“At dawn,” said Maeve, answering at last.
Zimsy nodded. “I know that look on you well, Maeve. You don’t need to worry about any of us. You need to ensure that Mal and Maxius are safe. Nothing else.”
To Maeve’s surprise, Eryx didn’t recoil at her words.
“I would like to propose a toast,” said Arianna, raising her glass of bubbling gold liquid towards Maeve.
Her throat caught tightly as her jaw tightened.
Zimsy’s glass flew up without hesitation, a prideful look across her gorgeously delicate features.
One by one, her friends, her family, raised their glasses towards her—Even Eryx.
“To my sister who, despite the horrors she has endured, remains fighting. My sister, who chose her blood, the blood of our father Ambrose Sinclair, the blood of our children, over her own desires. I am proud to be your sister, I am proud to fight alongside my family.”
“Usque ad mortem, Sinclair,” said Antony, his glass high, the Sinclair family ring once around his neck in his wolf form, glistened against the crystal, on his finger. The male twin to Maeve’s and Arianna’s, except his was set in a silver band.
Arianna’s head lifted, her own matching gold ring dancing in the luminous candlelight just the same. “Usque ad mortem, Sinclair.”
Maeve grabbed a crystal flute of water and raised it high, her eyes dancing over her own ring, the last of the set. The words engraved on the golden band were those they spoke, “Usque ad mortem, Sinclair.”
She smiled at the impossible, that the three of them were together again, despite how much had changed, and despite their loss—
Maeve gasped, her grip on her glass nearly loosening completely as she looked from Antony’s ring to Arianna’s and at last back to her own.
Three were made and given away. Bound in gold and silver chains, the Magic lay.
Emerie’s last prophecy echoed across her mind clearly as she stared at the three stones set in gold and silver bands. The lightning she produced, which Arianna, too, produced, unheard-of and ancient power, was no longer a mystery.
Reeve shifted in his seat, leaning forward to take in her expression.
“Three were made and given away. Bound in gold and silver chains, the Magic lay,” recited Maeve.
Reeve’s throat bobbed. “What?”
Her eyes moved back to the ring on her brother’s hand. And then on her sister’s.
Abraxas slammed his drink down on the table. “Holy hell,” he said as he swiftly put together her words and her stare.
“Maeve?” Antony asked with concern.
Maeve looked back at Reeve, her heart beating fast. She pushed one single, simple thought into his mind.
We have the Dread Stone.
Abraxas recited the prophecy fully as they all stared at the three rings laid out on the table between them. “Three were made and given away. Bound in gold and silver chains, the Magic lay, buried beneath another, from the protection of the father. When the night devours the sun, when the holy three join one, the Dread Stone will stand alone.”
“I can’t believe I never knew,” said Arianna as the three Sinclair siblings looked completely dumbfounded.
“How could you have?” asked Antony. “The Magic is sealed deep, buried just like the prophecy says.”
Their father’s Magic.
“If these are the Dread Stone,” began Arianna, “how come Mal never felt the pull of them?”
“Because, like Emerie’s prophecy said, they were laced with another’s Magic,” answered Abraxas.
“Father’s,” said Antony.
