My heart lurches. I would recognize those mages anywhere.
The Archmage Lennon Forsythe, and his wife Celine.
They barely spare me a glance as they ascend the altar, all their attention focused on the Codex splayed open behind me.
“It’s… breathtaking,” Lennon whispers, his eyes glazed in holy revelry as he reaches out to touch the edge.
A bright purple spark sizzles across the pages, and he yelps, yanking his hand back.
“Ouch,” I mock, unable to help myself. “That looks like it hurt.” I reach over and trace a fingertip down the center of the book, stirring the magic back to life. It swirls and dances for me, a pleasant tickle across my skin, fading only when I draw back. “I don’t think it likes you.”
He finally makes eye contact, his gaze dark with malice. “You will burn tonight, witch. And your sacrifice will be all the sweeter when the Codex and all its power are transferred to me.”
“Tous.” Celine grips his elbow, her smile tight. Then, attempting the same we’re-all-family-here tone she used on me the night she tried to kidnap me from the restaurant, she says, “Westlyn, dear. I’m so glad you’ve finally realized the error of your ways.”
“Hmm.” I smile right back at her. “Have I?”
“You’re here, aren’t you?”
A frisson of magic skitters down my spine—the first I’ve been able to feel it since Verrick took me. Hope stokes the embers inside me to a slow, flickering life.
“As are you,” I say, still smiling. Then, lowering my voice to a whisper, “But I wouldn’t count on that for too much longer.”
“I beg your pardon? I’m—”
“Ignoreher, Celine.” Eloise rolls her eyes. “If my useless husband had spent more time raising her properly and less time trying to find a way to derail a destiny that was written in the stars long before she was even conceived, perhaps we wouldn’t be subjected to—”
“Enough.” Verrick’s voice booms across the altar as he steps through the wooden door behind it, his presence more fierce and powerful than I’ve ever seen him.
He’s dressed in dark pants and a silver tunic embroidered with black and violet snakes that slither and move over the fabric, their eyes glittering with tiny inlaid rubies the same color as the jewels in his crown. Shadows gather around him like smoke, eating up all the light as he comes to stand at the altar table.
He places his hands on the table on either side of the Codex, close but not touching it. After a single nod of acknowledgment at the Forsythes, he turns his attention to me, his eyes sparkling with something terrifying and possessive.
That same magic slides down my spine again, warm and tingling, stronger than before. As if in response, the book glows.
“Be seated,” Verrick says to the Forsythes and Eloise, and at once they obey, shuffling off to arrange themselves in the front pew with Brian.
Best seats in the house.
Verrick winks at me, and I try not to shiver.
Then, two black-robed men enter from that same wooden door.
A high priest I’ve never seen before, with thick, angry brows and a pockmarked face, his shoulder-length hair a yellowing shade of white.
And a hunched, mangled figure that’s nearly unrecognizable by sight, limping slightly behind the priest, his eyes black as pitch, sections of skin melting from his face like candle wax, his hands gnarled as old tree roots.
My heart turns to ice as he comes to stand next to me.
Zorakkov.
His body—Hunter’sbody—is failing, just like Jude and Auggie suspected after they tortured the intel out of the doctor who’d been treating him.
“No tricks tonight, witch,” he hisses, his speech slurred, the scent of his breath like rotting garbage on a stifling summer day.
A scream lodges itself in my throat, but I clamp my mouth shut before it can escape, determined not to show fear.
Not to give anyone here anounceof satisfaction.
