“Do you really think you can stop me?”Interitus says, sneering at her sister.
Interitus’s arm shoots out; it’s so fast none of us see the magic until it’s punched through Lex and I and wrapped around Lucy.
Lex and I are flung across the courtyard where we clatter to the floor.I land awkwardly on my hip and shit, it’s going to hurt when the adrenaline wears off.
I force myself up, but I can’t get to Lucy.She’s surrounded again and battling with the threads of dark campus magic Interitus is throwing at her.They coil around her arms and legs, the other end connected to Interitus as she siphons off more of Lucy’s power.
She’s growing weaker.The runes glow, flickering over her skin as the power is siphoned out.Stolen.
Architecti throws a fist at her sister, but Interitus kicks out at her knee and Architecti topples to the floor.
I run for Lucy but it’s too late.
Architecti screams and throws her hand out in Lucy’s direction.A stream of glistening pale white threads shoots across the courtyard, wrap around Lucy and pull her to Architecti.Lucy’s face crumples as she fights to free herself from yet another set of magic.
“Architecti, STOP,” I bellow.
But she’s not listening.Her hand stretches out, flicking in a sharp movement and Lucy stumbles to the floor next to the angel.
Architecti grips Lucy’s wrist.Lucy’s mouth drops open and she lets out a shriek.Her expression crumbles in agony and a surge of the brightest light I’ve ever seen bursts from her chest.
Interitus is lifted into the air.The threads connecting Lucy and Interitus bulge and swell.They throb and pulse, the flow thickening.A piece rips from Interitus and slams into Lucy as an explosion of light fills the courtyard.
I’m tossed back away from them.Interitus is thrown through one of the Veil tears and Lucy is ripped from Architecti’s grip and flung against the wall.
31
Lucy
Every muscle in my body is screaming.My head is woozy, my vision blurry.I feel like I’ve been scoured from the inside as I drag myself up from the cobbles.
Interitus is gone.
I scan the courtyard.but the Veil tears all sealed up when she was flung into the underworld.
There is a wrongness inside me.My fist rubs at the space on my chest where Interitus was draining magic from me.When everything exploded, Interitus’s magic hit me smack in the sternum.There is something foreign now buried inside me.It’s dark and angry and it doesn’t belong to me.
“What did you do to me?”I say as Architecti rises to stand.
“I saved you.”
“No.Something rebounded.Before it was just you, now I can feel her too.Why did you do that?”
Architecti puts her hands up in defence.“That wasn’t me, that was my sister.I saved you.”
Her eyes glimmer.It sets me on edge.Did she save me?Or did she use me.
She grabbed me and took control of my magic.
“Lucy, please, you were weakened, and drained and I had to stop her.”
She did stop Interitus, but none of this is sitting right.A howl cuts through our conversation.
“Lex,” I breathe.I shove past Architecti and rush to Lex’s side.She’s kneeling, her hands clasped over her mouth.
I follow her line of sight my gaze landing on Bastien’s swaying figure.He drops like stone to the cobbles.The thud his body makes silences everyone left.
Midnight draws a single sharp breath; it cuts what’s left of me in half.
