Chapter 26

26

EVANGELINE

M arcus's car puttered up the narrow road, climbing higher and higher up the mountain that hid Morgana. I was practically vibrating with nervous energy, and it was starting to rub off on Gabriel. He took my hand in his, squeezing it tightly before raising it to his lips to brush a kiss against my knuckles.

"We can pull this off, right?" I asked.

Gabriel sent a pulse of comfort and warmth through our bond, although he couldn't hide his own nervousness. "We're facing her together. I like those odds." He hesitated, then added, "I'm scared, too, but there's nobody I'd rather have by my side."

That coaxed a smile out of me. "I love you." I wouldn't let myself think that I might not get a chance to say those words to him again.

"I love you, too," he replied. "More than words can say."

The trees lining the road gave way to tiny, scrubby things, all twisted up by the wind. The closer we got, the slower we moved. The area was layered with wards and alarm spells, so we kept having to pull the car to a stop to pick them apart. Eventually, the road became an even narrower dirt path, and we had to proceed on foot.

From below, it had looked like the mountain was flat at the top, as if someone had sliced off the peak. From here, though, we could see what it actually was. The mountain was a dormant volcano, and we were just below its lip. The center of the mountain's peak dipped down into a basin, maybe half a mile across. We made sure to stay hidden just below the lip of the caldera, peeking up just enough so we could see what we were getting ourselves into.

A maze of hexagonal basalt columns rose up from the ground of that dip, creating a self-contained alien landscape. Pools of jarringly bright turquoise water wafted with steam. Gabriel and I exchanged a nervous look. The whole place hummed with so much magic that, even from this distance, it was a physical force that tingled unpleasantly over my skin.

"She put an impressive number of spells on this place," Marcus said, chewing at the inside of his cheek. "And with those columns, we'll have practically no visibility."

"So, we're going in blind," Theo grumbled. "Wonderful."

"I hate to leave you all, but I think this is my stop," Xarek said with a cheerfulness that could only be fake. The rest of us were dressed for a fight, and he looked comically out of place in his jeans and flannel. He hadn't bothered with armor—it would be as useful to his dragon form as pants to a mermaid. He rolled his shoulders and popped his neck, then shook out his arms. "I'll see you all on the other side."

"You'll be careful, won't you?" Marcus asked, trying and failing to make it sound like a jokingly stern command. Worry laced his every word.

"Careful as I can be," Xarek promised. He touched a hand to his own chest, and Marcus smiled.

Gabriel wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me into his side. We were all thinking the same things: Am I about to lose someone I love? Are we going to be able to walk away from this? My eyes stung, and Gabriel's looked suspiciously wet. I pressed myself closer against him.

When I turned my attention back to Marcus and Xander, they were kissing, and I glanced away, both to give them some privacy, and because seeing Marcus engaging in such an intimate moment felt like seeing a teacher at the grocery store for the first time. Isabella was doing the same thing. I had to break the heavy tension in the air not just for them, but for all of us. We needed something to think about besides the possibility of catastrophic loss.

So, when I met Isabella's eyes, I mouthed, "Ooh, Marcus has a boyfriend " with as much silly, juvenile energy as I could.

She snorted and cracked a smile, and Gabriel chuckled.

"Fly safe," Damien told Xarek, clapping him on the back. "And don't be a hero, all right? There are people waiting for you to come home."

Xarek pulled him into a quick, firm hug—one which Damien was completely unprepared for. Then he walked to the edge of the peak overlooking a particularly steep slope of the mountain and stepped off. For a gut-lurching moment there was nothing. Then that reverse thunderclap, the sound of tearing silk, and the dragon rose up, his massive wings beating against the wind that buffeted the peak of the volcano.

Xarek wheeled through the air above the hollow of the mountain top, blotting out the sun. With a swoop to the other side of the ridge, he tore through what must have been a half dozen alarm spells, and below us, people started shouting. Doors that had been camouflaged between the gray stone columns swung open, and people of all shapes and species ran out, armed and ready to defend.

Xarek roared gleefully and swooped down lower, taunting Morgana's people as they started to swarm out of crevices in the rock.

The huge copper dragon took a massive inhale, scaled chest swelling. There was a chemical scent, then a clicking sound, and Xarek let out a blue-white gout of flame. The bellowed orders turned to screams as people caught fire. The rock columns provided too much cover for the blast to hit many people, but I counted seven engulfed in flame before I stopped trying to keep track. With another roar, Xarek wheeled through the air and set off down the mountain in the opposite direction of us.

Behind me, I heard Marcus let out a long breath. When I'd first started training to use my magic, he'd taught me to do that to refocus myself. Now, I could hear how shaky he sounded.

