“Hide-and-seek, Princess? Really? Don’t be a child.”
Immediately, Rye’s acting skills kicked in and he looked around as if he didn’t know where she’d gone, though she touched his hand. Embry bent to his ear, letting the scent of rosemary wash over her invisible form. “You know me better than anyone. You’llknow where I am. But he won’t.” She patted his cheek. “Keep yourself safe, and remember it isn’t real.”
Rye’s eyes darkened but he didn’t dare give away that she was still beside him.
Embry forced herself to get going. Balthazar’s gaze darted around, hunting for her. Guessing incorrectly. Which, of course, he wouldn’t admit, even as he aimed his magic in all the wrong places. It was quite inelegant, it must be said, like someone groping a wall for a light switch while carrying groceries.
Embry grinned as she silently skirted the long way around the battles, dodging gravestones and people. They were losing. Badly. She considered enchanting as many of them as possible to be invisible, doing it one at a time as she moved, but it was too risky—she’d give away her position in a heartbeat. Not to mention, she’d drain herself of energy she’d need.
If she could just get behind Balthazar’s shields, if she could place a hand on his body, she knew exactly what would stun the sorcerer so hard that the whole thing would grind to a stop.
Embry maneuvered around her mother’s gravestone, trailing fingers along Luciana Woodcross’s final resting spot, no longer as rough as it had been after almost eighteen years in the elements. The flowers she and Daddy laid weekly had lost petals in this fight. Mums were indeed hardy, but not when underfoot in a magical skirmish.
“Take note, coven members!” Balthazar bellowed, still wildly searching for signs of Embry—footprints, a surge of magic with no obvious source, a collision she couldn’t avoid. “When you’re down, your heiress—yourprincess—disappears. Literally! While you bleed for the coven that bears her name! How can you not be appalled by such cowardice?”
It was probably indulgently unserious, but Embry rolled hereyes. Balthazar was most certainly projecting in his “stage voice” and it was coming off a little too melodramatic, even considering the drama of the situation. Balthazar was undeniably handsome, yes. But how had she not noticed his personality? Embry wasn’tpliable, but she had been charmed by this boy. And that, like everything else, apparently, was an act.
The sorcerer wasn’t actually a dashing high school senior; he just played one on the stage (and in class, at lunch, and anywhere else the Raven’s Head student body could see him).
Which was when another barrage of thoughts hit Embry. Did he rig the homecoming royalty elections? So that he and Oakley would win? So that Embry would have a public meltdown and be a better suspect?
Did anyone actually like this guy? She didn’t.
Whatever the truth, Amethyst Oberon, for one, wasn’t having any of it.
“Oh shut up, dummy!” Ames yelled while punching a beanstalk version of Balthazar square in the jaw with her title-winning right hook. Guess even sorcerer shields worked only for spells, not hands-on threats. “We’re not stupid enough to let you know where she is.”
Instead of mounting a verbal comeback, Balthazar was still searching for Embry with half his attention and rebuffing Rye’s brutal barrage of spells with the other. His divided attention was exactly what she needed to work in her favor. And the timing was excellent—Embry was coming up behind him now, from where he’d stopped on the edge of the tomb. Quietly, she snuck around the side. She didn’t dare step onto the rim of the stone grave, worried (a) she might fall in or (b) she’d somehow rock the lid and alert Balthazar to her presence.
Balthazar hadn’t once looked behind him since she’d managed to approach him from that direction. Maybe he thought the opentomb would dissuade her. Maybe he simply expected her to come straight for his face, scorned woman that she was, which was why he’d cast his magic like a car’s windshield instead of a tightly wrapped burrito. Whatever the reason, Balthazar Hale was about to learn what it was like to mess with a witch.
Embry edged closer, her hands carefully raised in front of her body, two separate enchantments loaded into her fingertips. In her left—a high-powered spell meant to immediately dissolve his shield. In her right—the money shot.
If it worked, the result would be a stunned and defenseless sorcerer.
Keeping her attention squarely on Balthazar, Embry did one steadying yoga breath, bit her lip, and closed the distance to the sorcerer’s broad, leather jacket–clad back. It appeared unguarded, but Embry reached with her shield-dissolving spell anyway, a precaution.
Except, just as her fingers grazed the soft leather, Balthazar shot around, her wrist suddenly caged in his punishing grip. “Not so fast, Princess.”
CHAPTER 43
POWER BEGETS POWER
SOMEHOW, BALTHAZAR HAD TURNED IN LESS THAN A BLINK.
Embry wasn’t sure if he’d stopped time again, or if it was another trick. Only that the sorcerer had moved faster than any revenant, capturing one wrist, and now the other. Both were squeezed so tightly she was sure her bones were at their breaking point.
Stunned, Embry looked into Balthazar’s eyes… and realized hesawher.
The sorcerer had seen her the whole time. That’s why he wasn’t shielded. Why he’d left his back unguarded. He wanted her to think she had him.
That wild, searching look? Calling her name? The frustration? It had all been an act.Again.
Balthazar’s sparkling eyes were as cruel as the ocean in a storm as the self-satisfied version of his smile crept up his now far less handsome face.
He chuckled softly, menacingly. “Princess, I don’t think you heard me the first time. Sorcerers are powerful. So much more powerful than you. So much more powerful than any amount of googling can tell you.” That laugh was gone in an instant, mocking pity dripping from his tone. “There’s a reason you never saw me do overt magic in the weeks when we were together.”
He hadn’t done magic. Not once that she’d seen. Embry had just assumed he was shy. Or maybe that he wasn’t as powerful as everyone had assumed and was guarding his reputation. She’dreally given this boy far too many chances for cover without even knowing it.
