“Fine.”
“Shouldn’t we take it with us? We can’t leave it for someone else to find. It’s too powerful.” Leena frowned at the gem.
Raven laughed. “We’re not going to leave the book.” Unlike when she’d resurrected Gabriel, there was no soul left in Tavyss’s heart. The dragon had moved on to wherever dragons went after they died. The only thing in this golden jewel was the book, and she knew how to get it out.
She drew her wand again, waved it in the air in the shape of the symbol that appeared in her head. A triangle glowed to life, hovered over the treasure, and released rays of golden light that rained down on the heart. The tomb became as bright as day.
Leena stumbled back into the wall, pressing herself against the stone.
Crack.The yellow diamond split in two. Treasure scattered across the room. A book as large as her torso appeared in front of her with a cover of solid gold etched with the image of a peacock.
“Goddess save us all,” Leena cried. “My skin is buzzing. I can feel the power all the way over here.”
“This is pure celestial magic. I’ve never experienced anything like it. No wonder Hera wants it back.” Raven tucked her wand away and lifted the book into her arms. “Let’s go.”
She didn’t have to ask Leena twice. The elf bounded up the stairs and out of the dragon’s mouth. Raven smiled at her sisters as she emerged into the sun with the book on her hip. Avery and Clarissa approached her excitedly, Charlie reaching for her. She shifted the book into one arm and accepted her daughter in the other.
“I found the spell we need,” Raven said to them. “I know how to stop Eleanor.”
But Avery’s face fell, her eyes scanning Raven from head to toe. “What’s happening?”
Raven did feel strange, like every cell in her body tingled with static electricity. Clarissa opened her mouth and sang a defensive note, but whatever it was meant to do, it didn’t work. Raven felt herself fading.
Charlie! She tried to throw her toward Avery, but the babe was bound to her. She couldn’t even move her arms as they both faded away. Just before Raven vanished, she witnessed Leena leaping into the air. The elf collided with her, wrapping arms and legs around her and Charlie. Then a wave of blackness swallowed them all. The next thing she knew, all three of them toppled out of the darkness and onto an obsidian floor.
Raven landed on her stomach. The book flew from her arms, as did Charlie, who wailed as she was thrown across the room. Beside her, Leena landed facedown, her limbs splayed.
“The strength of a magical contract truly is amazing,” a familiar voice rang out above her.
Raven tore her eyes away from Charlie and tried to force breath back into her lungs. On her hands and knees, she let her line of sight follow leather boots to black lace tights, then the handkerchief hem of a dark skirt, and finally, a red bustier. Above it all, Crimson Vanderholt stared down at her with a wicked smile, her matted blond curls swinging with each smug shake of her head. “I’m calling in our bargain, Raven. That baby is mine.”
Colin flewto the tomb when he heard Avery and Clarissa scream. Gabriel, Nathaniel, and Xavier arrived behind him to total chaos. Clarissa’s voice was reverberating around them, a living thing that swept his sides and seemed to dig into the earth itself.
“They’re gone!” Avery yelled, her sword in hand. She circled, pointing its sharp tip at the air around her.
“Who’s gone?” Colin looked into the gaping mouth of the dragon. Surely Raven, Charlie, and Leena would emerge at any moment.
Clarissa stopped singing, her eyes wild with panic. “Nothing is here. No one is here,” she babbled.
Gabriel swept into the sculpture’s mouth and emerged as panicked as Clarissa. “Her scent ends here, but she’s gone.”
For the first time, Colin engaged his own senses, a chill icing his blood when he caught Leena’s fading sent. “What happened?”
Avery sheathed her sword, her gaze finding the safety of Xavier’s before she answered. “Raven found the book. She came out with the golden grimoire in her arms. As soon as I handed her the baby, she started to… to fade. It was like she was fading out of existence. And then Leena…”
“What happened to Leena?” Colin’s voice dropped two octaves, his dragon raging inside him.
“She leaped onto Raven. Wrapped her arms and legs around her and the baby,” Clarissa said. “I think Leena was trying to stop it, but whatever took Raven took her with it.”
Colin’s wings punched out, his blood surging in his veins. His gaze darted around the sculpture. “Nathaniel, what type of magic is responsible for this? Are they invisible or gone?”
Nathaniel packed a new bit of tobacco and fired it up. He inhaled deeply and blew a puff of purple smoke over the area in front of the sculpture. Colors flashed, and then symbols Colin didn’t know formed in the air. “Gone,” Nathaniel said. “This reeks of Mother and her blood magic. My smoke is picking up her unique signature but also something else, something…odd.”
“What do you see, Nathaniel?” Gabriel growled, ready to come out of his skin.
Nathaniel looked toward Gabriel. “It’s voodoo.”
Colin’s stomach turned as Gabriel stopped breathing and collapsed to his knees. The pain he was feeling from Leena’s loss must be a shadow of Gabriel’s pain. A mate and a child—no wonder his brother looked like someone was peeling his scales off his body one by one.
