Page 186 of Serpent and Shadow

A different, dark blue, smoke-like spell left his other hand, but missed me by several feet.

He staggered closer to me, now so pale, he truly did look like a corpse. He gripped the ritual dagger in his left hand now, and his hand appeared to be bleeding.

Now that he was so close, the dagger definitely worried me more.

I struggled to make my magic function.

I fought harder, trying to get past the effects of whatever Quicksilver and Malefic had done to me to cut me off from my primal. The block definitely felt weaker now, but so did I. I couldn’t get past it.

I couldn’t even crawl away.

I stared down at my body, and willed it to move. I managed to slide my foot and leg forward a few inches on the black stone, but not enough to drag myself along the floor. My magic felt stretched out, weak, like it had been shredded from the inside out. Had he taken all of it? I couldn’t feel myself well enough to know.

I couldn’t think about it too hard or I’d start screaming and never stop.

My mind still wasn’t working right.

My magic was gone.

My eyes stung at the thought, but I blinked it back. I forced myself to focus on the wizard in front of me. I had to move, to get out of here. I fought to breathe through the blue-green smoke that rose from the flaming runes surrounding me on the marble floor.

I was unwilling to look away from Malefic for long as he approached me with the knife. In the background, I could see robed figures careening around, making loud noises, crashing into one another, screaming. A few explosions went off on walls, sparks of magic from the ends of hands and tunneling through various primals.

Even the primals seemed to be acting crazy. I saw them fighting one another on the floor, climbing curtains, hanging from their Magical’s clothing.

I ducked my head instinctively when one wayward spell flashed right over my head.

I heard a scream as it slammed into someone on the other side of the ring of flames. I didn’t see who it was.

Things were falling apart.

Alaric, Luc, and I knew this would happen. We’d even done a few experiments, so we already knew the drug had a bizarre, disproportionate effect on wizards and witches. It made them erratic, increased their levels of emotionality, gave them wild and very vivid hallucinations, made them paranoid and anxious. I’d even boosted the potency of the drug, using the alkekargis plant from Blackstone’s nightshade garden in one of the school greenhouses. I’d meant for this to happen, even if I’d envisioned it at the Black Tower, not here, at Malcroix.

I’d also thought I wouldn’t be in the room for it.

Malefic staggered closer, until his dagger swayed only an inch from my face.

“What is this?” His voice came out thick, slurred, distorted, even apart from the screaming that was growing louder on the other side of the flaming runes. “What magic is this? What spell did you cast on me, cur? What have you done?”

I stared at the dagger, which now aimed between my eyes.

Now that I wasn’t freezing cold from my magic being leached out of me, I was sweating from the green-blue flames. I still felt sick and exhausted, and now I was pretty sure I was about to die all over again.

Maybe that’s why I told him the truth.

“Lysergic acid diethylamide,” I enunciated clearly. I backed up, trying to get away from his dagger, but he followed. “…It’s L.S.D., moron. It’s not a spell. But if you got a full dose, it should last about twelve hours. And it definitely looks like you got a full dose.”

He blinked down at me with those unfocused, silver eyes.

From his expression, I highly doubted he’d understood a single word I’d just said.

“I imagine you’ll have an extremely bad trip,” I added coldly.

I braced herself for being struck, or stabbed, or having my throat cut, or possibly another attempt at a curse. I wondered if he’d forgotten he still gripped the jewel-encrusted dagger in his hand. As soon as that occurred to him, I was probably dead, so I didn’t look at it, not wanting to give him any reason to remember.

Another stray spell whizzed through the space between us.

I gasped and jerked back.