The recoil from the magic the phantom stole bounced me backward into the thick, cold mud. My injured wrist smashed into the ground, and the pain rocked through me. My mind spun. Twinkling stars covered my vision. I would never reach Rayhan. I pinched my eyes and waited for Ella’s victory.
Silence.
I blinked as the sharpness cleared to a dull throb. I rolled over. Several yards away, Ella and Rayhan were frozen, the blue-gold whip still tight around his throat.
I staggered to my feet. They didn’t move. I forced myself the rest of the way forward, and neither of them glanced at me. Even their chests remained immobile. I waved my hand in front of Rayhan’s face. Nothing.
“They can’t move. You froze time.” A soft, feminine voice said from behind. I jumped, and a blanket of familiarity settled over me, thick and warm. I knew that voice.
“Mother?” I spun around. I didn’t dare hope it was really her. We’d buried her body in the local cemetery. The funeral had filled the entire field with grateful patients, paying their last respects. But I had to look. I had to know.
The phantom stood with the smoldering house behind its darkened frame. It was a demonic image, similar to the mess I’d created when Rayhan tried to teach me to paint. As I watched, the ghostly shape twisted and turned. Its waist pinched, and the barrel chest rounded into a feminine outline. Its fingers slimmed, and a wisp of a haunted dress clothed the figure. Her face shifted until the swirling depths became recognizable.
My mother, a gray-black shell of her former self, smiled at me.
“Mother?” I asked again.
“Who else would it be?”
A stabbing ache chewed through my chest. I swallowed a sob, but an ugly sound escaped.
“It can’t be you,” I whispered. “You died.”
“It is me, Nat.” Her voice brushed over me like a warm bath on a winter’s night. I longed to feel her arms around me, but I didn’t dare take one step closer. The phantom had haunted me for years. This was just a new trick.
“It’s not.” The loss felt fresh, a scab torn from a wound. My mother had died. I would lose Penelope, my father, and Rayhan tonight. Death, when it came for me, would be welcomed. “This is another lie. Unfreeze everyone and let this night finally end.”
“I can’t, Natalie.”
My knees gave out from emotional turmoil and physical exhaustion, and I sank into the mud. Water seeped through the delicate layers of my dress, but I barely felt it. I barely felt anything at all.
“Of course you can’t.” Despair colored my words. “You can’t do anything I want you to. You killed the thief who tried to rob us, but you couldn’t heal Father. You invaded Rayhan’s memories but couldn’t find Manveer’s murderer. You’re useless.”
The phantom stepped toward me. My mother’s face that it wore remained impassive. Instinct urged me to my feet to scramble back, but I didn’t move. I was ready to defeat this demon once and for all.
She stopped five paces back. “Are you done complaining now?” She tilted her head and arched her brows.
“What?”
“I asked, Natalie, if you’re done complaining now.” She bent her wrist, as though looking at a timepiece. “If not, I can pencil you in more time.”
I heard those same words a thousand times before, usually after whining about healing lessons or mixing a complicated potion just right. It couldn’t be…
“Mother?”
“Did you forget my face after all these years?” she asked.
I jumped from the riverbank. The throbbing in my wrist and my protesting joints didn’t stop me from running to her. I stepped to the phantom, and she watched me with an amused expression.
I halted at the last minute. She was so close, she looked so real. I wanted to smell her scent of dried herbs and fresh paper, but there was only smoke. I lifted one hand to her cheek and brushed her skin. My fingers fell through empty air.
She grimaced. “Sorry, Nat. I’m not really here.”
I let my hand fall to my side and wished, more than anything, that she was here.
“What are you?” I looked behind me to Penelope’s still form. “Why are you doing this?”
“I’m not doing this, Nat. Dead witches can’t do magic. I taught you that.”
I fought the urge to roll my eyes, and a smile found my lips. I wanted Mother here to trigger a hundred eye rolls.
“Can you at least answer the first question?”
“I am me. I’m the piece of me you couldn’t leave behind.”
I shook my head. “I don’t get it.”
“A witch’s spell fades when the witch dies. It’s why the vamps bash our heads in, right? Witches can’t do spells if they don’t have a head.”
“That’s not funny, Mother.” The word felt foreign on my tongue.
“Of course it is. You sound like your father when you say that. I raised my girls with a sense of humor.” The dark chuckle looked wrong on her smoky lips. “When I died, the bonds were lifted from your magic. You were free.”
