Chapter Twenty-Two

Horror permeated every cell of my being. At first, I didn't believe it. This had to be some sort of misunderstanding. I thought at any moment I'd hear the cry of my baby from across the house, but no matter how many people surrounded me, the house felt entirely empty.

I wanted to believe someone had gotten past our ward borders and taken them, but I knew our wards were strong. We'd brought Autumn past our borders, but she hadn't left Lucas's sight since she got here. My intuition told me Autumn had nothing to do with this—that her presence had merely distracted us, giving someone else the perfect opportunity to strike.

Mandy had betrayed us again.

I thought about the Executors that had come the night the twins were born. The priestesses had been planning this all along. Mandy must've been working with them and told them I was in labor, then took our son to break us.

"Where have they gone!?" I cried, as if someone might have the answer. "Where has she taken him!?"

Talia pushed past Lucas and grabbed my shoulders. "We're going to find him. I promise. Let me see what I can learn."

She withdrew the Seer Wand and clutched it tightly as she slowly walked around the room, touching various objects to trigger visions. She closed her eyes and tilted her head. "My visions are blurry. I don't know what I'm looking at. It's like something's blocking me."

"How's that possible?" Onyx asked. "You have the Seer Wand. It should be stronger than any ward or protection spell."

"I'm not sure," Talia said. "Give me more time."

My sadness quickly turned to anger, and I slammed Marcus's blanket onto the mattress beside me. "I can't believe this! We took Mandy in. We gave her a second chance. I believed that she never meant to hurt us, but she's been working with the priestesses the whole time! How could my intuition be so wrong?"

"We don't know that she meant to do this," Grant tried to assure me. "If the priestesses are manipulating her?—"

"I don't give a shit what the priestesses have over her. I would never give up an infant for anything!" I yelled.

Miles looked confused. "I don't get how Talia didn't see this, or that the Wands couldn't read her mind and see her intentions."

"We didn't have a reason to suspect her, so we didn't know to look into it," Chloe said. "The priestesses tortured her. We never imagined she'd still be on their side."

I pressed my face into my hands as tears streamed down my cheeks. "I hate myself for putting my trust in her again."

"Nad," Lucas said gently. "This isn't your fault. She took advantage of your good intentions. We're not going to let anyone hurt Marcus. We'll find out where she's taken him, and then we're going after him."

I wiped my nose with the back of my hand. "Good intentions be damned. Our choices led to this, despite having the best intentions, and the outcome was still terrible. Good intentions aren"t enough. Is it worth making choices at all and continuing to fight?"

"You're right," Lucas agreed. "It's not enough to be good people. All we can do is the best we can, and right now, our best means going after our son."

"You do realize it's a trap," Verla pointed out.

Autumn scoffed. "Of course it's a trap. The priestesses took your son to lure you in."

"We still have to go after him," Lucas insisted. "What are the priestesses going to do to us? We have four Oaken Wands. We're more powerful than they'll ever be."

"I'm certain that's precisely what they're after," Verla said. "They're going to want a trade."

"What point are you trying to make?" Lucas growled. "I don't give a damn about these Oaken Wands if my son's life is at stake! I've already lost one son. I'm not losing another."

"I'm merely stating the truth, so that you know what you're getting yourself into," Verla said calmly.

Lucas's hands curled into fists. "I've already walked through hell and back for these Wands. You think I wouldn't do the same for my son? I don't give a flying fuck what the priestesses want. We're getting him back, even if we have to exchange the Wands for him."

"How's it coming, Talia?" Professor Warren asked.

Talia furrowed her brow in concentration. "I can't seem to get a clear vision on Mandy, but maybe if I focus on Marcus, I'll get something."

Several moments passed, and then she gasped. "I see it! Marcus is being taken to the priestesses at Octavia Hall."

