The vicious words cut through my momentary haze, and I whip around and follow their terrible echo.
Judgment stands on the red stone path, blood covering his robes, his hands engulfed in magick fire. Slumped at his feet, a lone witch hunches over the broken body of a mage, his blood pooling out around them.
My heart hammers against my ribs, the hope in my chest exploding in a burst of fear and pain.
The mage is Agent Quintana.
The witch is my sister.
“Baz! Cass!” I shout for them even as I’m already running toward her, leaping over dead bodies, ducking more magick attacks. My brothers follow in my wake, all three of us charging toward the path.
“Don’t you fucking touch her!” I bellow. “Don’t you dare!”
Slow and unconcerned, Judgment turns his vicious glare on me. A smile twists his bloodied mouth.
“Such heroic little Arcana mages,” he sneers. “So predictable.”
Fisting my dagger so tightly my knuckles turn white beneath the bruises, I growl, “Let them go.”
“Kirin,” Casey chokes out. Her face is streaked with tears, but her eyes hold a quiet strength. “Don’t—”
“That’s enough.” Judgment stomps on Quintana’s hand, making the already battered mage cry out in pain.
He’s alive, but barely.
“Let them go,” I say again, raising my dagger. Beside me, Cass and Baz hold up their own daggers.
Not that they’ll do any good against Dark Judgment.
Judgment glares at us like we’re no more than a nuisance. Flies to be shooed away.
“Fine,” he says, and my blood turns cold as ice. There’s no way he’d agree to it, unless—
“Hand over the Arcana objects, and I’ll let your sister and her little pet go.”
“Kirin, don’t eventhinkabout it,” Casey snaps.
But her pleas fall on deaf ears. There’s no way I’m letting him touch her.
I unhook my pack and slide it off my shoulders, dropping it at my feet. “The Chalice and Pentacle are inside. That’s all we have.”
“Take the bag and go,” Cass says.
In a blur, Judgment scoops up the pack, unzipping to confirm its contents. “Excellent, excellent,” he mutters. “All seems to be in order. The Dark One will be quite pleased with me.”
“Satisfied?” Baz asks.
The vile beast offers a non-committal shrug. Then, with another twisted grin and a gleam in his dead eyes, he says, “Just one more thing to seal the deal.”
Before any of us can say another word, he hits us with a wave of searing-hot magick that makes me feel like I’m being skinned alive and turned inside out. The world collapses, then spins away, taking my breath with it.
My sister’s scream is the very last thing I hear—the soundtrack to my demise.
Twenty
ANSEL
From the fury to the flame
