Even I couldn’t stop myself from laughing as Nol fellback onto the bed, covering his face with a pillow. There was no use in scolding Luce this time, what she said had truth to it.
I’d let Luka take me in the middle of a crowded forest if that’s where he wanted me when we were united.
But we needed to get out of here before that could happen.
“So,” I lowered my voice to a whisper, “What’s the plan?”
A sly smile worked its way onto Luce’s face. “We’re going to break you out from the inside.”
“How? Without magic or weapons, we’re as much as dead if we try to escape.”
“They’ll send the Dhampirs after us,” Nol added.
“It’s a good thing I found a way for us to use magic then.” Luce waggled her dark brows. I opened my mouth to protest, but Luce stopped me. “Try it.” She nodded toward my hands.
I reached for my magic. Every time we switched locations, I tried to summon my magic, hoping one day they’d mess up the spell that cut me off from it while I was in my cell.
Week after week I tried and nothing—until today.
Magic rushed to my palms. Tiny flames sparked from my fingertips. “How?”
“They were smart, I was smarter.”
Beside me, Nol brought a ball of water to his palm.
“They created a spell to snuff out your magic, so I created a spell to nullify their spell.”
12
LUKA
Waiting was agony.
Luciana had given herself up to the Panateia early this morning after completing her spell to nullify magic in the boundary she set up around the Panateia’s current headquarters.
Now that she was inside, we had no way to communicate. We had to hope and pray to the Goddess the plan would go off without a hitch.
We only had a short time frame—twenty-four hours Luce’s spell would be active. If she didn’t get her and Lennox out by then—we didn’t have a plan B.
This plan was all we had. And without a witch of her magnitude—now was not the time for doubt.
For this to work, I had to have faith in Luciana that she’d do her part and that I’d do mine.
“How much longer?” I asked Declan as I paced back and forth in the forest.
“Five more minutes.”
Five minutes. Five minutes and we’d start the fire. The fire to create the distraction; we just had to hope the Panateia took the bait. Luciana had spelled a boundaryso the fire wouldn’t get too out of control, we had laid kindling leading up to the building dwelling, and Luce had spelled a line along the building too, we didn’t want the building to catch in case our plan failed.
But if it all went according to plan, Lennox would be back in my arms within the hour.
“How much longer?” I asked again.
“It’s time.”
I brought a flame to my fingertip, letting it grow as I knelt to the ground, approaching the edge of the spelled border where our line of kindling began.
Once the fire started, we’d take off, going around the woods to the opposite side of the building, where we’d meet Lennox and Luciana.