“No, my magic has always been trapped. I could feel the bonds, Mom. I could feel the remnant of your spell.”
“I know, but it wasn’t because of me. It was because you wouldn’t let me go.”
My brows pinched, and I shook my head again. “I tried to get rid of them a hundred times. I wanted to use my magic. I could feel the spell was still there.”
“It was only there because you wanted it to be.”
“But the phantom.” I gestured to her eternal form. “This controlled my magic.”
“I never did anything.” She reached for a strand of my hair, but her ghostly fingers had no substance. “This creature is the physical manifestation of my magic that you’ve kept trapped inside yourself. You called to me whenever you used your powers, and I was always there. I can’t leave you, Nat. I never will.”
“I’ve been binding my own magic?” I asked. Emotions twisted through me. Pain at killing the thief, at failing to heal my mother. Regret at the times when my magic could have helped someone. I looked at my own hands, speckled with blisters, burns, and mud. “I’ve killed people.”
“Yes, thank goodness.” My mother sighed. “Once that crook grabbed Penelope’s arm, I’ve never been happier to see someone die.”
“I thought he was going to kill us.”
“He was! You knew that as soon as you saw the knife. You did the right thing, Nat. You always do.”
“I did this too?” I gestured to the immobile people around us.
“You willed your magic to stop time. You’re very powerful.”
My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. “I don’t know how to use it.”
“You have a lot to learn, and I believe in you.” She turned and her hands lifted again, then fell to her side. I ached to touch her skin, to feel her one more time. “But you’re going to have to let me go.”
Fear blasted through me. “I can’t,” I said. “I just found you.” Tears bled over my cheeks. “I need you.”
“I’m gone, Nat. This part of me, the speck of magic you’ve been clinging to, it’s not alive. It’s holding you back.”
“I can’t lose you,” I said. “It’s my fault you died in the first place.”
“Oh, you sweet child. It’s not your fault I got caught in a vampire raid. Did you take up a broadsword and run it through my chest?”
“No, but—”
“There is no ‘but.’ You didn’t do it. Let it go.”
“You don’t understand!” Years of frustration and fear wound together and ignited inside me. My throat ached from screaming and crying, and my body was on the edge of collapse. “I can’t do it! I can’t control my magic and I can’t save people and I can’t lose you!”
My mother’s eyes sparkled with unshed tears. She turned from me and walked toward Father and Penelope. I wiped my cheeks and followed her.
“I miss him. I miss you all,” she said, and a hollow space lingered in her voice. “I only ever wanted to heal him, to give him the best life.”
“He had the best life. He loved you.”
“He had the best life because you girls were in it.”
Another eye roll smothered. “Thanks, Mother.”
“And this is the vampire.” She turned to look at Rayhan, trapped in Ella’s whips.
“It is.”
“He saw me a few times. Snippets here and there, through you. He’s very insightful. He has an artist’s vision.”
I recalled the hauntingly familiar image Rayhan had captured in his last painting. He’d seen the shadow form of my mother’s magic better than I had.
“The spell will work, you know,” Mother said. Her gaze had turned to the abandoned skull in the grass. “You can heal your father.”
“I would have to kill Rayhan.”
She nodded. “But would he have to stay dead?”
“That’s how death works.”
“Is it? I’m still here.”
“You’re only magic,” I said.
She kneeled in the short foliage strands beside Father. “You’re very strong, Nat. You couldn’t heal me, but maybe fate is giving you a second chance.”
Her phantom hands hovered over Father’s blank face.
“Time can’t stay frozen forever.” Mother’s voice turned soft. “Not even you are that powerful. It will start again whether or not you want it to. If you let me go, if you unlock the full potential of your powers, then you will have your magic when time begins again. You’d be undefeatable. You could save everyone.”
A hot jab of anger stabbed into me.
“I don’t know how to let you go.” My jaw ached as I clenched it.
She rose to her feet, and her wispy dress fluttered, despite the absence of a breeze. Her black hair, which had been blonde in her life, twirled and twisted around her shadowed face. She smiled at me, and it felt like sunshine on my skin.
“Natalie, I’m always with you.” She held out her hands, palms up, and I hovered mine above her. I could almost feel the heat from her body.
“Close your eyes,” she said. “Remember our lessons. Ground yourself in your senses.”
I didn’t want to miss a single moment of seeing her face, but years of lessons had ingrained a strict obedience. I pressed my lids closed and drew a deep breath until my rib cage expanded and my shoulders straightened.
