Chapter 28

28

EVANGELINE

G abriel only had Morgana pinned for a handful of seconds, but the crashing darkness that tried to push through our connection had been overwhelming. It was enough to pull me out of my shock, though, and I held that darkness back, pouring every ounce of strength and light into him that I could spare.

I refused to let Morgana take Gabriel from me. He had to live, there was simply no other option. But magical connection or no, there was only so much I could do. I let my energy flow to him, hoping with a fierce desperation that it would be enough to guide him back, but I knew he would have to fight his way free himself.

I could see Gabriel's eyes clear when he managed it. He stared down at Morgana in revulsion and dread, eyes wide, before he came to his senses and moved away from her as quickly as if touching her burned him.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

He looked pale and shaken, but there were no physical injuries. But then, there wouldn't have been, would there? Not if she had done something to his mind.

"I am now," he said, voice unsteady. "You saved me, Evangeline. Your light. I knew what to move away from, but you gave me something to move toward." He looked a little dazed, and I wasn't completely following what he meant, but I was so glad to hear his voice again that I beamed at him.

But I couldn't lose focus. There was a grunt at our feet, and then a high, pained whine. Something was very wrong with Morgana. She was snarling blindly up at nothing, fighting against the air, and it seemed like she didn't even realize that Gabriel and I were standing above her.

"What's happening to her?" I whispered.

"My father's getting his revenge," Gabriel said grimly. "And as her defenses are getting weaker…"

Morgana's shape spasmed, growing and shrinking faster than my eyes could follow. For a flash, she had a large, scaly tail, then antlers, then too many arms. The buzz of the magic in the air became stronger and stronger, more cacophonous. What had been one signature when we got here was now dozens, maybe hundreds, all piled up on top of each other.

"They're fighting back," I realized. "Everyone she's stolen from… they're all fighting back."

Morgana's pale face twitched and snarled as she stared sightlessly around her, white eyes rolling in their sockets. She looked furious, but also like a cornered animal. She was outnumbered in her own body.

I hadn't put much thought into how defeating her might feel. It had seemed so far-off, so optimistic to think about. I probably wouldn't have expected it to feel like this.

One of the first paranormal private investigator jobs I had taken on my own had involved hunting down a rogue werewolf who'd started making trouble for a couple of local farmers. I'd done all my research, prepared as best I could, and grabbed more silver and wolfsbane than I could carry. When I'd followed the tracks from the latest in a line of destroyed chicken coops, I hadn't found a werewolf. I'd found a rabid coyote.

It had been far gone by then, weak and twitching, with thick, white froth bubbling out of its mouth. We'd gotten coyotes in the suburbs where I'd grown up sometimes—pale, leggy shapes of the wilderness sneaking into our sleepy neighborhoods. The animal in front of me had been panicked and thin. It wouldn't have lasted long, even without me being hired for the job. Putting it down had been a mercy. I'd had to remind myself of that for a long time afterward.

Now, Morgana lay spasming on the floor in a frenzy of fur and teeth and feathers, so much smaller than she used to be. The huge cavern dwarfed her. It felt… I struggled to find the word, but then it dawned on me. It felt cruel to make her stay like this. I took a deep breath.

"Give me the wand," I said.

Wordlessly, Gabriel drew it from its protective bag and handed it to me. It was so light I barely noticed it—lighter than the wood should have been. It wanted me to use it, I could tell, and on any other day that might've scared me. I adjusted my grip and raised the wand.

"Wait," Gabriel said, putting a hand on my forearm. "Let me help." He stepped closer and slid his hand down to mine, our fingers tangling together around the handle. No, not the handle, I decided. Handles were for tools. This was a weapon, and we were holding it by the hilt.

"Together," I said. I didn't have to face this alone.

"Together," he agreed.

Morgana had spent her whole existence taking from people, and now they were taking from her. For such a long time, I'd been so afraid to take, I refused to accept what people offered me. Thankfully, Gabriel was stubborn. With his chest to my back, his spirit linked to mine, and our hands fitting together, we raised the wand.

