Later. Later. Later.
There’sdefinitelygoing to be a later, otherwise he wouldn’t have said it.
With one last smile, I look at each of my mages in turn, my Princesses bookending them, two on each side. I look at my friend Nat. I think of our other friends out there somewhere—Carly, Isla, Professor Maddox, Professor Broome, Casey, Agent Quintana. I think of our fellow students and Academy staff.
And last, I think of Danika Lewis, the witch our enemies executed on live television. It feels like a lifetime ago.
It’s her words I borrow now—the only ones that matter.
Raising my Sword, I unleash those words with a roar loud enough for everyone on campus to hear, friend and enemy like.
“Fuckingfight!”
With my friends and mages at my side and my Princesses at my back, we charge out into the fray.
Nineteen
KIRIN
The minute we’re back out in the open, two cloaked mages come straight at me, magick crackling in their hands. Baz is covering my back, but Stevie, Cass, and Nat are already charging ahead into a mob of undead fighters.
I lose sight of them in a matter of seconds.
“You good, brother?” Baz calls over his shoulder.
“I got them—just watch your eyes.” I chuck a blinding potion at the mages’ feet and shield my eyes from the imminent flash. White light explodes between us, disorienting the mages and buying me about thirty seconds. Dagger in hand, I quickly dart behind them, shoving the blade into the closest one’s back.
Mage number one goes down hard and fast. I yank out the blade and stab the other asshole, but the dagger slides right through him, and he vanishes.
“Black-mirror mages!” I shout. Baz whips around just as two more appear before me, rising from the ground like black smoke.
It’s the same dark projection magick we fought in the library basement the night Trello killed Phaines and we found the jars of siphoned magick. It means any one of them could be an attacker like my mage one, or an illusion like my mage two. If we’re not careful, they’ll drain our energy and leave us wasted, all without lifting a finger.
I spin around and catch one from behind again, but he isn’t real. Neither is the second.
“Fuck,” Baz growls. “We need to see what we’re dealing with, or we’re toast. We need a spell to—”
A cacophony of screams and shouts cuts him off. We turn and see a group of a dozen students fleeing toward the library, where they huddle together in a broken alcove. I recognize Carly’s friends Emory and Blue among them.
Not far in the distance, Chariot drives her war horses hard. Their hooves hit the ground so hard, bits of rock and earth fly up in their wake.
She’s heading right for them, just like Stevie saw in her vision.
Damn it, those cracked walls are no match for the her power.
Without a word, Baz and I take off at a run. My backpack slaps against my back—I can only hope the Pentacle and Chalice are safe.
“Watch your left!” Baz shouts, and I duck just before a mage lets a bolt of magick fly. It smashes into an undead soldier behind me, splitting his skull like an overripe melon. I chuck another blinding potion at the mage, stunning him.
More undead soldiers come at us from all sides, but they’re not particularly skilled fighters. We take them down easily, stabbing and slashing our way through the mob. They drop around us like dead weight.
Seconds later, they’re up again—smashed skulls be damned.
“This is fucking impossible!” Baz shouts, taking another one down with a quick jab of his dagger. With every kill, their rotten blood sprays our faces, but there’s no time to think about it. We’re too busy ducking and weaving through the knot of bodies, narrowly avoiding mage magick, hoping like hell we can get to those students in time.
The mob is closing in tight, cutting off our exit points.
“Fuck!” Baz shouts again. “Kirin, hold tight!” He raises his hands and mutters a quick spell, and the ground between us rumbles and shifts. It’s a minor quake, but its enough to knock a few bodies off-balance and give us a clear path. He grabs my arm, and together we bolt through the tight clearing.
