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My lungs seized at the sight of him. His blond hair was a wild leonine mane, and his aquamarine eyes burned with a feral, terrified focus until he found me. Relief washed over me, so acute it brought tears to my eyes, but it was immediately eclipsed by cold dread. He was walking straight into a trap.

“Destiny!” he shouted, his voice rough with panic.

“Tristan, no! It's a trap! Get out!”

Osric only smiled. He didn't even raise a weapon. He simply twisted his heel onto a bronze plate set flush with the floor and uttered a single, guttural syllable.

The line in the floor between the entrance and the ritual area lit up again. It condensed upward to become a shimmering wall of energy. Tristan had been sprinting toward me, followed by several guards. He went through the barrier, but the guards slammed into it and were knocked backward, off their feet. Seraphel stepped up to the transparent wall, his face contorting with rage as he stared from Fabian to Osric to Bart.

As Tristan turned back to see the guards on the other side of the wall, Osric hit a button and a mesh of glowing, pale-gold filaments fell from the ceiling onto Tristan. It enveloped him from head to knees, the glowing cords tightening the moment they touched his skin.

Tristan let out a strangled roar of pain as he dropped to one knee. The net crackled with blue light, and arcane symbols flared over it. He struggled violently, but the net, like my circle, was too strong.

“Tristan!” I slammed my fists against the barrier. “Seraphel, help him!”

Seraphel ignored me as he studied the barrier, hands hovering over it. The barrier sparked beneath his inspection.

Meanwhile, Osric grabbed a rod wired to the machine console and planted the tip against Tristan's spine. A jolt of white sparks discharged, and Tristan locked up, his breath catching in a ragged gasp.

“You are monstrous pieces of shit, the both of you!” I shouted.

Fabian stepped forward, his expression grim and resolute. Together, he and Osric dragged Tristan toward the steel operating table in the center of the room. Tristan went into spasm, his boots scraping at the floor, his muscles straining until the veins in his neck stood out like ropes. Suddenly, he threw his weight sideways, managing to knock Osric back two steps, but Fabian caught Tristan's arm.

“Help me lift him.” Fabian yanked off the mesh.

They hefted Tristan onto the steel surface, and he went limp. Fabian buckled the straps over Tristan's wrists and ankles while Osric checked the thick wires connected to the metal table. Tristan shuddered and turned his head to meet my gaze.

Beyond the dividing ward, Alistair shouted rapid orders into his phone. The guards lined the barrier, guns at the ready. Seraphel's dark eyes flared with an ominous, ancient light. He began to chant, deep and resonant, the syllables vibrating in a language that sounded older than history. Golden fire wreathed his hands and forearms, swelling into an inferno he drove into the transparent wall. The room shook. Dust cascaded from the ceiling joints, and the transformers shrieked, but the ward held.

A Curse with magic. Holy shit.

“It's no use, Seraphel!” Osric called out cheerfully over the hum of the machinery, not even bothering to glance at the barrier. “The ward was empowered by two witches. Unless you're prepared to level this entire building and crush all of us under fifty feet of rubble, you aren't getting through.”

Bart stood frozen near the edge of the machinery, his face gray and eyes wide. He looked from Tristan, strapped to the table, to the furious Conclave members pounding on the transparent wall. “Osric,” Bart croaked, his voice shaking. “I don't like this.”

“Quiet, Bartholomew,” Osric snapped, adjusting the dials on the main control panel. “Go sit in the corner and stay out of the way.”

On the table, Tristan stopped fighting the restraints and turned his head toward Fabian. “Fabian, look at me. Look at what you're doing. Is this really what you want?”

Fabian paused, his hand resting on the machine. He met Tristan's gaze with startling viciousness. “I am looking at you, Tristan. I see you more clearly than anyone, demon.” He stepped over to the table, and leaned in toward Tristan's face. “And, yes, this is what I've wanted for centuries. Do you want to know what Mirana saw? She didn't see Destiny die and you kill yourself on her grave. She saw you happy. Both of you. Blissful. She saw a future where you shared Heartbreak without pain. And I couldn't have that. So, I drew you together under my terms. I let you wriggle on my hook, let you hope only to dash it now. This has been my goal all along—seeing you suffer for what you did.”

“I've never done anything to you.”

“No? Tell me, Tristan, do you remember the people who died at Stylos?”

Tristan frowned. “I remember them all, Fabian. Every one.”

“Liar.” The word came out as a snarl. Fabian's composure fractured, his hands clenching into fists. “You remember the tragedy perhaps. The weight of it. But you don't remember her.”

“Her?” Tristan's eyes widened with dawning horror.

“My sister.” Fabian's tone sharpened. “Eight years old. Her name was Ismah. She had big brown eyes, could run like the wind, and was afraid of thunder. She died in my arms because our parents were too consumed by Heartbreak to notice she was burning with fever.”

I felt the words like a physical blow. Even from inside my circle, my empathic senses flared, picking up the sickening, suffocating radiation of Fabian’s emotions. It wasn't just anger; it was a rotting, festering wound that had slowly poisoned his soul for centuries.

“The fever didn't kill her,” Fabian continued, his gaze fixed on Tristan. “You did. Your presence. Your Curse upon them. My mother and father couldn't stop arguing long enough to care for their sick child. I didn't find Ismah until it was too late.”

Tristan strained against the leather. “Fabian, I'm so sorry. I didn't know—”