Lucas went over to the dresser and pulled out his reaper robe. It was made of black fabric with images of a skull embroidered along the hem—the mark of the Mortana Cast. When he put the robe on, it was scary how deadly he looked, and yet every part of me wanted to march into Octavia Falls at his side. The hood loosely framed his face, and the ends of the sleeves were tattered so that they swayed like a warning of death when he walked.

"If you don't want to fight, you can stay behind, but I'm going after my son," Lucas told the others. So much for not going in guns-blazing. The priestesses hadn't given us a choice.

I stood and took his hand in mine. The tears dried quickly as stone-cold resolve came over me. "I'm right there alongside you."

Autumn stepped forward. "As am I."

The others chimed in with agreement.

"Then let's get moving." Lucas lifted his hands, and a massive portal bloomed in front of us, big enough to fit all ten of us. The cats stayed behind to guard the house. Our sanctuary had been compromised, and we needed them to hold the wards so we had a safe house to come back to.

Lucas didn't bother with secrecy or the element of surprise. He portaled us straight onto Main Street and out in the open. He was so furious he wanted the priestesses to know we were coming for them.

The dark streets of Octavia Falls loomed in front of us, and Octavia Hall rose above the trees. Hundreds of Executors in dark uniforms stood in front of the doors to the council's headquarter building. Every soldier the priestesses had at their disposal must've been standing in the street waiting for us. They wore cocky grins, as if they thought they were strong enough to stop us. They'd been planning this.

Heat flared in my bones as pure rage overcame me. These bitches thought they could take my son? They had no idea what my friends and I were capable of.

"They're here!" an Executor shouted. "Kill them all, except the Curse Breaker! She's the only one they need!"

Lucas immediately threw up a shield. Magic slammed into it from all angles, and I could feel the edges of it cracking.

"Together!" I shouted.

The others let their magic pour into me, and I combined it with Lucas's. The shield grew stronger, until the hundreds of spells raining down on us simply bounced off. We marched down the street until we were face-to-face with over a hundred Executors.

Sheriff Baker stood at the front of the group, smirking like he'd find joy in watching us die. My stomach twisted at the sight of him. He'd been the one to arrest Professor Daniels over a year and a half ago, and she'd later been hanged. He'd dragged Professor Wykoff out of school after she wrote a letter to the editor at the Miriamic Messenger. He'd been vicious to the students whenever he was at the college, and he forced searches of our stashes. He'd arrested Lucas before our trial, and cruelly followed any orders the priestesses gave him. He'd been nothing but horrible to my friends and me since I became a priestess. He'd wanted to get rid of me then, and it was clear by the glimmer in his eye that he hoped to see my demise tonight.

Wasn't going to happen.

Lucas's reaper robes billowed in the wind. "I'll give you one chance to step aside. If you don't, you will die."

The Executors didn't even blink. For a brief moment, I felt my feet leave the ground, as if a Mentalist was trying to lift me with their telekinesis.

Beside me, Chloe's Wand glowed brighter as she siphoned their magic for her own. Talia and Grant stepped up beside her, and Lucas withdrew his Wand. Tendrils of magic swirled through the Oaken Wands, rendering the Executors powerless. Executors began looking around at one another in confusion when they realized their magic was no longer working. Whispers accusing the Waning spread through the crowd.

"What are you going to do?" Sheriff Baker mocked. "You're just a bunch of stupid kids with big guns. And ours are bigger."

Dozens of Executors withdrew pistols. I recognized them for what they were and knew they weren't typical guns. They were filled with noxite tranquilizer darts. Those darts were laced with the same type of metal the town's jail cells were made of. Lucas and I had been locked behind noxite bars before our trial, and our powers had been rendered useless. If one of those darts hit one of my friends, their magic would be drained by the noxite's power. They'd lose access to the Oaken Wands' magic.

"You don't have the guts to kill us," Sheriff Baker sneered. "We're going to break down your weak-ass shield, and then you and your little friends can enjoy a one-way ticket to the Abyss."

