“What about him?” Cass asks.
“We have to stop him. He’s the one with the Wand—he’s their general. We stop him, we stop his minions. Then we just have the mages and the Dark Arcana to deal with.”
“But how?” Baz asks. “If we kill the Black Sun,ourAni dies too. And then his soul is trapped who the fuck knows where.”
“I’m not going to kill him,” she says simply. “I’m going to heal him.”
A spark of hope flames to life in my chest, but… no. How is that even possible? “Stevie—”
She turns to me with a ferociously determined glare that tells me there will be no talking her out of this, no matter how terrible the risk. “I just need to get to him, Kirin. If I can get to him, I can do this. I know I can.”
“It’s risky as hell,” Baz says. “What if—”
“Look. Magick won’t work against these monsters. Neither will weapons. Every second we waste talking about it is another second one of our friends dies. Another second the Dark Magician closes in on his ultimate goal. Those are the stakes here, and while I’m sure we could come up with a million and one better plans if we had more time, we don’t.”
“Whatisyour plan, then?” I ask.
“There’s no time to explain. Just… I need to get to Ani alone.”
“No.” Baz folds his arms over his chest. “Not happening.”
“It is happening,” she says. “It’s the only way I can get him to drop his guard long enough to do what needs to be done. If we all show up together, he’ll know we’re trying to take him down.”
He curses under his breath. We all know she’s right.
“So,” she says, “will you guys cover me?”
“Of course we will.” I brush my bruised, cracked knuckles over her cheek. It feels like warm satin, and my heart nearly breaks at the softness of it. For a brief second, I’m back in Tres Búhos, ordering cinnamon buns at Kettle Black just for another excuse to be near her.
“Queen of Leaves,” I whisper, “you know I trust you implicitly.”
This gets the smile I was hoping for—a ray of sunlight in a face smudged with blood and ash.
“I told you you’d live to regret that one day,” she teases.
“And I told you… Not a chance.” With one last smile in return, I kiss her—all too briefly before the wall behind us gives way.
With no more time to discuss the nuances of her plan, we’re off again, Cass and Baz at my back, Stevie disappearing into the smokey haze.
We don’t watch her go. We turn all of our efforts toward keeping her safe.
With my brothers fighting at my side, we take down as many mages and yellow-eyed ghouls as we can. No matter that half the mages aren’t real. No matter that the undead soldiers rise up moments after we break them. No matter that we’re losing this war.
As long as our girl gets to the fountain, it’s a win. That’s the only thing I care about right now—keeping her safe.
Mages close ranks around us as more of them follow in Stevie’s footsteps, but they won’t even get close. As one, the three of us fight our way through them, stabbing and slashing, throwing potion after potion—spells to blind and stun, spells to choke, spells to kill. We’re running on pure adrenaline now, covered in blood and rot, growling and snapping like animals as we take down our foes.
Stevie finally makes it to the fountain. To the Black Sun, commander of the dark armies. I see her wild hair whipping in the hot winds that surround him, and suddenly I’m filled with so much pride. So much warmth.
The hope she sparked inside me earlier rekindles with a vengeance, burning bright inside me.
Our Star is a fucking badass.
My eyes blur with tears.
I stop to take a deep breath, to get one last, long look at her. She’s so fucking fierce I suddenly can’t remember why I ever thought we’d lose this thing…
“Unworthy filth! You willburn!”
