I pulled the dagger from the Dhampir’s body, its heart came with it, the dagger clear through the middle.
I let the heart slide off the blade into my hand. Black blood oozed from my palm and down my arm as I shifted, bringing it over the map laid out on the ground. I squeezed the lump of muscle, letting the blood drip over the map until I had formed the symbol for Ichor magic, a five-pointed star with a triangle through it.
I muttered the final lines of the spell under my breath, watching as the blood on the map moved, the lines shifting until they formed one dot, that dot moving until it stopped at the far southern border of the Twilight Court.
If the magic worked correctly, the bead of blood would leave a trail everywhere the Panateia moved, giving us a live tracker of Lennox’s location.
“It worked,” Kara murmured from behind me.
“It did,” I breathed, my chest still rising and falling rapidly. I had done it. I had final fucking done it.
Kara gasped. “Your hand.”
I looked down at my blood-stained hands, letting the Dhampir’s heart fall to the ground with a squelch.
The veins in my hand had turned black, stopping over my left wrist.
“What is that?” Kara prodded.
“You know how all the stories always said there was a consequence to using Ichor magic?” I swallowed, running a finger over one of the black, pulsing veins. “I think I’ll find out soon what that consequence is.”
8
LENNOX
It had been three days since Adreona had dropped Nol into my cell. We had been left alone for a few hours before he was abruptly ripped from my room and I hadn’t seen him since.
Not long afterward, I was drugged so we could move to another location.
We were moving more and more frequently these days.
Usually when we moved Adreona didn’t call on me for several days while everyone got settled, but we had been in the new location for less than a day when she summoned me.
My hands were chained in front of me once again, the magic-enhanced cuffs rubbing against my wrists as Nakul led me to Adreona’s new office. I had learned one thing since my capture: my cell was the only room spelled against magic, which is why they insisted on the cuffs anytime they took me to Adreona. I didn’t know how Adreona possessed such magic, it had to be the work of a witch. But if she had a witch at her disposal, why did she need me?
If only I could find a way out of the cuffs—with myback now healed, I spent my spare moments wracking my brain for any ideas as to how Nol and I would escape.
I had to get him out of here.
The only furniture in Adreona’s new office was a desk and the chair she sat on, the rest of the room remained empty. I expected to find Nol waiting for me with her; surely, she’d start using him as motivation for me to cooperate now that she’d revealed her newest weapon against me.
But it wasn’t Nol standing next to Adreona.
“Lorenzo,” I seethed.
Part of me wasn’t surprised to find Luka’s uncle standing beside the head of the Panateia. His dark hair was pulled half back, hiding the gray stands, and emphasizing the sharp lines of his face. His pitless black eyes bore into mine. They were a perfect match to Adreona’s.
“Lennox,” he drawled, his voice was like oil on my skin. “What a surprise to find you here.”
“I doubt that,” I seethed. “I should have known you were involved in all this. You and Arlo.”
Lorenzo chuckled. “There are a lot of things you don’t know,Lennox.”
“So tell me,” I bit out. I looked between Lorenzo and Adreona, “If you’re making me work for you the least you owe me is an explanation.”
Adreona laughed. “Working for me is a stretch, don’t you think? You’ve yet to do a thing for me.”
I turned my attention to Luka’s uncle. “Tell me.”