Baker lifted his hands, and with a quick flick of his wrist, the Executors raced forward, surrounding us at all angles. They dragged a heavy metal chain with them, and I could feel it draining our powers as it surrounded us at all angles. It was a noxite chain, and they were trying to box us in. It wasn't something that could keep us contained, but all it had to do was drain our powers for a moment to drop our shields. The Executors aimed to fire the darts.

But they never had the chance. Before the chain circle closed around us, Lucas blasted our shield outward. Executors went flying, and the chain dropped to the ground.

Lucas chuckled darkly. He lifted his hands, and small portals began opening up beneath the Executors' feet. One after another, Executors fell through the portals. I caught sight of gothic peaks surrounded by maple trees. He only portaled them to the other side of town, but their screams cut off completely when the portals closed behind them.

It was a warning—and it was clear by the way Lucas's lips curled back that it was the last warning they were going to get.

Rage marred Sheriff Baker's features. "Go to hell!"

Lucas smirked. "Been there. Survived that. Now give me back my son!"

I felt the moment Lucas snapped, because magic surged through him so strongly that it changed the air around us. Wind began swirling in the opposite direction, and dark clouds rushed in to drown out the stars. Lightning cracked overhead. Witches couldn't control the weather, but the power surging through the air was enough to shift its course.

Lucas lifted the Mortana Wand, and I was shocked to see bony fingers appear beneath the sleeve of his robe. The hood of the robes fell back, and I saw that the skin had disappeared from his face, leaving behind only a skull with dark, empty eye sockets.

He was summoning all his power and had become a living reaper.

Sheriff Baker's eyes widened in horror. He whirled around and disappeared into the crowd before Lucas could attack him.

Several Executors scurried backward, but Lucas aimed his magic at them. A dark fog whipped through the crowd. I witnessed the moment Lucas yanked the Executors' souls from their bodies, because their spirit left a brief ethereal imprint in the air, before fading away completely. Dozens of bodies slumped to the ground all at once, then crumbled to dust under the power of the Mortana Wand.

Lucas pulled his hands together, and a darkness swelled upward. He took control of the Death energy that came from the corpses, transforming it to his will. Executors began to flee, but Lucas twisted his hands, aiming the dark cloud at the scattering men. The magic pierced straight through their chests all at once, and dozens more Executors fell. Their bodies withered away to nothing, until they were mere piles of dust on the pavement.

Lucas had spared those Executors' souls, and they would be escorted to the afterlife by other reapers, but there was no reprieve for them here on Earth. Death swept through them all until over a hundred Executors' bodies were reduced to nothing but powder. It all happened so fast that none of us even had a chance to cast a spell of our own.

I expected Lucas to slow down. There was so much death, so much carnage. He must've been hearing their thoughts all at once, overlapping one another. But Lucas stepped forward confidently, as if the voices were nothing more than whispers in the background.

Several men lunged for him to stop him, but he merely conjured his scythe and swung it at them. He sliced six men in half in a matter of moments. Blood pooled across the pavement and began trickling down the street. Screams of terror echoed throughout the town.

I should have felt something sickly when I witnessed all those people die, but all I felt was the satisfaction of revenge. I felt no mercy for these people who had stolen our son and were terrorizing an infant. They deserved death.

Lucas released his scythe, and it began flying down the street as if it had a mind of its own. It chased down the few surviving Executors who were fleeing, then swung at them. They were dead in moments.

Sheriff Baker was the last man standing. He sprinted away from the approaching scythe, shooting terrified glances over his shoulder. He tried to shoot magic behind himself, but nothing worked. Sheriff Baker tripped, landing flat on his face. He quickly rolled over and held his hands up in front of himself, like he was trying to conjure a shield.

"Please, no!" he screamed. "It's the priestesses you want?—"

His words halted on his tongue as the scythe sliced through the air, lopping his head off in a single swing. His bloody body slumped to the ground, and his head rolled several feet away.

Eerie silence filled the air. Lucas had single-handedly killed them all—hundreds of them. Dust scattered the street, along with the remains of broken noxite pistols. Only ten bloody bodies killed by the scythe remained.