“What do you smell?” Mother asked.
The fresh river water, layered with aquatic life, iron and minerals.
“What do you hear?”
Our frozen landscape remained hushed, but I could imagine the soft snort of the horses at the riverbank. The pops and crackles of the fire at my back.
“What do you taste? Feel?”
Rayhan’s flavor in my mouth, sweet and salty and so, so intoxicating. His fingers along my skin. The flames of desire in my core.
“Your mind is free, Nat. Now search for your magic, release the remnants of the binds that fear makes you cling to.”
I reached for my magic, and it greeted me, wrapped in the same thick chains that always bound it. I could feel my mother’s power caught in the tendrils, swirling through the spell. Mentally, I clutched at the cords and heaved.
They didn’t budge.
“It’s not working,” I ground out. The calmness from centering myself faded away.
“Relax.” Mother’s voice held a singsong rhythm. “Try again.”
I pressed my lips until my teeth pushed against the tender flesh. My wrist ached. My blistered skin was oozing. My knees wobbled from exhaustion. I wasn’t sure I had anything left to give, but I closed my eyes again.
In my mind, I wrapped both hands around the chains and dug my feet into the ground. I strained against my mother’s power, pulling until sweat covered my spine and my breath turned ragged. The bonds groaned and shook, but Mother’s spell remained secure.
I let the chains go, and they snapped back into place, firm and thick, locking my magic away forever.
The anger was long gone. I would never unleash my magic. I didn’t know how to let go of my mother’s spell, how to let go of my mother. Rayhan would die at Ella’s hands. Penelope, and my father, and then, me.
A shade of darkness eclipsed my eyes—not real darkness, but an imagined covering of hopelessness and depression.
A deep hue of forest green.
Below the dread and grief, a shard of memory pulled at me. A white canvas, covered in strokes of angry dark green, a landscape of bitterness. The memory overwhelmed me, enveloping the senses that grounded me, thrusting me back into that place.
The thick meadow grasses tickled the unmarred skin on my feet. The morning sun brushed streaks of gold across Rayhan’s fingers as he rescued the paintbrush from my destructive fingers. His rich scent washed around me, and I drew it in, thirsty for more.
“It’s about how it feels.” Rayhan’s breath trailed against the side of my neck.
My faulty memory twisted his words. I turned to see his face, which I hadn’t done that day in the meadow. His sharp nose was straight and narrow, and his eyes, which I’d expected to be glued to the canvas while he guided my hand over the fabric, stared down at me. Something wild and expansive twirled through the depths of his irises, promising forever and delivering much, much more.
How did I ever imagine it was the ocean trapped in his gaze? The rolling turquoise and blue orbs were an impossible expanse. There was no beginning or end. The universe stretched through them, and my reflection stared back.
“It’s like this, girl,” he whispered. He cradled my hand in his massive palm and reached out. The canvas faded away, the sunlight fled, and the prison where my magic dwelled extended in front of us. “Slow and precise.”
Together, we reached for the first chain. It was cold and solid. My grip tightened to clench the coil, but Rayhan pressed my palm against it until my fingers uncurled. He drew our hands down the metal, and the chain chimed a happy note.
We found the end of the tendril, where the magical clasps anchored to my psyche. We brushed across the grounded stake. The chain burst from its hold and fell away.
A sliver of fresh magic turned in my chest.
“See?” Rayhan’s voice held the heat of excitement. “You’re the one making it difficult.”
I nodded, too afraid that speaking would break the mirage.
Together, we painted away the chains around my magic. Each one that broke released a swell of power through me. The magic poured into my soul. More than I ever thought possible unleashed, and it threatened to drown me. It felt like a piece of myself, of my physical body, had been missing and was suddenly reattaching. My breaths came easier. My feet felt lighter.
We reached the last chain. It held down the final swell of my power, and the magic cried for freedom.
Rayhan halted behind me. He reached for the last bond, but our hands froze as though hitting an invisible wall.
“Sorry, Natalie.” The warmth of his body faded as he stepped away. “Looks like you have to do this one on your own.”
“No, I can’t.” I turned around, aching for Rayhan’s touch again, but he was gone. The meadow memory fled. It was just me, and the last chain binding my magic.
I reached for the restraint, but a cold twist of fear caught my hand. It froze, inches from the remaining clasp.
Maybe unleashing my magic wouldn’t change anything. Even with my powers, Rayhan could still die. We could all die, and it would be my fault. There would be no excuse, no final reason for my failure. I couldn’t blame the bindings or the phantom. Their deaths would be all my fault.