The people below ran after Xarek, scrambling up over the side of the caldera. A few stayed behind, scanning the area for anything suspicious, but after a few moments, quiet fell back over the network of paths between the stone columns.

Suddenly, every alarm spell started going off at once, and the shouting began again. Even more guards swarmed out, and this time, they all clambered up the side of the caldera, skidding away down the slopes to investigate the source of the disruption. They looked harried, and it was clear they'd had the order to go check shouted at them. Marcus smiled happily.

"That would be the fae," he said cheerfully. "I thought they might want to help if I framed it as them causing chaos. As it turns out, I was entirely correct."

"How many did you get to help you?" I asked. It hadn't even occurred to me to call on the fae. They were too fickle, too proud—the exact opposite of team players.

"Oh, all the powerful ones in Eldoria," Marcus said smugly. "It was simply a matter of suggesting that, well, this other fae had already agreed to help, and they would probably be so much more effective, so really, you shouldn't trouble yourself… They were all champing at the bit to prove they could do the most damage after that."

I could just picture it, fae tearing up the wards with glee and flinging soldiers down the mountainside.

"Nice work," I told him admiringly, and he flourished a joking bow.

We watched until all the guards had disappeared into the scrubby plants that covered the side of the slopes, then picked our way carefully down the side of the caldera. I followed the hum of magic, although I didn't have to. Someone dramatic enough to make their evil lair on an old volcano would clearly make the entrance in the very middle.

And there it was. A massive black door set into the pillars, layered with so many spells, it was hazy if you looked at it out of the corner of your eye.

"Shield spell," I said. "Just like we planned."

Marcus and Isabella fell into place on either side of the door, as far apart as they could manage with the columns. The shield they formed together rose up in a dome big enough to cover our battlefield. Isabella's magic looked like sturdy blue-black traceries, and Marcus's was a shifting kaleidoscope of color. Their magic combined created a stained-glass window out of lava lamps. The sunlight cast the flowing rainbow of colors down over all of us, a stark contrast with the angular gray stone surrounding us. If everything went according to plan—and that was a big if—then this would be where Morgana made her last stand, trapped inside this magical bubble with all of us.

I reached forward and tangled my hands into the thick, cobwebby layers of protection and warning spells on the door. Then I pulled, and they came apart in shreds. The magic of the wards spasmed and flailed. Their caster would not be able to ignore it.

The door flew open, and Morgana glided out of the darkness within. With the way her long, dark hair blended into her long, dark robe, it looked like a shadow had detached and the darkness inside was part of her. She cocked her perfect, pale face to the side.

"Evangeline Summers," she murmured. "And Gabriel De Montclair. Oh, and all of your little friends. What a pleasure."

I shuddered. I hadn't seen her since she'd tortured me, and my eye radiated with phantom pain as she sliced her nails through the air.

Later, I would wish I'd said something clever—something intimidating. I didn't. Instead, I threw a ball of fire at her.

Of course, it didn't hit Morgana. She sliced it out of the air with a precise blast of wind, and the flames hit the shield on either side of her, the magic rippling. Her lips curled into a smile, and in the next moment, she threw herself at me.

It wasn't a pretty fight. Even with all of us against her, we were barely holding our own. Every time one of the vampires was about to land a blow on her, she shifted and blurred into a different shape, suddenly far away from where their weapons were going to hit. She fought like it was a game, like we were so unthreatening to her that she might as well have fun with it. The air blurred as she flickered around it with inhuman grace and speed. I threw spell after spell at her, and even the ones that hit barely had any effect. I had my own magic, and the magic of two incredibly powerful witches.

She had the magic she'd stolen from uncountable creatures.

Gabriel was the only one who could come close to matching her in terms of speed. Once, he managed to grab her and slam her back against the ridge of one of the columns of stone, but then she blurred again, transforming into a snake that lunged at him with its fangs bared.

When I was a kid, my parents read me a story from a big, illustrated book of fairy tales from around the world. In the story, a witch's apprentice had done something to piss her off. When they'd fought, they'd done it as shapeshifters. No matter what the boy had turned into to run away, she'd had a form to counter him. He turned into a hare, so she turned into a hunting dog. He turned into a bird, so she turned into a bigger, nastier one. Fighting Morgana felt like that. Every time we managed to hurt her, she became something else.

I threw up defensive spell after defensive spell, trying to shield the vampires as Morgana lunged at them. As soon as I put them up, she tore through them. My saving grace was Gabriel in the back of my mind, keeping me calm while giving me constant updates on where everyone was. We could see the battle through two sets of eyes, process it with two brains. The vampires were starting to flag. Vic was getting slower, and Morgana had slashed a brutal wound into his shoulder, making it impossible for him to lift his dominant arm.

