Midnight is shaking her head.“We can find another way.”
“Not quickly and not without serious risk.This solution is right here, we can be home tonight.We will have access to more magic.More guards.We could buy time for me to learn to control my magic.”
Architecti nods.“Exactly.I will help train you.”
“Wait,” Midnight says.“You owe me.I reaped Lucy.Give her a piece of your soul instead of saving mine.”
I run a thumb over the back of her hand.“It doesn’t work like that.Contracts and deals and covenants don’t exchange.”
“Only sacrifice,” Architecti adds.
Midnight’s expression hardens; she trembles with unspent fury.
“Thank you for trying,” I whisper.
“Ready?”Architecti says.
“Ready,” I confirm.
Her moth flutters between us.Architecti’s face fills with lines, her neck cords.The atmosphere around us wrinkles and sizzles hot.Unlike Finis’s magic, hers smells clean, like spring blooms and ocean waves and a sprinkling of pine trees, a scent I could drink forever.
I sense the hitch the same way I would the Veil, though I’m not as good at that as Midnight or Alistair.The moth twists and contorts in the air close to her chest.There’s a high-pitched keening and then a glistening shower of sparkles emanates from her.It’s stunning, I can see every spectrum of light all at once.
Architecti swoops her hands around, forming the light into a ball and then she flings it right at my chest.
I’m flung back and crash into the corridor wall with the impact.My body erupts, every rune lighting on fire simultaneously.I slide down the wall, a hollow scream ringing out.
Midnight’s expression is distraught as she flits between me and Architecti.She lunges for me, but Architecti grabs her, holding her back.
“Lucy,” she screams.
But the searing heat filling my body is already making my vision spot.
My insides tear and jumble and reassemble.
The heat grows so hot sweat pools over my skin.
I pull at my arms and chest, tearing at the clothes.
“Get the fuck off me!”Midnight shrieks at Architecti.
But my mind is filling with the strangest visions.Only they’re not really visions at all, but memories.
So many memories, and none of them are mine.
18
Architecti
After we left the apartment behind, the city lost its mind.We had to live on the outskirts, seeking shelter in woods and parks and the run-down areas of the city.
I tried to make Gellara go, live her life in peace.Make herself some deals so she could harness enough influence to get a position of power, perhaps even at Finis Academy.I pointed out that if she could get a role under one of the seven devils, she would be in a better place to push her paper through Arcadius.
But she refused.
And each day she spends with me, that serpent thickens in my belly.The knot of dread grows heavier.
It’s only a matter of time.
