“Atticus!” It’s Raven’s voice, but it sounds so far away.
I can see her, distantly, as if I’m looking through a telescope into the vastness of space. She’s a star. A trillion light-years away. She’s on her feet again. Dorian stands at her side. They’re watching me, pleading for me to keep fighting. Dorian’s mouth moves, but I can’t hear him. I can’t hear Raven either. I’m losing them.
“You are nothing,” Adelina tells me. “You deserve nothing.”
Her words consume me. Wash over me. Drown me.
I’m falling faster now. Sinking deep into myself. The darkness presses in on me. Folds me up. Adelina is moving my body, gathering her magic with Hecate’s wand, using her old book. Raven and Dorian are almost gone. They’re so far away. Everything is dark and cold. I only wish I could hold their hands one more time or feel the touch of their lips on mine.
God, I’m so sorry. For everything.
“You will know your place, and you will be happy there,” says Adelina, shoving me deeper into my mind. Her words start to make sense. They enchant me. I want to spit in her face, but I don’t. Her words are like a soothing balm, lulling me to sleep.
But Raven and Dorian…
I love them both. I always have, and I want to be with them. I think that’s why I applied to this damn school in the first place, just so I could be with them. So they could be with me. So I could be in their life, and they could be in mine. Forever.
I’m so selfish.
I wanted us to always be together.
Us. Together. That’s something solid I can hold on to. It’s a handhold on a sheer rock face. I struggle to keep my grip on it.
I could let them go. I could save them that way. No—Adelina’s trying to fool me.
Just let go.
But I won’t. I can’t.
I can’t.
A part of me refuses to give up.
And maybe Adelina isn’t as strong as she thinks.
I snap back into my own body. I’m in control again, and I’m holding the wand and the book. Raven and Dorian stare at me, frozen. I toss the wand and the book to Raven. She catches them. Adelina’s voice echoes in my thoughts when she cries out, “No!”
Her words strike me like a fist to the face, and I stumble.
“The skull,” I tell Dorian. “Destroy it. It’s a tether.”
Somehow, I know he must destroy it. Our minds are joined; I understand things that only Adelina knows, and I use her knowledge to my advantage. “Crush it,” I say.
Dorian leaps to his feet and rushes to the table, where Adelina’s skull rests. He lifts it above his head and smashes it to the floor. Shattered pieces scatter all around him, teeth and bone, and the voice in my head howls.
Adelina claws at my mind, biting and gnawing. Blood flows from my nose, and I fear I’ll pass out. I look at the chains at my feet, and once again, I know what I must do. I drop to my knees and fasten the manacles around my wrists and ankles.
“What are you doing?” Raven asks.
“There’s not much time,” I say. I point to the books on the desk.“You have to—” Before I can finish, my stomach twists. Adelina is taking control once again. “She’s weak, but she can still control me. I can fight her, but—”
I’m too late.
Adelina takes my body, catapulting me back into the void.
39
Raven
