Dark and Wraith fall into the coffee shop together, and the shift in air pressure shakes the whole building. Then cups fly off shelves and the windows implode inward from the sheer weight of the magic being flung in every direction.
Bunny and I are crouched near the counter. Ideally, we should get behind it, I just need to time it right. Find a gap in the flying debris and deadly stray blasts of magic. For now, I’ve got my arm around him, pulling him down, and I can feel the magic like pressure against my skin, like standing too close to something very large that is very angry.
Dark and Wraith, two enormous forces of shadow and cold and ancient power, are colliding like two opposing galaxies.
The furniture is now splinters, and the walls are cracking, and I can feel every impact through my knees. Dark is formidable. He holds his ground with something terrible and focused. But Wraith is relentless in a way that Dark is struggling to match.
Then Wraith stops fighting him.
Just stops. Mid-struggle. And turns his head, those pale eyes finding Bunny over Dark’s shoulder with a deliberateness that makes my stomach drop.
Dark turns to look. He moves swifter than thought, withdrawing from wrestling with Wraith, to making a shield of himself. Standing between Wraith and Bunny, and by happy coincidence, me.
A silver-dark web hits Dark square in the chest and expands on contact, threads of shadow-steel throwing himbackwards and pinning him against the wall with a finality that makes it immediately clear this was designed for exactly this. Dark strains against it, every muscle moving, but it holds and it tightens when he pulls, and I can see from his face that he knows it.
Wraith turning his attention to Bunny was a feint, a ploy, a distraction.
And Dark fell for it.
Now Wraith is stepping towards Bunny. Grinning monstrously wide with far too many teeth. This isn’t a distraction anymore. This is a predator toying with its prey. This is vengeance and wrath against Dark for daring to fight him. Pure malevolence.
I stand up. I’m stupid and I’m going to pay for this, but I’m already drawing my power before the thought finishes, and I put myself between Wraith and Bunny with every ward charm I can pull together in three seconds.
It slows him. Not stops him. He advances through it the way something vast and cold advances through everything, steady and patient.
Bunny grabs my leg from behind. I can feel him there, warm and real, and I hate this, hate that my choices have put him in this.
A blast comes from the side. I didn’t see it coming. There’s a sound, Bunny makes a sound, and then we’re both on the floor and the world has gone sideways and there’s ringing in my ears. My shoulder is against the counter leg. Bunny is beside me and he’s breathing, he’s breathing, but his face has gone grey and he’s not moving much.
Dark is making a sound that doesn’t go through the ears, something older than sound. He’s pulling at the web with everything he has, but the web is winning.
Something cold streams through the shattered windows. Hex, red eyes blazing, already attacking, already driving Wraith back. He’s fast and devastating, and for one second I think it’s going to be okay.
Then a web hits Hex too. He goes into the wall beside Dark, and the web catches and holds, and the sound he makes when it tightens is quiet and awful.
The coffee shop goes very still.
Wraith turns to look at us.
Me on the floor, back against the counter. Bunny beside me, breathing in shallow, careful sips, bunny ears askew. Dark on the wall, still straining. Hex on the wall, red eyes blazing, working but not getting free.
Wraith starts walking toward us.
He’s not hurrying. There’s nowhere to go and we all know it. Above me, I can feel Dis, a blazing point of fury and desperation, pressing against the boundary of the circle with everything he has. The circle is holding him. The circle that was supposed to protect me is the thing keeping him from reaching me, and there is a particular cruelty in that which lands somewhere deep and awful. He’s there. He knows what’s happening. He can feel it and he can’t get to me, and I can feel that too, the edges of his panic bleeding through our connection.
I pull Bunny closer. He makes a small sound, his face still grey and wrong.
“It’s okay,” I tell him.
“It’s really not,” he says quietly.
“No,” I agree. “It’s really not. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Brian.”
“Don’t be.” His hand finds mine on the floor. Warm and steady, because even now Bunny is steadier than he has any right to be. “I’m glad I’m here.”
I don’t have words for that. I just hold his hand and watch Wraith walk toward us, and I think about all the things I never said. About a Scrabble board with words on it that were doing more work than Scrabble words should have to do. About SHELTER across a triple-letter score. About blue eyes watching me from a summoning circle, about being made to rest on a futon, about it is worth more than you know said quietly in the dark.
I know what I should have done with that. I know exactly, now, standing on the other side of a decision I can’t take back.