Lucas's scythe flew back into his hand, and he subconjured it. He bent over, bracing his hands against his knees. I could hear his labored breathing from several paces away.

Slowly, I approached him and placed my hand on his back. "Lucas…?"

He stood upright and turned to me. The skeleton-like reaper I'd seen only moments ago was gone. He looked like himself again, though his features were ashen.

"Are you going to be okay?" I asked.

He let out a heavy breath. "I'm a bit worn, but I'll make it. Let's keep moving."

We stepped over unmoving bodies as we raced up the stairs to the entrance of Octavia Hall. I threw open the doors—and stopped dead in my tracks.

Ghostly moans filled the foyer, and dozens of ethereal forms floated inches off the ground, staring back at us. At first, I thought they were the spirits of the Executors Lucas had just killed, but they wore all different types of clothing. There wasn't an Executor uniform in sight.

Before any of us could react, the ghosts surrounded us, flying at us from all angles. Hands materialized into solid form and began attacking us. An icy cold finger curled around my ankle and yanked my feet out from under me. I fell to the floor with a heavy crash.

Blood pulsed in my ears. I quickly went to kick the ghost off of me, only I hesitated when my gaze met a familiar face.

It was Scott, Meredith's husband. We'd seen him at the Festival of Chosen when we'd snuck into town. The priestesses had forced him to stand on stage and disavow his marriage. It struck me that he'd done as the priestesses had asked, and he had still died for it.

"How are they doing this!?" Chloe screamed. "We shouldn't be able to see them, let alone feel them."

"I don't know!" Miles kicked one of the ghosts off of him. "Something about their magic doesn't feel right. They don't feel like ordinary ghosts!"

Another hand came down on me, but I grabbed it before it could reach my face. I felt into its magic and was surprised to feel a high frequency buzz. The taste of citrus filled my mouth. It was all too familiar.

Then I caught sight of Scott's brother, Simon, who the priestesses had poisoned on stage in front of us. It made perfect sense.

"It's Alchemy magic!" I told them. "These are the victims of the priestesses' poison. They were manufacturing it with the Alchemy Wand before Hector died. He told us it was designed to control their victims, even in death!"

Professor Warren rolled across the ground as he dodged a ghostly attack. "So they don't have a choice but to attack us? They're just following orders."

"Grant!" Lucas cried. "Use the Alchemy Wand to free them! We'll do it together."

Lucas ducked a fist as a ghost tried to attack him. He quickly made his way over to Grant, who was trying to fight off three ghosts, but his hands just kept going through them. They could touch us, but we couldn't touch them. The ghosts tried to pull the Alchemy Wand from Grant's grasp, but he struggled against them, refusing to let go.

The end of the Wand began to glow as it siphoned the Alchemy magic from them. A loud snap reverberated through the foyer when he broke the spell. The ghosts backed off.

Lucas whirled around, as if he could see something the rest of us couldn't. "Go!" he shouted to the ghosts. "Quickly!"

The ghosts rushed in the direction he was looking, then one by one, they faded away. I realized then what he'd been seeing. It was a reaper portal. He'd crossed them over the moment the hold the priestesses had over the ghosts had ended.

Lucas looked even paler now. I could tell this much magic was taking a toll on him. Even though he had the Mortana Wand now, he hadn't utilized it for every spell. He'd been drawing on his own magic this whole time, too. It was a lot of power for one person.

I quickly got to my feet. "Come on! Let's keep moving."

We hurried up several flights of stairs, keeping on high alert for another attack by the priestesses, but it never came. We reached the top floor and burst through the door to the Imperium headquarters, only to come face to face not with the priestesses, but with Mandy.

She raced around the room, gathering valuable artifacts that the priestesses had on display. One by one, she subconjured them, until she came to an immediate halt when we charged through the doorway.

