Before I can unleash another smartass remark about all the ridiculous pomp and circumstance, Judgment lifts the ancient horn to his lips and blows.
The sound rings out across the landscape, echoing all the way to the Void and back.
Through a dark smile, Judgment says, “I warned you this day would come, Starla Milan. I warned you all the unworthy would stand before the Dark One, sentenced to eternal torment. I warned you the men you claimed to love would burn.”
“The only ones burning today are...” The words die on my tongue as the next figures emerge from the cave. Naked and scrubbed clean, with shaved heads and lifeless eyes devoid of recognition or light, four men answer the call of Judgment’s horn.
One by one, my Arcana mages—my heart, my soul, my love, myeverything—step out into the pale gray gloom.
Twenty-Three
STEVIE
Shock and terror hold me in a tight grip, squeezing the air from my lungs and paralyzing my limbs.
At the Magician’s order, the Chariot places the Chalice of Blood and Sorrow at Doc’s feet, the Pentacle of Iron and Bone at Baz’s. Neither of them so much as blink.
The Wand appears in Judgment’s hands, glowing red at his touch. He raises it ever so slightly, and his horrible mark burns into the flesh of each of my men, right over their hearts.
“Stop it!” I scream, finally finding my voice. “Stop!” I try to run toward them, but some invisible force holds me in place. Not shock or terror, but magick. Dark magick, eddying around me like a polluted river.
My mages do nothing. Say nothing. Their flesh blisters and cracks, blood leaking from the XX-shaped wounds, but they don’t even flinch.
“What have you done to them?” I whisper. Tears spill into my mouth, heart pounding as images from my terrible visions come back to me unbidden.
This is it. This is where my men will die. He’s going to fucking incinerate them.
“You have two choices, Starla Milan.” Dark Judgment flashes another cruel smile, his mental fangs glinting. “You hand over the Sword of Breath and Blade and surrender yourself completely and absolutely to the Dark One, or…” He lifts the Wand again, and a fresh wound burns into each of my men, just below the first.
Again, they don’t flinch. I can smell the burning flesh, yet none of them make a sound.
“Anything,” I choke out. Because in this moment, there’s absolutely nothing I won’t do to end this torture. To stop this terrible nightmare from coming true.
I reach behind my back for the sheath, only to remember the Sword is gone.
Panic chews through my gut.
“I… I don’t have the Sword. I must’ve dropped it on campus—probably by the fountain. If you take me back, I’ll—”
“That isn’t necessary.” Judgment’s gaze slides upward, and I follow it. My owl soars overhead, the blade glinting in his strong talons.
Jareth…
“Call to him,” Judgment orders. “Order him to release the Sword. No tricks, no magick, no sneak attacks. He releases the Sword, then he leaves.”
“And then you’ll release my mages?”
“Your mages will be released.”
I have no doubt he’s telling the truth, but something tells me our definitions of “released” are wildly different.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, desperate to come up with some solution—any solution that involves me and the guys getting the fuck out of here, with or without the damn Arcana objects. Silently I call on my Princesses. I call on my mother. I call on my magick. I call on Lala. I call on Anna Trello—the Justice Arcana—whom no one has heard from since she told me about how my mother conspired to bring me into this world. I call on the goddesses and witches of old. I call on the very elemental beings who gifted the First Fool with magick.
I don’t know who responds, but eventually, my answer comes.
I feel the Tarot cards in my hands, their edges digging into my palm.
Pretending to adjust my skirts, I glance down at them. In one, I see the Moon. The message whispers through my mind at once—the same message I got the very first time I met Doc. It was in that awful prison, when he placed the Moon card on the table between us.