But doing nothing would be my fault too. I had to try.
I reached for the final binding, and the anchor slipped under my fingertips.
I fell.
The magic swept my feet away and poured into my soul. It filled and expanded my chest, stole the air in my lungs, and demanded more. It sank through my stomach and ran down my fingers and toes, but there still wasn’t enough room. The magic chewed through me, an odd mix of pain and, finally, wholeness. The excess power leaked into a cocoon of wild-caught magic.
The magic wrapped around my wrist, a tendril of wind across my skin. It fluttered through me, unhappy at our injury.
I could heal it.
The thought barely crossed my mind, and a bud of warmth erupted through my flesh. The distorted bone bent back, a rush of endorphins smothering any pain. Purple bruises faded.
The magic didn’t stop. I jerked at the power, but it brushed me aside as easily as a gnat buzzing near its head. It ran down my body, healed the blisters and burns in a heartbeat, and pushed out, stretching from me. It was hungry for more.
A rock of fear sunk into my gut. I didn’t have any control. The magic was too wild, too dangerous.
I tried to pull it back, but it was like lifting a boat onto a dry dock with my bare hands. Sweat broke across my forehead with the effort, and my shaking knees finally collapsed. I didn’t feel the ground meet my legs. The strain of fighting my magic stole all my concentration.
“Mother!” I screamed. My throat turned raw, and the words burned. “Help me!”
There was no reply. She was gone. I’d shed the last of her magic, and the phantom disappeared with it. I was alone, and my crazed magic was bloodthirsty.
The power flung around me, a broken compass searching for north. It rolled and curled in anger, looking for someone to hurt, someone to kill, and it wasn’t picky. Healing me had been like flicking water into an inferno. It only urged the power on.
The magic stretched until it brushed against Penelope. It ran along her skin and sang a joyful song only I heard. It touched Ella’s frozen whip, and the pain and anger roared back, turning my vision red.
The magic longed to be used. The only way to calm its rage was to spend it. I searched the scene for an outlet, anything that would dispose of the hot, bitter power.
Shining under the silver moon, dusted with hues of orange from our smoldering house, sat the ancient skull from the catacombs. My magic licked the bone and purred in contentment.
Maintaining control of my power made my head swim, but between the strained thoughts and physical exhaustion, the pieces clicked.
I knew what I had to do.
I forced myself to my feet. The mud sucked at my steps, and cold water seeped into my dress. I ignored the chill and the fatigue. I focused on Rayhan’s face.
The magic coiled over Ella, the way her whip had wrapped around Rayhan’s throat. It longed to kill her now, before time unfroze, before she had a chance to even see Death coming. I drew it back. My magic was too angry and unpredictable. It was too strong. Ella would die, but so would the rest of my family.
I closed my eyes. Strings of power stretched through the night. They crisscrossed each other and wrapped through the border of the clearing. Time settled around us, caught in the wisps of my power. I reached my hand out and could almost feel the soft tendrils.
I drew my magic away from the waves of time. It fought me, clinging like a stubborn child. I was merciless. I wrestled the power back into my soul.
Time snapped into place.
Rayhan’s blue face gasped at me beneath Ella’s whip. I strode toward them. Rayhan’s fist held his blade. I pushed my fingers beneath his and persuaded the knife from his locked muscles. The weapon was heavy and unfamiliar in my hand.
“Come to say goodbye, dear?” Ella hissed through clenched teeth. My magic flailed, a whirling tornado. My control stretched too thin to provide her a response.
I sliced the blade through her whip, and the coils fell away. She yelled, but I only saw Rayhan’s swaying form. I set one hand on his shoulder to steady him, and he clutched my forearms.
“Thank you.” The blue tint on his lips faded. His gaze shifted behind me. “Now let’s finish this.”
Yes. Once and for all.
I grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him toward me. Confusion creased his brows, and his mouth parted, but I didn’t wait for his words.
“Tuuma lux memum,” I said.
Bending down to match his kneeling height, I pressed my lips against his. He froze, then yielded. His head tilted, and he kissed me back. I took in his smell, his taste, the feeling of his heartbeat so close to mine.
I plunged the knife between his ribs.
Rayhan pulled away, his mouth open and gasping in disbelief. He leaned from me and studied the blade in his chest.
“Tuuma lux memum,” I said again, and twisted the weapon as hard as I could, until his ribs trapped the blade.
