I recall the touch of my gargoyles, the ever-present teasing spark in Jude’s eyes, the vulnerability in Drae’s when he finally confessed his true feelings, the joy in Auggie’s when he loses himself in his art, the light in Rook’s when he makes some new discovery.
I think of our nights together at the manor, the lattes and night breakfasts, the wild love we’ve made, their fierce protectiveness.
Love. It fills me up and twines with my magic, clearing away the clouds and the fear, revealing more truths.
Verrick is only asking me to kill the gargoyles because he can’t do it himself.
He’d never make an alliance with a lone human Archmage unless he was absolutely desperate.
And if Verrick wants me tokillthe gargoyles, it must mean that they’re still alive.
Which means there’s still a chance.
“It’s time, my moon,” Verrick says, removing his fingertips from my temples. The magic stays with me, though, and I force myself not to react.
“Now, Westlyn,” he says, and takes a step back, clearing the view to my gargoyles.
I don’t say a word. Don’t move. Don’t even breathe.
There has to be a loophole. A way I can take advantage of his weakness. I just need to find it…
A disappointed sigh is all the warning Verrick gives me before he grabs my head again, crushing my skull between his palms like he’s trying to break me.
Something inside me shatters—some sort of protective barrier.
My Cerridwen magic, I realize. It was trying to keep me safe. Balanced. But it’s soon overpowered by the dark-fae magic—mine, and whatever Verrick’s got left of his. He forces it inside me like a physical thing—like another person jammed into my head.
He may not have much active power left—not the kind that could destroy four powerful gargoyles. But he still has the power of manipulation. Still has a claim onmymagic, however tenuous.
My whole body trembles against his hold, against the force of his dark power as it shoves inside me, chasing away the light, the goodness, the hope.
I close my eyes and grit my teeth against the pain. Visions flicker behind my eyelids. Faces. Verrick’s first, then… Goddess. Jacob Pomeroy. Alonso Florentine. The mages who tortured me as a kid—the ones Jude and Auggie helped me kill.
“You reaped their souls for me,” Verrick hisses in my ear. “You condemned the monsters of your past to serve me for eternity. All I’m asking now as that you do the same to the monsters of your present.”
Reaped their souls?
Oh, goddess. No.
I remember the night we killed the mages. The Tarot reading I’d done right before Drae took me to the meat packing plant. I’d pulled the Tower card, and the moment I touched it, an otherworldly voice whispered through my head.
Upon those screaming hours
Bathed in blood and breath
You will give them light, my moon
And I will give them Death.
My light. My runes. My magic. I gave their souls to Verrick.
“No,” I gasp, not wanting to believe I could do something like that, not wanting to believe Verrick’s been manipulating me for so long.
But before I can get out another protest, the faces change from the mages I killed to a more recent one.
Eloise.
Then the horrifying demons from Zorakkov’s earlier attack—the ones my magic must’ve helped destroy.
