Page 10 of Tick Tock, Darling

Then he pushed the hair out of my eyes, almost gently, so I could see.

I knew this place.

Lumina Glade. And across the clearing, the old Saint Louis Cathedral, still standing the way I'd left it — the rose window blown out, the frame black and empty. I'd stood in there. I'd stood right in there and done what I did to Marsha Cadieux, and I hadn't come back since.

Something pulled at me from across the clearing. Not the loose crawl of magic sitting in an object — this had a direction, and it wanted me to face it. My magic came up and pushed back so hard my teeth ached.

The portal. The one to the Elder Dimension.

I knew where it was without looking. It opened inside the old Saint Louis Cathedral, under the rose window where I fought Marsha and the dark demon Ari. The two of them had been working together.

Peter smiled and gestured toward the cathedral. “Ah, I see you’ve guessed why I brought you.”

I wasn’t going to be one of his women that followed him like a puppy dog. Never happening. Not doing a thing to help this man.

I threaded my fingers through my hair and yanked it out of my face. “I’m not opening the portal.”

Wendy came up alongside him. He kissed her and pulled her against him. She looked at me and her gray eyes flicked to black for a second. Everything in me went still. What was inside her had looked at me as if to study the enemy. I just hoped my magic was strong enough to fight her.

He stopped kissing her. “Wendy can open the portal. But she can’t find my shadow.”

Black magic couldn’t locate something dark? That was a new one on me.

“And you think I can?”

He lifted a lock of my hair and I slapped his hand away. The air snapped where we touched. A spark shocked me. I stumbled backward. “Don’t touch me.”

My mouth ran dry. It was as if our magic had gone to war.

“Even just touching your hair, I can feel it.”

Disgusting. His words made my skin crawl.

“What does that mean?” Hated asking but I had to know.

He walked around me, his gaze flicking over my body. “The shard. You absorbed some of that Christmas Star’s magic. Not only can you find my shadow, but you’ll be able to mend us back together.”

Cold went through me and settled in.

That's what I was. Not bait, not a hostage, not something he'd taken to hurt Caspian with. I was the tool. He'd needed one for however long he'd been sitting in that cell, and I'd walked into a wrecked church and picked one up off the floor and put it in my own hand.

Even if he was right, there was no way I was mending them back together. It would be like bringing back Genghis Khan. I wasn’t going to be responsible for that.

“No.”

He grabbed my hair, twisting his fingers in it. Millions of sparks went off around me and my body shook. “Oh, you will.” His grip tightened. “Wendy, open the damn portal.”

She came forward out of the dark and she didn't look at me once. Her hands went up and her mouth started moving.

"Ianua clausa, aperi te.” Her words were flawless and she spoke in a clear voice. She could open the portal!

Stop. Stop it. Please stop.

But she didn’t.

“Vinculum solvo. Limen frango." Those words were powerful. Forceful.

A loud pop echoed in my ears. Wind gushed around me.