Rayhan sucked in a breath, but red blood poured from his mouth instead. He jerked and fell to his back. One hand reached out, and the face I loved most in the world judged me with hatred—and beneath that, sorrow.
He closed his eyes, and his chest stilled.
“You did it.” Ella sounded far away. “You killed him.”
A foreign magic rose from Rayhan’s body. Unlike the violent arms of my power, this was light and delicate. It spun around me, silent and invisible, but as real as a twisting wind.
I held my hand toward this strange power, and it reached for me with eagerness. It brushed over me, familiar and warm and intoxicating.
Rayhan’s life force—not a soul exactly, but the magic that every living being possesses. It was separate from the soul, but intertwined as they lived together. In death, this magic would escape immediately, as there was no more body or life to sustain it. But the spell I had chanted captured the power and bound it to me. It was mine now, to do with as I wished.
My magic was hungry. It stretched toward the death magic and wanted to consume it all. The red over my vision painted a picture of me devouring Rayhan’s life force, of the rush of power I would get.
There was a reason human sacrifice was illegal in spellwork. Once a witch caught a taste of the power of death, they always longed for more.
My magic ached to enact revenge in blood, but Rayhan’s death magic wrapped me in a blanket of calm. It slipped over my hand, wound up my arm, and settled around me in a firm embrace. I breathed it in, and under the smell of river water and mud was Rayhan.
“I have to let you go,” I told the magic. It didn’t understand me, but it responded to the tone of my voice.
I stepped toward my father, whose chest barely rose under his burned clothes. His own life force was thin and weak. I dropped to my knees and put both hands on his head. Carefully, fighting my own reluctance, I pushed Rayhan’s power into my father’s body. It was slow and hesitant, like squeezing honey through a vial.
Finally, my father absorbed the last of Rayhan’s magic. He shuddered once, then went still.
“Natalie.” Penelope’s wild eyes gazed across Rayhan’s body and our father between us. “What did you do?”
I wasn’t sure. Father gave no indication that the spell had worked, but gasps slipped between his bloodstained lips.
“I healed him.” At least, I think I did. I hoped I did.
“But you killed the vampire.” Penelope’s voice turned small, and tears swelled across her eyes. “You killed the man you cared for.”
My magic raged at the pain in her face. It tore at me, pulled against the thin constraints that barely restrained it. I jerked against its murderous desires, but it was too strong. Years of neglect and my lack of training made me too weak to control the magic. I yearned to pour it into Ella, but we were too close. Everyone else would be caught in the crossfire.
I held my hands out and looked at my palms, as though that’s where the power congregated.
“You want out?” I whispered, and the power swirled in anticipation. “Then get out.”
I poured the magic into Rayhan’s body. The vampire’s limbs jerked, and an eerie orange glow stretched across his skin. He lifted inches from the ground and convulsed. My power, overfull from years of unuse, eagerly filled his lifeless form, replacing the life force I’d stolen. My magic couldn’t heal my father, but it might bring Rayhan back from the dead.
A flash of movement. From the corner of my eye, Ella approached. I tried to turn, to switch my focus, but the magic refused to halt its process. Ella held one arm over her eyes as though protecting them against a strong wind. She struggled with each step, then her movements halted. She reached out, and her palms flattened against an invisible wall. My magic made sure she couldn’t reach us.
Ella’s mouth opened in a silent scream. She pulled a dagger from her dress and flung the weapon through the air.
My magic was a black hole. It expected her move and greedily sucked the blade up. It evaporated into a thousand glittering shards before it neared us.
The power roared.
I tried to pull the power back, but it was too strong. My control was gone. It snapped to Ella and gnawed on her skin. She screamed, a long, piercing noise like an animal pleading for its life. The magic had no mercy. Her flesh dissolved into red powder, painting the ground a rusty shade. The metallic scent of blood billowed around us. Her bones fell apart and turned to ash before they hit the grass. Where Ella had been was just mist and memory.
The magic continued to pour from me, and I couldn’t stop it. It dumped into Rayhan and filled him with the entirety of my power. As it drained, my body reminded me I was tired and achy. My limbs grew heavy. I sagged forward onto my hands and knees.
Maybe my mother was wrong. Maybe reviving Rayhan would drain all my power and we’d both be dead.