With our combined strength, it barely took anything to activate it. The wand was hungry and eager, and as soon as it was pointed at Morgana, it began to siphon her power. She moaned and screamed with too many voices, twisting on the floor as the wand fed.

I'd thought the wand would try to eat my magic, too, but it didn't feel like that. I felt woozy at first, then achingly hungry. It wasn't drawing from me like I'd thought Morgana might. It wasn't even drawing from me the way Gabriel had. It was doing it the way a ravenous, bestial vampire would, trying to gorge itself on my vitality, not my magic. The wand was draining me. Clearly, it didn't care about keeping me alive.

But Gabriel was there with me, holding me tightly. "Nobody can convert magic into life force more efficiently than a vampire," he said. "It's all right. Let the wand keep pulling from you. I'll keep taking what you give me. I'll keep changing it and giving it back. I've got you, Evangeline."

Gritting my teeth, I kept going, tightening my grip around the wand and Gabriel's fingers. The wand fed on us faster than Gabriel refueled me, but not by much. It would be a close race to the finish.

Morgana's spasms became more erratic, but she changed more slowly now. It was somehow worse to look at. Where the transformations used to be instant, now they happened like a time-lapse video of a plant growing. The human body, even one shaped by magic, wasn't meant to grow bones over the course of seconds. Her back arched up off the obsidian floor as she warped and twisted.

The wand was getting heavy in my grip. I was panting now, my arm trembling.

"We're close," I gritted out, and I felt Gabriel press even closer against my back.

"I can feel it," he said. "Let me take the weight. Focus on the magic, and I'll do the rest." He wrapped his free arm around my waist, encouraging me to lean back against him, and his fingers flexed around the hilt.

I nodded, and he took up more of the wand's weight. It was a relief to let my arm slacken, and I knew if it weren't for Gabriel I wouldn't have kept my grip on the weapon.

Morgana's shapes started to dwindle. At the start there had been more creatures than I could name—things I had only seen in books and things I had never seen at all. Now, as the wand drew them out of her, the forms got simpler. A shape trapped halfway between human and wolf. A gray-haired humanoid form with dappled black spots, wrapped in sealskin. The snapping teeth and claws some of the more ancient vampires had.

Finally, just as I could feel my reserves starting to well and truly get low, Morgana stopped spasming. For the span of a heartbeat, I thought she was dead, but then she jolted into a sitting position, chest heaving. She looked up at us, wide-eyed.

"What have you done?" Her voice was ragged from screaming, but there was still a hint of that unnerving lilting musicality she'd once had. It was even more jarring now. "What have you done?"

I didn't reply, just stared down at her. She had changed. Her eyes weren't those perfect, uncannily white orbs anymore, now just regular eyes in an unremarkable shade of blue. She was still as pale as a frog's belly, but her veins didn't look like they were only separated from the world by a layer of frosted glass anymore. Her beauty seemed human now, not the sort of thing that could only come from the hands of a very talented sculptor.

She pressed her hands to her face, touching her nose, her cheeks, her lips, her jaw. A few of her long, sharp nails had broken off at the tips, and her knuckles were bloody from her flailing against the floor. She stared up at me through her fingers and let out an awful, barking laugh. "So many years," she murmured. "All that magic. Undone so quickly."

With stilted movements that spoke of pain, she turned her face to the floor. The obsidian was dark and smooth enough that her reflection stared back up at her.

Witches were long-lived, even without insane rituals. The magic kept the body going. Now, without her magic, the years were catching up to Morgana. It started with crow's feet, then frown lines around the mouth, and creases on her forehead. Silver streaked her hair. She laughed again, touching her reflection's face.

"Well, well," she said in her wrecked voice. "I look just like my mother."

