He wasn’t telling me to contain my gifts, not anymore. Vox had changed and so had I.
But he was telling me to be smart about it.
Cracks radiated out from each heavy footfall as I embraced my element. “Don’t worry,” I said through gritted teeth. “There’s plenty where this came from.” When I finally had a target for my fist, I’d revel in breaking every bone in the culprit’s body.
Because someone had to be behind all of this. Plagues didn’t just happen. No, there was someone pulling the strings, and my instincts told me that puppet master was after my Claire.
Exos paused when we reached Elana’s mansion. It didn’t surprise me that this was where he sensed Claire’s spirit, but it did confirm what we were all already thinking.
Dark vines guarded the entrance, a maze of twisted earth magic that stood in our way.
“Well, that’s new,” Exos mused.
I didn’t share his amusement.
“Get out of our way,” I commanded, storming through the earthy blockade. Vines snapped beneath my command, the earth rumbling in favor of its approaching master—me.Some of the plants retaliated, pinching me with familiar energy as if all my people were here, protecting Elana as their queen.
Why?
The magic and energy were wrong here. I sensed a well of power beneath the ground—a lot of it.
Vox and Exos followed on my heels.
“She’s here,” Exos said, certainty underlining his tone.
But I didn’t need him to tell me that.
Because I felt her, too. Imprisoned underground. Scared, but not alone.
There.
I knelt, intending to rip out the ground with my power, when pain spiked up and down my spine. Claire’s ethereal screams echoed up through the layers of earth and hit me straight in the chest. The ground began to quiver and quake, forming jagged cracks and spikes of harsh rock.
“Get back!” I roared just as the columns of Elana’s manor splintered and the floor gave way. Vox swept us all out into the safety of the forest with a blast of wind just as the walls of her home came down.
“Claire!” we shouted as one.
But none of us could be heard over the roar of energy and power swirling up into the clouds.
The manor… was gone.
Chapter27
Claire
Several Minutes Earlier
“Well, this presents a slight problem,” Elana mused, glancing at my corpse of a mother. “You just had to reach out, didn’t you?”
“What is this place?” I demanded, whirling around and flinching as more of that slime on the floor touched my shoe. Well, sort of, anyway. I wasn’t exactly corporeal, but even in spirit form, I definitelyfeltmy surroundings.
Like my mother’s icy fingers grasping my arm. “Go, Claire,” she urged. “Go!”
But I couldn’t.
I didn’t even know how I got here, let alone how to leave. So I focused on Elana instead and repeated my question with a haughty arch of my eyebrow.
It earned me a chuckle from the bitch on the other side of the bars. “You think to command me, child? That’s adorable. You couldn’t even summon a spirit properly.” She tsked. “Oh, Claire. I had such high hopes for you. What will I do now?”
