And it did. It hurt like splashes of hot oil, like acid in his veins, like each of his bones snapping one by one.
Until, suddenly, it was over.
The power gone. The spellbook left in shreds before him.
Years of work destroyed in minutes. A sacrifice on a level he couldn’t comprehend, ruined. By him.
The voices crowding outside the door came in clearer now. Silas turned, meeting Niles’ furious gaze through the small window at the top of the door.He was warned, Silas reminded himself.Warned, again and again, that this is what would happen if he kept refusing Noctis’ summons.
That didn’t make it right.
Spellbooks were the beating heart of a coven, and he had gripped theirs in his hand and squeezed until it popped.
Silas walked to the door and pulled it open. He knew what was going to happen, but he didn’t bother trying to block the punch that Niles leveled at his face. The blow landed hard against his right cheekbone, and he grunted as he absorbed the pain.
“What the hell have you done?” Niles grabbed Silas’ shirt, using it to push him up against the wall. Silas let this happen too, but when Niles’ fist cocked again, he threw up a protection spell on instinct, repelling the man away from him as Silas was encased in a bubble of gold magic.
Niles’ mouth twisted in disgust. “God, you’re a coward.”
Silas didn’t deny it. Niles turned away, walking into the spell library, surveying the destruction.
“I’m sorry,” Silas said. He couldn’t think of anything that encompassed the soul-crushing guilt he felt, so he repeated those empty words a few more times, hoping that they could become something more with repetition.
“You…” Niles stopped, slamming his hand down on the table where his spellbook had sat. “Your fucking system. Who says that you get to control everything? Who gave you that right?”
Silas could quote the exact section of the Noctis handbook that gave him the right. He could list the rules, tell Niles exactly how he’d violated them, how he’d brought this upon himself. His whole life, he’d been told to follow those rules. To hold them in the highest regard. To think of them not just as a duty, but as something fundamental to the way in which the world had to work to keep them all safe.
Standing here, in a literal bubble of his own privilege, watching years of work ripped apart in moments… he didn’t see how the rules mattered at all. He couldn’t see how this was preventing harm, when it seemed like all it did was cause it.
“No one.”
Niles huffed, then stormed out of the room and pointed to the front door. “Get the hell out. Before I do something I regret.”
Silas slunk out. He wasn’t brave enough to drop the protection spell until he was out on the street.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Sylvia’s phone was ringing.
She had gone home to avoid the ringing phone. First it was George, checking in after the “tragedy” of Lily’s snap. Then it was Henry, checking in because that tragedy didn’t mean the coven got out of paying its bills. Then it was she didn’t know the fuck who, because she’d checked out before anyone else could check in.
But unfortunately, they had decided to make these infernal devices portable, and so her annoyances had followed her here, to the one place left where she thought she might be able to find an ounce of peace. She cursed as she pushed herself up off the Tempur-Pedic mattress of her four-poster bed, then walked over to the corner where she’d thrown her purse. She let out another curse as she took her phone out and stared at the screen.
The number wasn’t in her contacts, the screen instead flashing with the all-caps name of the company it was registered to:KHATRI INTERNATIONAL, INC.
Three guesses as to who the fuck that was.
Sylvia wanted there to be a debate. She wanted some part of her to scream that she shouldn’t answer, to tell her that engaging was a foolish risk to take.
But that part of her was buried under the burning, irresistible desire to have a fight so many years in the making.
There was no way she wasn’t picking up this call. So she did.
“Sylvia.”
Nina’s voice hadn’t changed. Rich and layered—like a singer’s, which was ironic, considering how many times Sylvia had been reminded over impromptu karaoke sessions that Nina was unflinchingly tone-deaf. But in speech, her voice was symphonious. Beautiful. And tinged by an ever-present undercurrent of judgment.
“Nina. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