The nerve she had! She'd been working with the priestesses this whole time and took our son for them. Now she was robbing them? It was like she was trying to get herself killed. If we didn't kill her, the priestesses would. It was so unlike her that I could hardly believe what I was seeing.

Mandy didn't get a chance to open her mouth and defend herself, because Lucas had crossed the room in an instant. He grabbed her with all his strength and slammed her back against the wall. One of his hands curled around her throat, while the other pointed the Mortana Wand straight between her eyes.

Mandy kicked her feet and tried to fight him off, but Lucas was a hell of a lot stronger than her. A blazing fire burned behind Lucas's eyes, and it was clear to everyone that if Mandy made one wrong move, he wouldn't hesitate to kill her.

"You kidnapped our son, you evil bitch!" Lucas seethed. "Where are the priestesses? Where have they taken him!?"

Mandy made a choking sound. Lucas loosened his grip on her throat, but he pinned his forearm across her chest so she couldn't get away. Mandy turned her face away from him without a word.

"ANSWER ME!" Lucas roared. He curled the Mortana Wand in his fist and smashed his knuckles into the wall beside her head. The wall cracked, and the sound echoed down the staircase. Mandy said nothing.

"Don't want to talk? Fine. We don't need you to talk." Lucas cocked his head. "Chloe, Talia, use teleinsight on her. Read her mind."

The girls lifted their Wands in unison, and the ends glowed. They spoke the incantation and entered a trace.

Chloe's brow furrowed. "We can't. It's like something's blocking us."

I narrowed my eyes on the traitor. "The Wands have power over all witch magic. There has to be a power greater than the Oaken Wands working on her. Or something the Wands can't influence."

I approached her, and tendrils of blue magic swirled out of my fingers.

"Don't you fucking touch me!" Mandy growled.

My powers crept over her skin. I felt nothing at first, not even an indication of her Cast, until my magic brushed up against something strange. It was similar to witch magic, but different, too. It vibrated at another frequency, a frequency far too reminiscent of our time in Malovia. It was dark, though—darker than any magic we'd encountered when we visited the fae.

It had to be Unseelie magic, the magic of the dark fae. My eyes fell upon the red gem hanging around her neck. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that was the object giving off the power. It hadn't ever registered as strange, because Mandy was always wearing jewelry.

"Fucking fae magic!" I sneered. I grabbed the fae amulet and tore it off of her, then tossed it aside. "I see you made a deal with the fae as well as the priestesses."

Mandy chuckled lightly. "I didn't have to make a deal with any fae. I found an Unseelie roaming Octavia Falls, trying to get away from the fae war. He wore this amulet to disguise his magic from being detected easily. One sip of tea was all it took to kill him."

Heat flared through my body. Mandy had never been a killer, so why was she speaking of murder so casually?

"Why would you ever work with the priestesses after what they did to you?" I demanded.

Mandy didn't answer.

"You can answer willingly, or we'll make you talk," I started, but it was at that moment that my magic sensed something else. Now that Mandy was no longer in possession of the fae amulet, I could feel her magic again.

Only… it wasn't hers.

I took a cautious step back. "I sense Alchemy magic. Mandy's a Mentalist. Which means…"

"This isn't Mandy," Lucas finished for me. His eyes went wide. "All this time, Mandy was never with us to begin with. It was an Alchemist with one hell of a transformation potion."

Lucas dug the tip of his Wand under Fake Mandy's jaw. "Tell us everything."

"Why? So you can just kill me?" the Alchemist said in Mandy's voice. "You're not going to let me go now that you know."

"Doesn't mean I can't get answers from you first," Lucas said darkly.

He cocked his head, and Chloe stepped forward with the Mentalist Wand raised. Lucas dropped his arm. Fake Mandy rose into the air, her back pressed firmly against the wall. Chloe used her telekinesis to pin her there, until her toes dangled off the ground.

"Who are you, really?" Chloe demanded, the end of her Wand glowing brighter than ever before. Now that the fae amulet wasn't blocking their magic, Talia and Chloe could use teleinsight to get inside Fake Mandy's head. Only this time, their spell was stronger, because they used their power to force Fake Mandy to utter her own confession.