The first few decades had washed over her in a matter of seconds, but it was going faster now. A lot of other years were piled up in line waiting for their turn, and they were impatient after such a long wait. Before our eyes, Morgana twisted up and withered. The time she'd held off was coming back brutally quickly. I blinked, and she went from a very old woman to something that looked like a bog body. I blinked again, and she was dust. The wand, still gripped tightly in my hand, shuddered and sighed. Its job was done.

And so was mine. I felt woozy again. The world tilted on its axis. I had just enough time to turn to Gabriel and say, "I think I'm going to need you to catch me."

Then everything went dark.

I woke up in fresh air and to a very blue sky. For a moment, I watched the clouds scuttling along way up in the distance.

A familiar face popped into view, upside-down, and blocking out the sky. Blue eyes went wide behind the face's scratched glasses.

"She's awake!" Marcus called, and I winced. "Sorry, sorry," he said at a more reasonable volume. "Oh, Gabriel is going to be beside himself. He's been by your side the whole time, and the first moment he gets pried away, you wake up." He chuckled, shaking his head. "Classic."

There was the clattering of someone running on loose stone, and Gabriel came into view, relief and worry fighting a pitched battle across his face. He folded himself down to sit next to me, helping me into a sitting position when I grabbed at his arm.

"Evangeline," he said, like my name was the best set of sounds that had ever existed. "You're awake. How are you feeling, love?"

I reached up to touch his face. My hand was a little clumsy, but I felt better once I had my fingers pressed to the line of his jaw. "Sore," I said honestly. "Tired. I haven't burnt myself out like that since I was still an apprentice."

Gabriel was patting me down for injuries, which I would've been willing to bet good money he'd already done at least twice.

"Hey, hey," I said soothingly, catching his hand. "I'm okay, I promise. I'm glad you were there with me or I would've been done for. Ow! Ow! Vampire strength!"

"Sorry," he said sheepishly, loosening his death grip on my hand and helping me to my feet. "I was… I was worried."

I kissed him, and he kissed back sweetly as I leaned against him. It would've been romantic if it wasn't mostly to keep me from falling over.

"Thank you," I whispered. "I couldn't have done this without you."

"I will always be here for you," he told me. "No matter what."

Our lips met again, and I lost myself in the kiss. Then I remembered everything that had happened, everything that still needed to be done. Reluctantly, I pulled away.

"Where's…?" I started, and before I could finish the sentence, Gabriel held up the wand. The stone set into its pommel had gone the same milky-white Morgana's eyes had been.

Marcus watched me carefully. I knew exactly what he was thinking. An artifact like this could be used for damn near anything now it was so full of magic. The person who held it would be unstoppable, all-powerful, with that much power.

I took the wand in both hands and snapped it in half.

The magic surged out of it in a torrent. What came out wasn't light, but it gave the impression of it, like the pink-orange of the sun against closed eyelids. Hundreds of colors, all surging and swirling together as they burst out of the artifact. They spiraled up into the sky, wild and beautiful, a kaleidoscope of different magical signatures. An intense golden cluster of magic floated down to me, and I welcomed it back. It settled into my chest, and I felt energy flow back into me. Then, one by one, the pieces of magic began to spread out, drifting lazily at first, but picking up speed as they went. High up on the mountaintop, we watched as the magic went back to its rightful places.

Soon, there was only one piece of the magic left. It was a huge, bright white thing, coldly brilliant. Morgana's. It drifted aimlessly.

"What's going to happen to it?" I asked Marcus.

"It will dissipate." He shrugged. "Her magic will become wild and join back with the wild magic that flows around all of us. Part of something greater until it is called upon again."

The globe was already getting fainter, a little fuzzy around the edges. Soon, it would be impossible to spot where its barriers had been at all.

"Not everything Morgana left behind will be so straightforward to deal with," Gabriel said. "There were the people who followed her, but we don't know how many of them were there of their own free will. Trying to untangle the willing participants from those who were blackmailed or brainwashed into it will be a complicated mess."