The red over my vision faded. Hues of blue and green pushed and pulled like ocean currents, rinsing the pain and fear. My steady heartbeat turned to a dancing drum, balancing in rhythm with the washing waters. As the magic flowed, I welcomed the quiet and the calm. Maybe this was death, or maybe it was freedom.
The current stopped. The ocean disappeared. I was on my stomach in the mud, struggling to persuade oxygen into my lungs.
“Natalie!” Penelope ran to my side, her golden curls knotted with sweat and soot. She brushed her hands across my body with a healer’s precision. “Are you hurt?”
I tried to shake my head, but I was too tired. I sagged to the ground. My eyes drifted closed. It was over. I could rest now.
A glass bulb fell from the sky and settled between me and Penelope.
I stared at the round container. My mind recognized it but couldn’t quite place the pieces together.
A flame danced in the bottom of the bulb, and a clear liquid ignited.
An aerosol poison.
“Hold your breath!” I yelled at Penelope. She turned to me, her mouth slightly open, then she leaned forward and coughed. “Go away! Get out of here!”
Penelope scrambled to her feet and staggered. She headed for the river and threw up in the grass.
My father and Rayhan were trapped. As the smoke spread, my father began shaking. His throat tried to cough as the poison air filled his lungs. There wasn’t much time until it would be too late to save him, and I wouldn’t be able to use the skull’s spell and bring Rayhan back from the dead again.
My limbs screamed as I scrambled up. My body weighed a million pounds and was anchored to the bottom of the sea. The fire and the effort of using my magic had drained me. I staggered to my feet, and my ankles rolled as though trying to stand during an earthquake.
I grabbed the orb, and the smoke leaked toward my face. I held my breath, but the poison burned my eyes. Its slight weight was too much for my weak grasp, and my arms threatened to drop the glass bulb. I didn’t have the energy to throw it far enough where the mist wouldn’t reach us.
I forced my feet to take a step. They listened, slow and reluctant, but they moved. I took one step and another. My vision blurred, either from the poison or the tears that trailed down my cheeks. I paused for a moment to look back, and I had traveled enough for the poison to stop reaching my father. I just needed to set the bulb down and walk away.
My legs collapsed. I fell face first into the grass, and the bulb rolled from my hand. It settled inches from me, and the smoke billowed over my face. My lungs burned. I couldn’t hold my breath much longer.
An edge of calmness blanketed over me. The poison smoke would kill me. That’s okay. My sister was alive. Rayhan was alive. My father might be healed.
It was a good time to die.
I let the air from my chest and drew in the bitter scent of the poisoned air. I couldn’t even feel its effects through my overworked body. Darkness curled at the edge of my vision, and I welcomed it. I needed the rest.
Footsteps echoed through the dimness. A hand reached down and plucked the bulb from the ground.
“How about I get this out of the way?” It sounded like Maverick, but I couldn’t see her face. There was a splashing sound from the river, and warm hands flipped me to my back. She patted my cheek. “You’ll be okay. I’ll go check on the others. Looks like Rayhan’s made quite the mess. What else is new, huh?”
She stepped away, and Rayhan’s surprised voice chimed behind me. He must have woken up. I did it. I brought him back from the dead. I waited for the relief, but exhaustion was too strong.
“Mom! What are you doing here?”
“Prison break, I suppose.” Maverick’s voice faded as she walked farther from me. “Also, I found this in the woods.” There was a thumping noise, and a man shouted.
“Wilson,” Rayhan said. I wanted to look, but my body refused.
“Please, please, I didn’t do anything.” Wilson’s words trembled. “I wasn’t involved in this. My mom, Hayleigh, they’re both crazy.”
“Then why’d you throw the poison smoke bomb at those nice folk over there?” Maverick asked. There was a sharp crack, and I suspected she had slapped Wilson. “Yeah, I saw you throw it. Oh, look. Now he’s running away.”
“Mom.”
“What?”
“Go stop him!”
“Oh fine. But then we have some things to discuss. Primarily, what you’re going to tell Kadence to keep me out of the dungeons.”
Grass crunched as her steps grew farther away.
A face appeared through the fog. Rayhan kneeled beside me. “You killed me.” There was a growl in his voice.
I tried to say, “I’m sorry,” but only a hiss escaped.
He kept talking, but my hearing faded. The poison cleared from my head with each deep breath. I gave into the exhaustion I’d been fighting. The grass felt nice and cool, a good place for a nap.
“What’s going on?” I thought I heard my father’s voice from somewhere in the land of consciousness, which I was no longer a part of. “Who are all you people?”