I’ll break its cloaking spell.”
Ellery readied herself for Domenic’s unease about her magic bearing any connection to the monster. But he only nodded.
