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A few of the witches turned completely white. Crystal dragged her legs onto the chair to hug her knees. A tremor ran through her skinny body. “I knew it,” she mumbled. “I could feel it.”
“What can we do?” Selena asked, her expression fierce. I wasn’t sure she’d still look that confident when I told them.
“We’re running out of plans,” I said. “But there’s one thing we haven’t tried yet, that both the Assembly and I think could work. I never would have wanted to ask this of you… but we haven’t been able to propel the demon into the trap we’ve made, so we’re wondering if we could lure it. And the one thing we’re sure it would be lured by is your magic.”
Crystal flinched. Even Thalia stiffened. I swallowed thickly and barreled onward. “Like I said, no one would insist you help. We’re just asking. Pleading. If you think you have the strength to stand up to this monster. This time it’d be your choice. You’d be doing it not to give someone else power but to be a part in cutting off this fiend’s freedom. It’ll be dangerous. I wouldn’t pretend it won’t be. But we’ll do everything we can to make sure it’s only a taste of your magic that you lose.”
Someone drew in a ragged breath. Someone else started to cry, softly, with hitching breaths. My throat constricted even more. But Selena raised her ivory-coiffed head and said, “I’ll do it. We’ll take that Spark-forsaken creature down.”
“I’ll help,” Thalia put in. “It’s worth it. We have to stop that thing.”
“What happens if we don’t help?” Eloise said. “If it keeps coming—is it going to comehere?”
“We don’t know,” I admitted. “We have no idea what it might do next. But it could make it this far.” If the demon figured out that the witches it’d fed on before were right here for the taking, this might be exactly where it would want to go. But I couldn’t bring myself to say that much.
The witches could put together the pieces on their own, no doubt. A few of them huddled together, talking in hasty tones. Crystal started to rock in her chair.
“It wants us,” she murmured. “It wants us…” Her chin jerked up. “Let it try to have us, then. It’s going to regret that it ever tried to devour us. We’ll laugh when we see it captured.”
The vehemence in her words seemed to spread through the gathering in an instant. Eloise straightened up, tucking her gnarled hands in her lap. “Yes,” she said. “We can bring it to its knees.” And around the room, other faces brightened in agreement.
I’d say my spirits lifted, but a sickening weight still pressed on my gut. This wasn’t the sort of victory I’d wanted. If it would even be a victory in the end. But we had to try.
“I’ll go to the Assembly and let them know you’re ready to join the battle,” I said. “Take the next little while to settle your thoughts and your nerves as well as you can. And if you change your minds—it’s your decision, right through to the end.”
I was just stepping into the hall when a wan man I’d seen at one of the last meetings ducked out of the stairwell. His expression when he caught sight of me was at least as distraught as it was relieved.
“Lady Hallowell,” he said. “The authorities of the Assembly request your presence immediately. The demon… We don’t know what to make of this at all.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Rose
The key officials who’d been involved in addressing the demon problem were all gathered in one of the meeting rooms, bent toward a phone someone had set in the middle of the table. A voice crackled from the phone’s speakers as the man who’d fetched me ushered me in.
“It’s past the freeway now, moving southwest in a fairly straight line.”
“Any further casualties?” Lady Northcott asked, her elbows rigid against the table top.
“No, it hasn’t paid any attention to the cars or buildings it’s gone past. It seems pretty intent on getting to wherever it’s going. I’d estimate it’s moving at up to twenty-five, maybe thirty miles an hour. That’s the fastest we’ve ever seen it.”
“And the captives?” Mr. Northcott said. “What’s their status?”
The voice on the other end turned more raw. “Impossible to tell at this distance, especially with night coming in. It definitely isn’t being careful with how it’s holding them, but it seems to have suppressed some of its innate destructive energy. We’re not seeing damage to the vegetation it’s passing by. It may be tamping down on that energy to keep them alive for its purposes. I’ll report more if we can make more out later.”
“Please check in the moment anything changes,” Lady Northcott said.
I came to a stop at the edge of the table as she reached to end the call. Had I heard all that right? My nerves shivered, uncertain of whether to be giddy or quaking.
“That’s one of the enforcers who’s monitoring the demon, isn’t it?” I said. “It’s heading back to the coast—to the Cliff?”
“It appears that way,” Mr. Northcott said, sinking back in his chair. He didn’t look happy about that fact. From the dire expressions around the table, I suspected my second assumption was right as well.
“It’s grabbed some people too.”
Lady Northcott nodded wearily. “After causing a great amount of wreckage and chaos in the west end of the city on the tails of your retreat, the creature caught up four—or maybe five, the reports aren’t completely clear—bystanders and immediately set off in its current direction.”
I supposed we could at least be relieved that the fiend wasn’t tearing apart the city anymore. But—why would it suddenly have retreated? And the people it had taken— “Do you think they’re still alive?” I had to ask.
