“Okay,” I murmur, taking up position beside Koda and my wolves, facing the trees but taking frequent glances at the cage. “It’s our job to keep the angels away. The moment Malia breaks Jareth’s prison, I have no doubt the full weight of the angels’ wrath will descend on us.”
Within the cage, Jareth considers Malia with glee instead of concern. “You may free me, weakling witch, but you will not stop me from killing your family. Nothing can constrain my rage.”
He gnashes his teeth and presses to the inside of the cage, dragging his claws across the glass as he tracks Malia’s footsteps to the edge of the dark canopy hanging over us.
She steps beyond it and there’s an instant flare of light around her, as if the power of the earth she stands on leaped into her. I suspect she didn’t even call it. The light within her seems to be a magnet for the energy in this world.
Jareth’s smile only grows.
A look of concentration settles across Malia’s face and the glimmer of light around her fingertips grows brighter. It seems to flow both from within her and from the air around her as she draws more and more of it to her hands.
I gasp as the power that gathers around her builds to the point where I can’t look at it anymore. It’s as immense as the power she harnessed to create the shield around me that protected me from Esta’s power—but this time, Roman’s runes aren’t supporting her.
She’s doing it all on her own.
The surface of the glass cage shimmers, and its outer layer starts to flow like liquid, up and down and around in swirls.
Far from appearing concerned, Jareth grins in apparent anticipation, his focus following the course of the swirling liquid.
“Free me, witch,” he snarls, pressing his palm against the glass now as if he’s testing its strength. “So that I may cut my teeth on your bones.”
There’s a pause as the power around Malia brightens.
Then, suddenly, another flare sparks within the cage—a single flame burning above Jareth’s head.
He swipes his big fist through it, but immediately pulls his hand away as though the flame burned him.
“Witch!” he snaps, sounding a little less certain now. “I will gouge out your eyes and fill my belly with your flesh.”
Malia ignores him, closing her eyes and bowing her head.
I hold my breath when her hands rise and the flame within the cage grows brighter, sending out tendrils in every direction. Glowing strings. High above Jareth’s head, the threads begin to weave together like a web, each string moving in time with Malia’s fingertips as she builds the net above him, rapidly weaving a mesh of light that extends across the entire width of the cage as far as I can see.
“Do you hear me, witch?” Jareth screams. “I will rip you apart!”
Malia’s eyes open. No longer dark brown, but glowing and white. “I hear you, demon.”
Her fingertips sharpen as she slowly releases her wolf’s claws, each one shining with light. Her teeth sharpen. Her golden-brown skin is luminescent. A true witch-wolf.
One of a kind. Like Adriel said.
“You should pray I don’t tear you apart first,” she says.
She drops her hands.
The net falls and Jareth has nowhere to escape from it.
He slashes at the web as it falls around him, but it merely clings to his upraised hands, molding to the shape of his arms and head, over his face and down his chest and legs, settling in bright lines across his blood-red, leathery skin.
With a scream of rage, he tears at his own skin, trying to claw off the magic. The fine rows of light rejoin after every cut and the weight of the light seems to drive him downward until he’s resting on his knees, his back hunched. Continuing to rage against the magic, tearing at his own arms with his teeth, Jareth falls to the floor of his cage. He thrashes there while Malia remains as still as stone, her hands and eyes glowing brightly.
“Be still,” she commands him, drawing her hands together so that the web tightens completely, becoming skintight around every visible part of Jareth’s body. He raises his watering eyes and gives Malia a final, weak snarl before he huddles low with a whimper.
“I’ll open the cage now,” Malia says, her voice floating across the air like light itself dancing in the breeze. “We need to be ready to make the trip to Earth as soon as I bring him out of the cage. I don’t want to risk him getting free. But I’ll need to stay as far away from the rest of you as I can while I’m using my magic. I don’t want to drain you further.”
She glances at Roman. “We need Angelus Lux.”
“As soon as I call the weapon to me, the angels will come,” he says. “No matter how Adriel feels about you, Malia, I doubt he will allow me to take it easily. He can transport himself here instantly and I don’t welcome the thought of fighting an archangel right now. I need to wait until the last moment.”