She had no choice but to answer in a rasping voice, "Magnus Knight."

My heart should've stopped in my chest. I should've felt the world tilt on its axis and experienced it all come crumbling down. Instead, all I could think was that it made perfect sense.

If there was anyone in this coven as bad as the priestesses, it was this man. He was the Alchemist behind nightshade, the one who'd been working with Priestess Stella to try to obtain the Alchemy Wand from the Crock of Death. He'd killed so many innocent people to do it. The priestesses had discarded him after he'd failed, but clearly they'd found another use for him.

I recalled the last time we'd seen Magnus. He had been throwing up behind a dumpster in an alleyway. It was no surprise that he'd made some kind of deal with the priestesses.

I couldn't believe we'd let this man into our home! For months, he lived alongside us, attended our Yule celebration and baby shower, only for him to do the unthinkable and take our son when our guard was down.

It was all coming together. We'd gotten into Octavia Falls so easily the night we rescued Mandy and Tate. We'd written it off as a result of the Festival of Chosen, but all this time, the priestesses had actually wanted us to rescue them, so that they had a man on the inside. The only other option the priestesses had was to set the girls free, but by that point, Tate had already been captured, and they knew we'd come for her regardless. If they let Tate and Mandy escape, we'd have suspected something for sure.

The priestesses only came for us later that night when we'd broken into the school. They'd wanted us to rescue the girls, but they hadn't intended for us to find the Oaken Wands.

"Where's the real Mandy?" Lucas growled.

Magnus laughed in Mandy's voice. "In a holding cell somewhere."

His apathy for one of my friends' lives made me want to snap his neck. Tendrils of magic twisted out of my fingertips again, curling around Magnus's throat.

"Don't kill him yet," Lucas warned.

"I'm not going to kill him," I said. "I want to look into his real eyes before he dies."

The Alchemy magic pulsing through his veins was strong. I sensed traces of fae magic mixed in with the potion he'd taken to disguise himself as Mandy. The priestesses had obviously supplied him with rare herbs to keep up the charade. I curled my magic tightly around his, and I felt the spell snap.

His limbs elongated, and his hair shortened. The softness of his jaw morphed into sharper features, until it was not an image of Mandy hanging in front of us, but Magnus.

"We should've known it was you!" Chloe growled. "We read your mind at Yule. We should've been able to tell you were deceiving us."

"The amulet disguises me under all circumstances," Magnus sneered. "Even your little party trick couldn't expose me. All I had to do was come up with something you'd believe, so you didn't keep digging. I did my homework before I infiltrated your little safe house. I knew Mandy was close with that Amy girl who burned on the pyre. Every time I mentioned her, you all backed down."

I thought of the morning of Yule—how he had mentioned her when I'd come into his room for help with my gift. He'd said Amy had taught him the tea we'd made for Talia, but that wasn't true. Magnus knew the spell because he was an experienced Alchemist. I should've known something was up when he pretended as if Mandy had lost all her jewelry-making supplies when she left Octavia Falls. She wouldn't have let all that leave her stash.

"The amulet is why I struggled to gather intel on the priestesses," Talia realized. "Because you were involved, but my visions couldn't see past the fae spell."

Magnus gave a chilling laugh. "Of course. Not even the power of a Seer could expose me."

"You've been here all this time, haven't you?" I demanded. "You've been posing as Mandy since the night we found you in Lilian's basement last November."

Magnus strained against the wall, but he was weak compared to the Mentalist Wand. "Yes."

"This never should have happened," Onyx insisted. "How did he trick our wards?"

"He didn't have to," Professor Warren said hollowly. "We invited him in and led him through."

Lucas's face turned red in rage as he stared down Magnus. "What was your objective? Why hang around so fucking long?"

