“You have exactly five minutes to make it very clear why you’re detaining us, orIwill consider this an act of war,” the High Priestess barks as she marches back over to stand in front of Botis’s bones.
Dyad looks over to Gremory and then to Cozen and nods. Gremory disappears without a word, and Sorrel grumbles something under her breath. I’ve never seen her so out of sorts, and I look over to Rogan to see what he thinks about it. He slips me a sly wink and then moves closer to me so that his arm is brushing mine, and I bite back the smile that wants to sneak across my face.
I pull in a deep breath and try to put my game face on as Cozen’s haunting white eyes fix on me and she looks me over. Her gaze stops on my feet, and instead of seeing shock in her gaze, I think I see...satisfaction.
“What exactly makes you think you are Botis’s heir?” she asks me, her eyes alight with the answer already.
“Something happened when Botis kidnapped and tried to kill me. I don’t know what exactly it was, but it bonded his magic with mine.” The orb in front of Cozen blinks white, and I’m a little surprised, although maybe I shouldn’t be.
Itechnicallyhave an idea of how Botis accidentally bonded his magic to mine, but I’m not lying when I say I don’t knowexactlyhow it happened. Either way, the details ofthatwill get locked in the vault next to myhey, guess what, I can’t diesecret.
“When he was executed just now, I felt the transference. And if that’s not enough...look at the marks,” I tell everyone, holding one foot out and then the other for everyone to see.
Internally I thank my Grammy for giving my Aunt Hillen a heads-up to “look at the marks.”
Sorrel and Bordow both look over, which is exactly when the High Priestess once again thinks she’s off the hook. I shrug at her.
“If you don’t believe me, then look at your marks,” I tell her simply, one eyebrow lifted in challenge.
The High Priestess looks down at her high heel booted feet, and for a second, I think she’s actually going to take her bootie off. Instead, she glares at the Contegomancer until Bordow begins to unlace his shoe.
Rogan laces his fingers in mine and squeezes once as we both watch the Contegomancer slip off his shoe and pull off his sock. He stares at the mark on the top of his foot, and I see his shoulders slump in defeat.
“What?” Sorrel stammers, staring at the new pattern of Bordow’s mark as though it’s a cobra ready to strike at any moment. “How?” she demands on a haunted whisper, her green eyes snapping up to mine. Her gaze quickly morphs from denial to bewilderment to outrage.
The High Priestess calls power to her so fast I feel it create a vacuum of magic all around her, her eyes alight with the fire she’s calling on, and Rogan and I both ready ourselves for an attack. She opens her mouth to screech something at us, but before she can so much as blow a plume of smoke in our direction, a glass cage slams down all around them, trapping the High Council members in there and cutting off Sorrel’s access to her magic.
I jump a little as the cage slams down on top of them, and then I try to brush it off as nothing when I feel Rogan chuckling at my expense next to me.
“This is an act of war, do you hear me?” Sorrel shouts at Dyad, her voice slightly muffled by the glass encasing her. “Let me out right this minute!” she screams even louder.
She paces inside the glass like an animal, and I can see her calculating and twisting things and trying to figure a way out. I should feel bad for her; I was just in her shoes, terrified and trying to figure out a way to save Rogan and Elon, but all she’s doing is looking for a way to save herself. She can rot in that glass cage for all I care.
I feel a strange pull on that magical source that feels similar to a ley line, the one Sorrel tapped into earlier when she was trying to leave. I want to ask what it is, but Gremory appears back in the bone room, and he’s accompanied by three other demons. One looks strikingly like a praying mantis with a long human-like face, and the other two demons look like people-sized versions of a bright yellow tarsier monkey. Their eyes are huge and dart around the room frantically in a way that makes me nervous.
All the demons start discussing things amongst themselves again, and this time I don’t even try to listen.
“You okay?” Rogan leans in to ask me, and I nod.
“Yeah, I just wish this was all over already. My nerves are shot to shit,” I tell him, and he nods with understanding. “Are you okay?” I turn to him to ask, looking him over for any signs that what’s happening is taking a bigger toll on him than I realized.
Technically, there are two people in the cage to our left who are the reason Rogan and Elon even exist. I wouldn’t blame him if this turned out to be harder than he realized.
“I’m fine, I keep waiting for her to find a way out of this,” he admits with a hollow laugh. “She’s been hunting me and Elon for so long now I don’t even know if I believe this is it. I doubt I’ll even believe she’s dead when she actually is. I’m afraid to get too hopeful.”
“I know exactly what you mean, and I haven’t even been dealing with her nearly as long as you have. It’s going to take time to deal with everything. There’s a lot to unpack and process,” I agree, and Rogan pulls me in for a hug.
I burrow in against him, relishing his warmth and strength. I thought for a while there I was never going to feel his arms around me again, and now I want to be sure that I never take this for granted, not even for a second.
“Do you not want me to kill them?” I ask quietly, not looking Rogan in the eye so that he feels he has the space and support to answer this question however he wants to.
He sighs and kisses the top of my head. “I hate that they’re forcing you to make this decision. I wish all of this wasn’t on your shoulders, but as brutal as it sounds, they need to die,” he tells me with firm conviction. “There isn’t a redeeming quality in any of them, and the world will be far better off without them than it would with them.”
I nod my agreement and look up at him. I offer what comfort I can in a soft smile and a gaze filled with respect and admiration.
“Should I request that Elon be allowed to witness this?” I press.
Rogan runs his fingers through my hair in thought. “He probably won’t like me deciding for him, but he’s seen enough horrible things in life. I don’t see the point in adding more to that, especially not for monsters like them,” he tells me, gesturing to the glass cage, and I look over to see Rogan’s mother is watching us.
