At this, Wren’s eyes snapped up to his face. Her response was a distorted snarl.
“You took my life from me.”
“And I gave youthis.” Silas gestured to the room around him. To the shadows billowing out of Wren. “Magic. Power. Apurpose.” He stepped closer. Close enough that Wren could snatch the box right out of his hands if she could find an opportunity.
“Greatness is born from sacrifice,” Silas whispered reverently. “Do you truly regret it? Do you truly wish it would all go away?” Wren pondered his question. A part of her faltered, but she silenced it, pushing it down further. “I know how the magic makes you feel. How it calls to you.” Silas splayed his free hand upon his chest. “Igave you that, Wren. I gave you that freedom.”
Silas was right. Wren had never felt more complete, more wholly herself, than when she first tasted magic. When that first inkling of power had coursed through her veins upon awaking outside the gates of Blackwood Academy. But Silas wasalsowrong. Because though Wren knew that the magic she’d been handed at Blackwood had given her a sense of purpose—she also knew that she would have thrown it all away if it had meant getting her sister back.
“You take, you take, youtake…”Wren whispered, head cocked,“…and now it’s my turn.”
Her shadows sprang into action. But Silas moved quickly, countering her attack with his own blazing shield of light. They crashed together in a fiery explosion of magic—shadow and light thrusted together, a balancing act on the precipice of destruction.
The Headmaster of Blackwood Academy was strong…but the catalyst of destruction wasstronger.
Wren pushed forward. Her shadows pressed against Silas’s shield and a crack splintered down its side. And another. Andanother. With each step forward, his defenses weakened, his power hers for the taking. Her eyes landed on the box and a feral hunger tore through her soul as she pictured the ring nestled inside. With one arm extended, shadows bursting out of her and keeping Silas at bay, Wren snaked another set of shadows to the right, curling around the box and tossing it in her direction.
She caught it with her free hand.
When Silas noticed, a scream tore through him. Eyes widening in terror.
“Don’t!”
As soon as the box made contact with Wren’s hand…she felt it. A connection. A calling. The box knew her soul…recognized it. She unclasped the lock, opening it slowly, and dropped the ring into her open palm.
“You have no idea what you’re doing!” Silas roared through gritted teeth, desperately pushing against the wave of shadows holding him back.
Wren chuckled. She closed her fist around the ring.
“I think I do.”
FINISH HIM.
And she would…with pleasure.
But before Wren could shove the shadows through the core of Silas’s soul, tearing through his shield once and for all, a voice broke through the chaos, rising above the roaring wind.
A voice she would recognize anywhere.
“WREN!”
August had come barreling into the office, screaming her name, the door thrown open by an explosive blast. And he wasn’t alone. Four other students emerged seconds later. Four students she knew well.
Olivier. Emilio. Irene. Masika.
All of them…here.
But they couldn’t be. They shouldn’t be.
Something rose inside Wren. A desperate, screaming voice clawing at the back of her skull.LET ME OUT!it seemed to scream. But it wasn’t the Soulless One. It was…who was it? The voice was familiar. She swore she knew it. The words were muffled, drowned out by the shadows swirling inside her, but still, she heard the broken call, the desperation in the words as they echoed helplessly inside her.
Please. Stop this.
And then it dawned on her. This voice. This desperate plea.
It washervoice.
“Get out,”Wren snarled. She wasn’t even sure who she was talking to anymore—whether her words had been addressed to the intruders standing before her, or whether she’d actually meant them for that voice, for that stubborn part of herself that was still clinging to her mind, begging to get out.“Your actions will only end in more suffering.”