Theo fought like a wild thing, but they were angry, and it was showing. They rushed across the battlefield, war hammer raised high, just for Morgana to slip away from them again and again. This time, Morgana let them get a bare inch away before sprouting a huge pair of leathery wings and flying out of the way. She hung in the air, laughing, and when I threw a bolt of magic at her, she batted it away with ease. She deflected it straight toward Gabriel, and I shut it down moments before it could hit him in the chest. It had gotten way too close for comfort. My heart thundered, and I was almost dizzy with relief.

Damien ran up to me, streaked with sweat and ash from a fire spell gone astray. "This isn't working!"

"She's starting to get tired," I said. Her spell work was starting to get slower, but it wasn't happening nearly fast enough. The vampires would be exhausted long before she was.

Damien shook his head impatiently. "It's not enough. I have a plan, but I need your help."

"Of course," I said.

"The shield bubble doesn't go down into the ground, right?"

I shook my head.

"I didn't think so. Look, if you can destroy the ground under us and then cushion our falls, I can stun her long enough for you to use the wand." His eyes were wild, his grip on my shoulders hard.

I stared up at him, running through the spells in my head. "I can do that, but if her hideout's underneath us, it might give her the upper hand. You're sure this'll work?"

"I'm sure," Damien promised.

I hesitated, then shook my head. I couldn't believe I was about to do this. "Fuck it. I'm trusting you with this, Damien."

I reached my mind out to Gabriel's with a warning that the ground was about to collapse, and he shouted a few words to the other vampires in a language I didn't understand. If they reacted, I was too busy to pay attention. I was only vaguely aware of Gabriel and Damien moving to flank me, ready to defend me if needed. I built the spell, feeding power into it. A few days ago, the amount of power I fed into the spell would've exhausted me, but I had put my trust in Gabriel, in the ritual that had linked us together. His presence by my side was solid and comforting. He thought I could do this, and I had to hope he was right.

I slammed my hands down onto the stone below us, and lines of golden light darted away from me, finding the spaces between the columns until even the flat ground beneath us was covered in the hexagonal lines of gold. Then I heaved, and the ground beneath our feet disappeared.

I plummeted into the darkness of Morgana's lair, with Damien on one side of me and Gabriel on the other. The others had gotten clear, then. Good. Right now, the fewer of us falling, the fewer I would have to catch. Far above, I could make out the sound of her laughter, but it was faint with the wind whistling in my ears. I reached for my magic, but I'd miscalculated how much strength it would take to tear apart the ground. I was tapped out, and my reservoir of magic was refilling slower than I'd hoped. One second, two seconds, three, with the ground below getting closer and closer and the air rushing past us, and then I finally, finally had enough energy to slam down a cushion of air beneath all of us in the nick of time. Our descent slowed, and we landed gently on our feet.

We were in a massive obsidian cave. The slick, black rock had an oily gleam in the lights Morgana had set up. They illuminated what looked like some sort of laboratory, with rows of magical and medical devices lining the walls, and tables with built-in restraints dotting the space. I took it in distantly, too focused on the small, black shape of Morgana far up above us, still trapped in that glimmering, stained-glass dome. The only way for her to go was down.

"I expected this to be more of a challenge." Her voice echoed down the cavern, bouncing off the stone, growing louder and more distorted until it sounded like it was coming from all around us. "It took more work to kill your parents, and all they had was a shack in the woods!"

Damien's hand landed on my shoulder, and I startled. He gave me a gentle, sad smile, and tugged me into a hug. It felt off, somehow, and it wasn't until he'd pulled away and stepped into the center of the room that I realized why. I'd expected the muffled clonk of breastplate against breastplate, but Damien had taken his off. It lay abandoned on the ground.

Then I saw the polished wooden spike of the vampire dagger in his hand.

The world slowed and tunneled as the pieces fell into place. I didn't have time to call out. Didn't have time to stop him. With agonizing clarity, I watched Damien raise the stake and plunge it into his chest. Far up above us, Morgana's wings flickered in and out of existence as the man she'd stolen them from began to die.

Damien slumped to his knees, face turned upward. Morgana let out a scream of rage and pain as she fell, plummeting faster and faster, streaking down toward the cavern floor like a comet. She slammed into the obsidian surface with a sickening crunch.

Damien Sterling—Damien Argent—had had a short, brutal life—one built on revenge and the lies it took for him to reach it. Later, I would hope that it brought him comfort to be with his sister as he took his last breath.

But when Damien died, his eyes weren't on me. They were on the crumpled body of the woman who had murdered his parents. He looked down at Morgana's mangled form and smiled, blood trickling from his mouth.

Damien Argent, the vampire who'd tortured me, who'd helped me escape, who had been my brother in a time I couldn't remember, fell to the floor and did not get up again.