They launch attacks with earth magic. She retaliates hard, a wave of soil surging outward and forcing us to hit the ground.
My ears ring, and I cough, my lungs full of dust. When I look up, the chimeras have all transformed into crows, cawing loudly overhead. They circle like a dark tornado and dive at her like missiles, and she’s forced to duck as their beaks and claws draw blood.
“It’s working!” Natalie exclaims. Her hand finds mine, locking our fingers together like she never plans to let go.
Sophia roars, her eyes blazing, wisps of purple lightning bursting from her palms.
“This magic doesn’t belong to you!” I shout, stepping forward among the chimeras and bringing Natalie with me.
A crow lands on her chest, its claws digging in. Sophia screams again, thrashing.
“Don’t kill her!” Oaklyn cries. Tears stream down her face, and I catch a glimpse of humanity beneath her darkness—the part of her that drew Hazel in.
Hazel’s brow pinches. She hesitates, then turns her back to the Madsens, shoving through the witches and out of sight.
Lucy lands beside me in griffin form, the gust of air pushing me back a step. Her feathers brush my arm as she settles her wings against her side.“We will separate her soul from our sister’s, but we must work quickly. Her soul is binding to the magic with each beat of her heart.”
“What will you do with her when it’s done?” I ask.
“What would you like us to do?”
I turn to Natalie and Sky, hoping for an answer, but of course they can’t hear Lucy. Natalie watches me with concern, squeezing my hand tightly.
I look back at Sophia, this woman who was ready to torture us all. I think of the dungeon I was locked in, and the cell Troy spent months trapped inside beneath the Madsens’ vacation house, and the cages that held the chimeras for a hundred years.
“Hand her over to us,” I say. “We’ll see to it that she gets what she deserves.”
Sophia writhes and screams as the crows land all over her, her back arching off the ground. The dark light in her veins seems to be fighting with the chimeras, the current between them growing so strong that it hurts to stand by, like touching metal during a thunderstorm.
Hayley gasps, falling to her knees. Fiona cries out, stumbling backward and cradling her broken arm. They’re breaking free from Sophia’s hold. The separation must be working.
Oaklyn shrieks and tries to get closer to her mother, but the swarm of chimeras stops her. Wyatt stays at her heels, watching calmly with that chilling intelligence in his eyes. I don’t know which side either of them is truly on.
Wyatt’s behavior is even more puzzling than Oaklyn’s. Why was he protecting the chimera Sophia and Oaklyn caught? Is he part bio magic like the witches suspected? And maybe more interestingly… What does that say about Freddie, given that he could communicate with Wyatt?
Oaklyn shakes her head and backs up, tears streaming down her cheeks. There’s so much pain on her face. Regret, even. Did she ever care for Hazel, or was it all manipulation from the start?
She scans the crowd—maybe looking for Hazel or seeing how outnumbered she is. Then, she turns and runs, dagger in hand, Wyatt flanking her.
She disappears into the shadowy woods, leaving her mother behind.
My breath catches, my body pulling toward her like I’m subconsciously itching to chase her down. But Sophia is our priority—and we’ve almost got her.
At last, the dark light in Sophia’s veins recedes, rising from her body like smoke into the air. Her roar echoes through the trees, mingling with the cawing crows and raising goosebumps across my skin.
Sophia collapses as the smoke drifts down, where it spreads like fog and forms the shape of a sleeping doe. The crows descend, landing gently and helping to heal it.
My heart lifts to see Sophia separated from the chimera, but I don’t have time for emotions—the Shadows move in quickly, grabbing Sophia and binding her hands to prevent her from doing earth magic.
“Bring her in immediately,” Sky says. “Don’t stop for anything.”
I suck in a deep breath, a sense of justice trickling through me.We did it.
In my periphery, Lucy begins to shimmer and contract. Her massive wings fold inward, her feathers melting away like mist. When I turn to look at her, she’s a kitten again, fluffy and cute, sitting primly on a boulder.
“We will retreat from your civilizations,”she says, her powerful voice at odds with what I’m looking at,“if you promise to protect us in return.”
It won’t be easy to change centuries of tradition, but I won’t let that stop me. “I promise. No more cages, no more hunting.”
