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He shrieked, then dropped his wand into his other hand, eyes flashing red once again, ready to cast a spell. Yanking his useless arm behind his back, I put him against the wall hard enough to crack the plaster.

“Did you think you were going to take her? That I’d let you?” I growled into his ear.

He groaned in response. His pulse beat erratically against his sallow skin. It knew it had precious few seconds left, even if he didn’t. I slammed him against the wall again. I wanted to rip his throat out. I wanted to drain him of all his blood. But I refused to give him such a pleasurable death.

Oh no.

I leaned into his back, pressing on his spine, and he cried out in pain. “In the name of the High Prince of the Unified Territories, I, Prince Yves Allard, the Duke of Valemer and Sea Lord of the Fleet, sentence you to die.”

“Death is an illusion. Just like p-peace,” he managed.

The Devouring’s motto. Hearing it from a witch’s mouth after all these years was like going back in time.

A flash of crimson light tore past my shoulder, close enough that it singed the hair at my temple, and struck him in the skull, leaving behind a smoking crater of charred flesh. Life went out of him a moment later. I let him fall unceremoniously to the floor.

I stared at him, still in disbelief at what I’d just heard and the spell that had flown past me. No dark spell should’ve been able to kill him. Not while he was wearing the medallion.

When I turned, I found her standing with her wand still raised, a wisp of smoke curling from the tip. Chest heaving against the boning of her bodice.

By all accounts, what she’d done was impossible.

While I’d been distracted by an old motto, she had killed the thin one, then shot a vicious spell at the other.

Her face blanched, turning her skin as pale as cream. She might’ve been able to break past the protection charm, but how? And at what cost?

“They saw you,” she said. “They saw you here, with me, and they—” She swallowed hard. “I gave Lou my name. They know who I am. And when the rest of them find these two dead⁠—”

They’d track her down. Magick that powerful left a trace.

Della hopped down from the windowsill and landed at her feet, nudging her head against her ankle. I took a step closer, but she jabbed her wand at me. Sparks flew from the tip.

“I could have been gone already. Do you understand? I had your coin in my pocket. I could have used it to buy passage onto that boat and been halfway to the Isle of Markal by now, and no one would’ve known.” Her eyes narrowed. “But I summoned you. I brought you here. I told you everything I knew. And because of it, because I couldn’t make myself leave without⁠—”

Her sentence broke off, and a frustrated scream tore out of her. She flung a curse at the little table by the bed and sent it crashing into the wall.

I held very still, wanting to hear the end of that sentence. I waited, but she just curled her hands into her hair and screamed again.

A hot pang of guilt raced through me. Whatever she’d done to break through the charm on the medallion, she’d done it for me. I swallowed hard. A woman who called herself driftwood had thrown away her escape rather than leave without a word.

I closed the distance between us in two strides, coming to stand in front of her. She raised her wand again.

“Don’t say a word. I will curse you. I will curse you like I cursed him. I swear it.”

Her eyes flashed with dark magick, the bright blue momentarily eclipsed by fiery red. She was an uncommonly powerful witch. I could feel the intense energy building around her, and it made sense why The Devouring wanted her so badly. But as powerful as she was, something terrible must’ve happened to her. It’s the only explanation for why a witch with a western accent was alone in Valemer, being chased by an ancient society.

Slowly, I reached for her wrist and wrapped my fingers around it. “Curse me if you must, but I’m not going anywhere.”

She tensed as I guided the tip of her wand to the center of my chest, over the place a heart would beat, then I dropped my hand.

Her face twisted up with emotion, and a strangled sob escaped from her throat, but she kept the wand firmly in place.

“You have no idea—” she choked out.

A single tear fell down her cheek. Her wand arm trembled.

“Shh,” I said in a soothing voice. “We’re going to figure this out. Together.”

That only made her press the tip of her wand against my chest. “I don’t need your help.”