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Get out!I screamed at him in my mind.
Memories filtered through my consciousness, rewinding back through my time at Lydbury. To Oscar and Vivian. To Angie dropping me off at the airport. Back to the events leading up to my trip. He didn’t need to see this. These were my memories. My feelings. I winced and moaned.
He paced around me, replaying moments I didn’t ever want to see again. Then he stumbled. He recoiled from my pain. “She doesn’t know anything,” he said aloud, for Lilium and Edric to hear.
“You already knew that,” I snarled at him. Once again, I was powerless. Only this time, I had nothing to lose. I lunged at him.
He stepped back, colliding with his mother. She spun on him in a rage. In the process, she lost control of Liam. She swiped at Nigel, her snake hissing and striking as she lunged for him. Nigel glanced toward me, then grabbed his mother and shoved her toward the back of the platform. She struggled against his hold, then they disappeared.
There wasn’t time to consider where they’d gone. Edric was already commanding his guards to recapture Liam. I yelled a warning, and Liam’s eyes blinked and focused. Then he crouched into a fighting stance as Edric’s guards glided toward him.
At the same time, I rushed toward Edric, forgetting that he was a spirit and his form wasn’t solid. Connecting with him was like jumping into a cold, wet marsh. Instinctively, my eyes snapped shut, and I recoiled. My hand landed on something solid, and I grabbed for it, pulling it with me as I stumbled backward. A cord snapped, and just as I thought I’d got my feet under me, I tripped as the tension released and lurched backward again.
I opened my eyes and looked down at my hand. In it was Edric’s hunting horn that had been hanging across his chest. The crowd fell silent, and an eerie stillness surrounded me. I looked up and found Edric staring at me.
“Now be a good girl and give that back,” Edric said.
I gripped the horn and glared at him. I had something he wanted. He had something I wanted. I glanced at Liam. The guards hovered near him but hadn’t tried to restrain him yet. He was crouched between them with his back to me, and I didn’t want to distract him.
I turned to face Edric. “Let him go,” I said.
Edric took a cautious step toward me. “Give that to me, and I’ll consider it,” he said.
I wondered if I’d heard him correctly. He was willing to trade a hunting horn for Liam? That’s when I realized what I must be holding. I remembered what Liam had said about Edric’s soul.
“Horcrux,” I said, gripping the horn tighter.
“What did you call me?” Edric’s hands clenched into fists at his sides.
I looked down at the horn and wondered what animal he’d stolen it from. It was hollow inside and bone colored. There were carvings etched on the outside surface, and leather wrapped around a piece of metal at the tip, which I assumed served as the mouthpiece. The laces that had attached it to his belt dangled from a strip of leather wrapped around the midpoint of the horn. I glanced back at Edric and raised the horn, slowly, as though I were about to hand it to him. Hope flickered across his eyes.
Then I yelled, “Liam, catch!” I waited for him to turn, then tossed him the horn. He caught it, realized what he had, and set it aflame in his hands.
I watched as the horror dawned on Edric’s face. He screamed, a piercing, whistling noise that sounded more like a gust of wind howling across a field than a human cry. He lunged for me, losing his grip on his human form and rushing toward me like a wall of thick smoke. Then the smoke disappeared, and a black object, hooked and pointed at one end, clattered to the ground at my feet.
Liam rushed to my side and threw his arms around me. Then the world disappeared. I gasped for air in the darkness, cold pressing in on me from all sides. I could no longer feel Liam’s arms around me. I couldn’t breathe, and I panicked.
“Shh…” I wrapped my arms around Evelyn and tried to muffle her screams by pressing her against my body. “It’s okay,” I whispered. “It’s okay, we’re safe now.” Or at least safer than we were before. I hadn’t had time to warn her I was about to conjure us out of there. And she’d had no idea what to expect. I decided I should be grateful she was at least conscious and standing on her own two feet, even if she was hysterical.
“Eve,” I tried again, whispering softly to her. “Eve, shhhh. It’s okay.” I smoothed her hair with my hand. “Hey, I need you to listen to me, please? Please, Eve?” Her screams had turned to muffled sobs, and now they were dying down to hiccups.
“What.” She inhaled a deep breath. “Was.” Exhale. “That.” Another deep inhale, like she was teaching herself to breathe again. I’d forgotten what it was like to travel like that for the first time.
“I conjured us out of there. Sorry, I didn’t have time to warn you.”
“Air,” she breathed. “There was no air.”
“Yeah.” I frowned and cupped her face in my hands. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”
She nodded. “I think so,” she whispered.
“Nice work back there.” I smiled and kissed her forehead. “Now, we better get out of here before they find us. Can you run?”
She cocked her head at me and looked at me like I’d asked if the sky was blue. Then she reached down to the hem of her dress and began to tear.
“Help me with this,” she said as she pulled and the fabric began to rip a long slit up the length of her leg.
I got the general idea of what she was after, and I removed the lower two-thirds of her skirt with magic, revealing her long, lean legs. Runner’s legs.
