We tore around the side of the house and I threw myself at the front door as spells barely missed us. The eyes still burned against my skin. I could tell by my friends’ wincing that they felt them too, but we had no time to stop. Any second one of the Acolyte’s attacks would find its mark and we’d be toast.
“Defendi!” Asher and I cried, our combined magic conjuring a couple protective shields at our back, just enough to cover our retreat. Our feet left swampland and pounded up the small stone drive until we hit the front door. Mia reached forward to try the handle. I nearly yelled that it’d be locked—of course it’d be locked—but the great brass handle gave no resistance and we tumbled inside as stun spells and hexes barely missed us.
We pushed the great door shut. Colson slammed home the iron bolt with a resounding boom. The hinges rattled as more attacks pounded against it, but it held.
“The windows!” I said, panicked. “We have to barricade the—”
A freezing spell shattered the nearest one into a thousand crystals. I cried out as shards of glassy ice cut shallow nicks across my skin. I rolled away from it, biting my tongue to stave off the pain licking up my arms and legs. Asher raised his hand, prepared to cast another shield charm to cover the now-broken window.
“No!” I pushed him toward one side of the grand staircase flanking the main foyer. “Get upstairs. We have to buy enough time to find another way out.”
“What other way out?” Colson said.
I had no idea, but it was better than staying down here. The prickling on my skin had lessened, but I could still feel her out there. This was nothing like my dream. I’d almost forgotten her strength, her inescapable presence. In my chest, the Dark Prince shifted.
“You stay put, buddy,” I growled.
“What?” Asher yelled as he tore up after Mia and Colson.
“Nothing!”
I was halfway up the stairs when Mia glanced back. She shoved me aside. “Sectspra!”
Her spell sliced a shallow gash across one of the Acolytes that’d started clambering over the remains of the now-busted window. He fell back with a cry, but two more immediately replaced him. There had to be dozens surrounding us now. And her, of course. She was permanently lodged in the back of my consciousness, an inescapable presence slowly closing her jaws around us.
We’d nearly reached the top of the stairs when I caught a flash of white out of the corner of my eye vanishing around the corner. My stomach clenched. In all the unexpected excitement, I’d forgotten we might very well be running toward something far more powerful—and dangerous.
Asher apparently saw it too. He paused for only a breath. “Head that way,” he said, gesturing around the corner.
“Colson, help me,” I said, stopping once we’d all reached the landing. I pointed to the staircase on the other side. “Take that down.”
I took my position and raised my fist above the top of my own staircase. I braced myself from my feet to my core and brought it down. “Oharas!”
The pummeling spell cracked through marble and wood alike, severing the top of the stairs and sending the tail of it collapsing to the bottom floor. The few acolytes who’d managed to make it inside dove out of the way with shouts of alarm. Chunks of stone spewed every direction. The entire house shook.
I swayed with the physical toll my spell had taken. Asher’s steady hand gripped my shoulder.
“Good idea.”
“I have my moments,” I said, shaking my head to clear the fatigue.
Colson brought down his magic-laced hammer a couple times, cutting off his own staircase. A stun spell clipped the sconce by his head, fracturing the metal. A fire spell ignited the wallpaper, spreading unnaturally fast.
“Let’s go—” My left leg seized as I tried to run, as though it’d been dipped in cement and solidified. I knew this feeling. I knew who caused it.
I twisted as I fell, Valkyrie already coming up.
Greubel, Kasia’s part-basilisk second-in-command, launched himself from the bottom floor. His claws gripped the edge of where the staircase had once been and pulled himself up. I forced magic into my leg to get it to unfreeze as he stomped to where I’d been, splintering the floor.
“Hold still, magic girl!” Greubel hissed. “I’ll break your legs and let you crawl to my mistress! I’ll snap your arms like toothpicks and beat you senseless with your own spine!”
I tried to swing my sword but my sword arm froze mid-strike. I charged anyway, using my momentum to careen into him. Greubel let out a grating screech and hurled me off. I came down hard just as he cast another spell. Asher leapt in front and batted it away, buying me enough time to slip past him—Greubel still focused on attacking Asher—and Spartan-kick Greubel back down to the first floor. His enraged screech trailed after him until it ended with a satisfying crunch.
Asher shook his arm to unfreeze it, glancing at where Greubal had fallen.
“Think that’ll stop him?”
“Not a bit,” I said. “Start running.”
Asher hurled a few more spells behind us as we took off, leaving the chaos of the foyer behind. Hallways swallowed us. Long, broad things clothed in blood-red carpet and gaudy chandeliers. I’d just turned the corner when Colson pointed to another flash of white. We pursued it. I was all too aware that we were on a very short countdown. Either Kasia and her creepy all-seeing eyes got to us first, or the house would be torched into oblivion thanks to the Society’s lack of proper pyrotechnics training.
“For something that’s supposedly been trapped here for years, this Cursed One sure isn’t laying out the welcome wagon,” Asher said as we chased after it.
“I’m sure its social skills are lacking,” Mia said.
They were right. Whatever I’d expected to come across once we entered the house, playing Seek and Destroy with the ancient cursed being wasn’t on the list.
Smaller hallways branched away from us as we ran. I kept my eyes straight ahead, trying to ignore the ever-growing sounds of destruction in our wake. We zipped past doors leading to what I assumed were bedrooms and sitting rooms and whatever else a magical mansion was supposed to have. The hallway curved sharply left. I spied a small white shape nearly escape through one of the doors at the end. I threw up a hand.
“No you don’t! Tenacti!”
I might have been a little strong on my pulling spell.
The door was wrenched off its hinges, throwing the figure back and slamming them against the opposite wall. I didn’t slow. No way was I letting it get away. With the Society here, there was no room to screw up. If we didn’t get the Cursed One now, we’d lost.
With a sweep of my hand I blew plaster-laced air aside, kicking the remnants of the door away with my foot, stepping forward with Valkyrie raised. This was it. I had to do it. Had to stop the Cursed One once and for all, had to end it before Kasia could—
I froze, mouth open in shock. Time seemed to pause, granting me this brief moment to take in what I was seeing. Whatever I’d expected, whatever I’d assumed the Cursed One might have been, it wasn’t this.
It was a little girl—no more than eight—clothed in a white dress, golden locks of shoulder-length hair cascading around her head like a halo, my sword reflected in her wide eyes as I prepared to swing it down and kill her.