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Leif nodded once to her before returning to battle.
Mrak’s bellow broke across the chaos, drawing my attention immediately away from the ritual. Sylas had slashed Mrak across his front. My heart stopped, and so did my words, as I waited for the inevitable. But nothing happened. A bit of nightsteel burn, but Mrak didn’t disintegrate or disappear.
It was then I noticed Sylas was wielding both of his swords. It’d been the non-warded blade that had sliced Mrak.
My heart restarted itself. “We have to hurry.”
I refocused my efforts on the enchantment ritual as Willa inscribed the ward against Sylas into the nightsteel. When it was done, there was only one ingredient left to add.
I met Karn’s gaze. “I have nothing of Sylas’s. Maybe magic, but nothing else.”
Karn shook his head, but was stopped from speaking when Quinn appeared, her eyes still silver with her Seer magic.
“He turned me,” she said carefully. “Take it back. Shadow demons have done nothing but ruin my life.”
“It may kill you,” Karn said without care. There simply wasn’t time for it.
Leif turned at that moment. “No, Quinn. Don’t risk yourself for them.”
She smiled at her brother. “It’s not just them that’s in danger. We don’t have time. Just take the shadow demon out of me.”
Karn nodded, but Leif grabbed his sister. “No!”
“Yes!” she waved her hand. Leif’s eyes glazed over with silver, unseeing. “Let me finally save myself!”
I shook a hand in front of his eyes. “What did you do to him?”
Quinn stepped beside me and placed a hand on the nightsteel knife. “I mesmerized him. That’s what we call it. He’ll be out for a minute or so, and I’d like to keep defending him, so take this thing out of menow.”
That was all the confirmation Karn needed. His magic churned over the nightsteel knife. My power connected with his, combining like a volcano meeting an ocean and churning out cool stone in our wake. Willa’s magic felt different—as hers joined ours, brighter like a sun. Sweat beaded along her brow. She bit her lip as Karn and I continued the spell.
Quinn screamed and swayed. I threw out one of my monstrous arms to help catch her and hold her upright.
“It’s working,” Karn said.
“Yes,” Willa agreed with her eyes squeezed tight. “I think… I think I can save her, too.”
“You can?” I wanted to be hopeful. Willa had always been strong, even when her magic had been restrained. But if we were shadow and her magic was sunlight, maybe she really could keep Quinn—and her soul—alive.
Willa nodded and gritted her teeth. Luminescent energy radiated off of her in waves, replacing the shadows that poured off Quinn as Karn fed them into the nightsteel blade. I acted as a conduit, holding magic together as it burst around from all directions. Whenever any of the demons got close, trying to destroy our focus, I took them out. But time was ticking by way too fast. With every swing Sylas took, Mrak was closer and closer to death.
More than death—nonexistence.
“Hurry,” I told Karn. “Please.”
“I’m going as fast as I can,” he said between spells. “He means the world to me, too.”
I took Karn’s hand in mine. “Heismy world.”
Karn nodded and pumped more magic into the blade. The ward was now glowing red hot, a set of squares with a weird “Y” connecting them. After a few seconds, his eyes stopped glowing, and he handed the knife to me. “Go.”
I tightened my grip on the knife and ran, blasting shadow magic at demons who got in my way. Not far or even with much strength, but just enough to displace them so I could run to where Mrak and Sylas were fighting. Mrak had made his own sword from shadow, collected into enough mass to hold shape. But what he needed was this knife.
I was afraid to throw it to him and distract him, though. One swipe from the blade I’d been forced to make and—
Stop thinking. No more thinking. I just had to act.
I reached out with my magic, pulling on shadows in the room to come under my command. To cocoon me and form tendrils thick enough to wrap around the ankles of demons, snatch them from where they stood, and throw them out of my way. Whenever an attack came my way, I brought up a shield of shadow magic to block it.
