“Not on your life.” I’m back on my feet in an instant, raising my hands and calling on my Tower magick with everything I have. Standing beside me, Baz chants his own spell, dropping half a stone wall on two of the mages.
All around us, bookshelves fall like dominoes. Another mage goes down, buried beneath a pile of ancient tomes, the confusion buying Casey just enough time to take aim.
She hits a fourth mage square in the chest.
But just as quickly as they fall, the mages reform, gathering like smoke that thickens and solidifies before our eyes, once again ready for battle.
“What thehell?” I grind out.
“Black-mirror magick!” Baz shouts, and my gut clenches.
I’ve never seen it in action, but I’ve read about it—a kind of projection spell that makes it impossible to know where the actual casters are standing, or how many of them are even surrounding us.
“How the fuck do we fight them?” I shout.
“No idea, but if we don’t figure it out, your parents are picking out two headstones tomorrow!”
Wasting no more time, I push myself to my energetic limits, reaching out for every ounce of black magick I can sense, pulling the darkness from the mage spells into my own. The Tower card appears crystal clear in my mind—a dark stone spire rising from the sea, a powerful bolt of lightning striking the top. Thick, red-black smoke roils in the sky, and two mages jump from the tallest window to escape the flames inside, likely to their deaths.
I hold the terrifying image in my mind, calling on its transformative energy. The spell comes to me easily:
Tower of fury, tower of rage
Siphon the power that fuels the dark mage
Collapse and destroy, remake and reform
I call on their chaos, for I am the storm
I repeat it seven times, my voice getting louder with each recitation, my skin electrified, blood simmering in my veins, my entire body on fire with magick. Soon I can no longer separate the feeling of my physical form from the force of the magick storm swirling around me. Smoke rises from my skin, lightning arcing through it, power gathering inside and out.
The mages flicker before us like an old TV picture, then finally solidify for good, no longer able to call on their dark magick.
Mydark magick, I realize. All of it, held fast in the palms of my hands, crackling and hot, ready to do my bidding.
And it feels… holy shit, it feels fuckingamazing.
Drunk with power, I let out a laugh I barely recognize, everything inside me buzzing with intense pleasure. Soon I can no longer recall a time when I ever feared this darkness. Is that even possible? Howcouldit be? I wasbornto claim this.
I can’t even remember where I am, what I’m doing, why it matters.
There is only chaos. Only destruction. Only this endless, seductive power…
“Kirin, now!” Baz shouts from behind me. “Do it now or she’s dead!”
The urgency in his voice breaks through my giddy haze, snapping me back to reality.
Library.
Dark mage attack.
My sister.
“Casey!Move!”
Without another thought I shove my hands forward, throwing all that power straight toward the mages rushing toward my sister. Two of them take the direct hit, their bodies incinerating on contact. The rest of the magick hits the stone wall behind them with a blast so intense, it sends a shockwave rippling back across the floor like an ocean tide, knocking us all on our asses.
The last of the magick evaporates from my hands, leaving me totally drained. I don’t even have the strength to sit up.
