A new curse sank into Embry’s exposed skin—something powerful enough to freeze the magic in her veins. She lost all connection to it—she couldn’t stun him, zap him, or otherwise use magic to get away. It was blocked.
Suddenly, Embry was as helpless as a normal human, powerless to do anything except struggle against his ironclad grip. The cinnamon and sumac scent of him stung her nose as the sweat soaking his shirt dampened her back. Ew.
Nauseous, Embry tried to gauge if vomiting on him would do any good at all, but abandoned it for a more direct approach, donkey-kicking backward with all the might she never actually used on Rye. She connected with his shins.
Balthazar’s hold on her broke just long enough that Embry lunged for Hiram’s statue with her newly freed hand, caught the chiseled elbow crook, and leveraged herself so she could again donkey-kick behind her, going for the sorcerer’s shins a second time, plus his knees, thighs, and family jewels.
He dodged. Fine—she stomped on one of his feet. Apparently, those big black motorcycle boots were more for form than function because Balthazar cried out.
Then, as he groped for her, his whole body jackhammering as she willed her magic to flood back, free of his blocking spell but not of its effects, something fell from the sky, smacking Balthazar in the head. It bounced off his perfectly styled waves with a wet sound and onto the tomb lid.
A half-eaten rodent.
In the sky, a flash of red tail feathers.
Merlin!
“You can’t have her, you dumb bird!” Balthazar spat as the hawk circled above, leftovers properly discarded on someone who he clearly did not like. “You’re not even human! Don’t you ever do that again!”
The hawk screeched right back—and that’s when Embry heard it.
Over the keening of the rising magic. The racing of her own galloping heart. The blood thundering in her ears.
Running footsteps.
Hundreds of them.
Then Merlin looped over the towering trees marking the gated entrance to Raven’s Head.
Several feet below, packs of werewolves, werecats, kelpies, and the like stormed through the gate in their shifted forms, huge, terrifying. They tackled the nearest sorcerers, plowing them into the ground under snarling, snapping jaws.
Zombies, revenants, and Frankenstein’s monsters streamed through after, a blur of undead body parts descending in a mob. They moved like a flash flood, flattening everything in their path, scooping up and carrying away any sorcerer who managed to get free.
The Glitches poured in behind the Bitches and Stitches. The largest group, they were the cavalry, carrying the teachers and administrators with them in a wave. They surrounded the gated cemetery, filling in gaps, plugging holes, making themselves such a mass of humanity that not even a sorcerer with all their assorted powers could slip through.
Balthazar Hale was cornered, and even through a haze of love, he knew it.
Embry grinned. “Turns out everyone at Raven’s Head is sick of your shit,Balty.”
She wasn’t sure if it was her taunt, or if it was simply the fear flooding his body that did it, but the illegal love spell popped like a soap bubble. Uh-oh.
But before Balthazar’s fake love could harden into his real hatred of Embry, his father called out from across the graveyard, “Balty, what the hell is this?! I thought you said you had the school handled!”
“I did!” Balthazar snapped, newly black vein bisecting his forehead throbbing. Then he announced with his endless stage aplomb, “All the kids think Embry Woodcross murdered her friend. They’d never in a million years defend her unless they’d been spelled, and we all know witches aren’t capable of bending hundreds of people to their will.”
Visibly irritated, even with dark magic pulsating through his body, features bulging and warping, Balthazar’s father waved his hands at the assembling masses and literally scoffed at his son. “Apparently not.”
The younger sorcerer ground his molars together, preparing a retort, but it was Lazarus’s voice that came next over the din, loud and caustic.
“My daughter doesn’t need a spell, jackass, because people really love her!”
This made Embry smile and also happened to provide the perfect distraction because in that moment, her magic came flooding back like a dam breaking. As Balthazar’s murderous gaze whipped around to Daddy’s shielded form, Embry dove for the sorcerer’s bare hand and stunned him with the full force of her nearly drained magical supply.
Balthazar’s body jolted.
His arms went slack, and suddenly, he was tumbling backward. Embry dodged to the side and backpedaled, avoiding his falling form with that Raven’s Head track and field agility she’d honed so well.
Arms still raised and vibrating, Balthazar’s father didn’t even spare his son a disapproving glance. “You’re too late! You’ve all spelled your ends, because in mere moments there will be nothing left of Ravenwood Island but a rush of seawater and my sorcerers, free from—”