"The priestesses made me a deal," Magnus replied. "If I infiltrated your safe house and brought back the Oaken Wands, they would restore me to my former glory—get my businesses back up and running and put me in a position of power within the coven once again. I was meant to bide my time until you found all the Wands, then take them all, and return them to the priestesses."

"Then why bother taking a child?" Verla snapped.

"Priorities shifted," Magnus said. "When I found out the Curse Breaker was pregnant with demigods, I consulted with the priestesses."

He couldn't even bother to say my name—as if I was that unimportant. Ironic, since I was apparently central to his plans.

"That's where you disappeared to during the baby shower," I realized. "You weren't upstairs organizing our presents! You ran off to tell the priestesses what you learned."

"Yes, though I would've left sooner if I didn't have to keep up god-awful appearances," Magnus stated snidely. "I still can't believe I had to attend one second of your stupid puzzle party."

"What did the priestesses tell you to do?" I questioned.

"They told me to forget about the Oaken Wands… that a demigod child was more powerful than all the Oaken Wands combined. The priestesses intended to use you to cast a powerful spell, though they didn't tell me what it was. The poison was meant to remain dormant inside of you, until that spell was cast. Then once you performed the spell, the poison would take effect, and you would die instantly."

I scoffed. "Well, you screwed that up."

"How was I to know there was ginger in the iced tea?" Magnus demanded. "It changed the chemical make-up of my potion and turned it into something else. The poison took effect immediately, though the altered properties weren't enough to kill you."

"So my ginger didn't poison Nadine," Grant realized, sounding relieved. "You did! My ginger actually prevented her from dying."

"What about the sugar scrub you made me for Yule, or the tea we made for Talia?" I demanded. "Were those poisoned, too?"

"The tea we made was safe," Magnus scoffed. "It was merely a way to gain your trust. The sugar scrub was my own recipe. Each time you used it, it collected data that was sent back to the priestesses, in order to monitor your vitals and track your pregnancy."

Talia furrowed her brow. "But if you were working for the priestesses this whole time, why were they sending Executors to attack the safe house?"

"They didn't come to attack you," Magnus spat. "They came to exchange information. After you killed the first group of messengers, they sent groups of Executors to the next ridge to throw you off, to lure you into a false sense of security—as if your stupid plans would ever work. They knew you were watching them."

"You're the reason the Executors knew to come the night the babies were born," I realized. "You told them I was in labor."

"Of course," Magnus sneered. "But I knew the babies wouldn't be able to make it on their own if they were born that early. I told the priestesses to hold off, that we had to be strategic, but they didn't listen. They came that night to take the children. After your friends killed off the Executors, I convinced them we had to wait until the time was right, and to give me more time to obtain the child that survived."

"What are the priestesses planning now?" Lucas asked.

"A trap, of course," Magnus said. "I was to take the child to lure you here."

"For what?" I demanded. "That Executor outside said they needed me—a Curse Breaker. If they already have Marcus, what do they need me for? You were planning to kill me, anyway. Why bother keeping me alive now?"

Magnus curled his lips back. "They don't tell me everything. I simply follow orders."

"Well, we're here," Lucas said. "Where are the priestesses?"

Magnus let out a chilling laugh. "Oh, they're here… waiting for the rest of you to die. Do us all a favor and cork off so we can finally get this over with?—"

A loud snap filled the room, and Magnus's head cranked so far in one direction that it looked like it was on backward. His body slumped to the floor lifelessly.

Slowly, we all turned to Chloe. "What?" she asked innocently. "He told us everything we needed to know. I was sick of listening to him talk. Always hated him, to be honest."

Lucas took one last look at Magnus, then turned away. "The priestesses must still be nearby with Marcus. Let's go find them."

Lucas hurried out the door and down the stairs.

"Wait, we need a plan—" Verla started as she followed behind him, but a distant sound gave her pause.

"Is that… someone screaming?" I stopped on the steps to listen again.

"Help!" a woman cried.

My stomach plummeted. I knew that voice far too well.

It was the real Mandy.