I sighed, dragging a hand through my curls. "And the prisoners. Some of them have probably been in cells for so long, the world they were used to is totally gone. Tracking them down will be tricky, not to mention getting them up to speed and helping them figure out how to set up new lives."

"And the hideouts to track down, artifacts to neutralize, records to dig through…" Marcus added. "I suspect we're going to have a lot on our hands for some time."

"Those are problems for tomorrow," I decided. Right now, I couldn't care about any of that. "Is Damien…?" My voice caught.

Gabriel took my hand and led me along the mountain slope, glaring at any uneven stones as though that would make them smooth out under my feet. "He's here," he said softly.

"Oh," I said quietly as we drew to a stop. Someone—I didn't ask who—had gotten Damien's body out of Morgana's lair while I was passed out and laid it out on the sun-bleached rock of the mountaintop. In life, Damien had always kept himself under control, shifting his body language and posture so people would see what they expected to see. It had been a constant, careful performance. Seeing his body so slack and limp on the stone seemed wrong. I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat. The stake had been removed, and someone had draped a cloth over his chest, so the wound was hidden. His eyes were still open. Gingerly, I closed them and sat down next to him.

Gabriel gave me some space, moving a little distance away. He wasn't ready to let me out of his sight after what had happened. He sent a warm brush of comfort through the bond, and I sent back reassurance. I was going to be upset but the kind of upset that you had to let yourself feel. He understood.

I cleared my throat, looking down the mountain at the landscape below. I could see Eldoria in the distance, and the mountain where my birth parents had lived.

"I'm still not sure if I liked you," I found myself saying. "I know that's a horrible thing to say about a dead man. Especially one who sacrificed himself for something so important. But… I don't know. I didn't know who you were. I'm not sure you even knew who you were. I just have facts, and they're not great facts. You were a liar and a torturer. You spent a decade kissing a bigot's ass to get closer to revenge. You justified a hell of a lot of stuff. I don't know if you were a good person. You weren't a good brother, but it seems like you were a really fucking good son.

"I think I'm jealous of you. Like, really, extremely jealous, eat you up inside jealous. You got to know them. My birth parents—our parents, I guess. They were part of your life for way longer than they were part of mine. I mean, I don't even remember them. It's this weird nebulous thing, and I've never felt like I was the right amount of upset about it." I scrubbed a hand through my hair.

"You got to love them," I said. "And I think that's harder to get over than you torturing me. I wish… I wish we could have argued about it. I wish I'd gotten to hear more of your stories about our parents. And I wish you could've had a softer life. That you could've found something other than revenge. And I'm glad you reminded me that there's more out there as long as I'm willing to let myself have it."

I let that sit in the air for a long moment. A hawk wheeled through the sky above the forest, and I watched it swoop around, dodging the streaks of magic floating back toward the city. I hadn't been overstating things; I'd always felt like I was bad at grief somehow. Like I was doing it wrong. There was no manual for any of it, especially not for this. I watched the birds as, around me, the people who'd become part of my life started to pick up the pieces. I could sit with this for now. I could let someone else deal with the lair, the guards, and everything else.

Later, there would be a grave dug next to the remains of a burned-down home. When I moved the soil with my magic, the magic my birth parents had given me would be part of it. They would be part of it. There would be a signet ring marked with a crescent moon and polished to a shine from decades of being worn, tracked down in one of the now-empty prisons and buried with the body.

For now, there was a clear, sunny day. Gabriel curled a question into my mind, not in words, but in a mixture of feelings and impressions I realized meant that he was asking if I wanted company. I sent back a reply that roughly meant yes please, but I might cry on you. Through our bond, I felt wry amusement, affection, and adoration. It was enough to get a smile out of me, although it was definitely on the small and watery side.

Gabriel sat next to me, and I leaned against him. When I rested my cheek on his shoulder, he pressed a kiss to my hair, then settled his head against mine and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. Together, we watched the clouds of freed magic drift back to where they belonged.