It flew open with a bang.
At the table in the center stood Malek Mortep, with his mane of dark hair and those pure white eyes staring back at us with sadistic glee.
But he wasn’t what made my heart leap in fear.
In front of his outstretched hands, amid the shattered glass vials and pools of blood, was a huge sphere of black and red shadows.
Shadowswasn’t the right word—it was more like energy, a tight ball of flickering magic, lightning, and darkness. The air crackled with power as black and red tendrils twisted over each other like a den of snakes. Dark magic permeated the room. The sensation of my magic being sucked out of me was overwhelming, an infectious curse spreading through the lab and into my veins.
“Welcome back to the Hollow,Miss Nyte,” Mortep jeered. “You were a bit earlier than we expected.”
“What are you doing?” I shouted at the mad Alchemist, watching his lips move soundlessly as he held the sphere between his gnarled fingers.
“Me? Oh, I’m simply the decoy.” His white eyes met mine, and he cocked his head with a sinister grin. “It’s too bad you’ll miss the show.”
With a powerful thrust of his arms, he threw the ball of magic at Arowyn and me.
It collided with us, instantly obliterating our magic and sending us flying backward out of the lab. I crashed into the stone wall and slumped to the ground. Everything went gray as a throbbing pain exploded in my head.
When the spots in my vision cleared, I saw the swirling ball of dark magic hurtle past us and down the hall, leaving shadowy wisps of black-and-red energy in its wake. A dark fog descended over the entire corridor, pulsing and suctioning all magic from the air.
“Arowyn?” I called.
“Right here,” she answered with a groan to my right. “Where’d he go?”
I scrambled to my feet as quickly as my head would allow and staggered toward the lab, only to find it empty. The opposite door was swung ajar.
“Gone,”I said, rubbing the back of my head. “What just happened?”
Arowyn limped to me and dusted off her leathers. Several scrapes marked up her cheeks and neck, but other than that, she appeared unharmed. “I don’t know, but I draw the line at some freaky ball of death.”
“Can you stride at all?”
She shook her head. “No. I can’t do anything. My magic is gone.”
“Mine too.” I slowly swept my eyes over the lab, taking in the cloud still billowing around us, with its flickering red and black shadows. Broken glass vials were strewn all over the floor. Tufts of shredded green leaves littered the space. When I opened one of the enormous cabinet doors, I found box after box overflowing with fatesprig leaves.
“This is where they keep the fatesprig,” I said. “I wonder if the rest of the weapons are down in these tunnels too?—”
Before I could finish my thought, a resoundingboomechoed from somewhere above, shaking the ceiling and sending rocks flying to the ground. Arowyn and I both looked up.
“Well, that doesn’t sound good,” she said.
“Mortepdidsay this was just the decoy.” I tried to summon my shadows again, but that well inside me where my magic rested was still empty.
Something inside the cabinet caught my attention before I turned away. One of the only syringes left unshattered in the mess of the laboratory, filled with a dark green serum.
It looked…familiar.
I quickly swiped the syringe and shoved it in my pocket as more high-pitched, animalistic screeches drifted down the hall.
“Come on,” I said with a shiver. “Let’s get out of here.”
71
Nox
We hadn’t been ready for this. There weredozensof them, these red-and-black-veined, unnatural creatures with dark magic flowing from them in droves. As several more refugees fell to the onslaught, the weight in my chest sank lower and lower.
