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Calm washed over me.
All would be well.
Ezra stood on the bridge above us, looking down.
He smiled. “Bennetts, Robbie. All of the creatures before you are Bennetts. And they want to take you away from me. All they do is take.” He shook his head. “I can’t let that happen, I’m afraid. It’s time for this to end, one way or another.”
The wolves around me howled a ferocious song.
It sounded like war.
Ezra nodded. “Ah. I suppose it was inevitable. Some things never change. All this fighting. All this bloodshed. Aren’t you tired? You have suffered. I have suffered. And yet you persist.”
The struts above us began to shake and groan.
Rust sprinkled down on us.
Ezra gripped the railing, his tattoos beginning to shine.
“Move!” Gordo shouted.
The bridge broke apart. The wolves around me darted out of the way when large sections of stone and metal crashed down around us. Kelly grabbed me by the arm and yanked, almost pulling me off my feet. I swiped at him, going for his face, but he ducked before my claws could tear into his skin.
“What are you doing!” he shouted at me “I’m trying to help—look out!”
He shoved me out of the way as a beam hurtled toward us, slamming into the ground where I’d once been standing. From above came the grating screech of metal as what remained of the bridge folded in on itself, slumping down toward the ground.
It looked like…
Stairs.
Ezra had made a staircase.
The metal reformed with every step he took toward us.
I watched as he stood upright, his hunch gone.
The liver spots on his hands and head faded.
White hair sprouted along the top of his head, thin and wispy.
His tattoos were as bright as I’d ever seen them, brighter than I thought possible, like they were new, like they’d just been carved into his skin.
The deep lines on his face filled, though not completely.
He looked years younger. Decades.
“There,” he said, sounding breathless. “Do you know how hard it is to maintain that level of magic at all times? Such a waste.”
He grunted as the brown wolf charged him. Gordo shouted furiously as the wolf was knocked away with a wave of Ezra’s hand, slamming into one of the steel beams with a devastating crunch. The wolf cried out in pain, a long and mournful sound.
“You,” Ezra said to the witch. “How you look like your mother.”
He barely blinked as Gordo raised his arms, magic building.
The black w
olf stood at his side, eyes red and violet.
