Rose and Alice studied the keep, then glanced at each other in that silent way witches did when they were sensing something the rest of us couldn't. Rose retrieved her spell book from Darius and opened it, her fingers tracing the ancient text.
"It's a spell. A forcefield." She looked up, and the look on her face made my stomach drop. Not confusion—Rose could handle confusion. This was something closer to dread. "Powerful. Layered. Vex didn't throw this together in a hurry—he's been preparing."
Lucien looked at her. "Can you break it?"
Rose flipped through the pages, her lips moving silently. "I don't know."
"We're not going to just stand around here." Lucien's voice was a blade. "She'll be dead in less than three hours."
I shook my head. "He won't kill her. He needs her blood for the ritual—she's no use to him dead." The words were meant to calm Lucien, but they turned my stomach. Alive didn't mean safe. Not with Vex. Alive just meant he'd keep her breathing long enough to bleed her dry at midnight.
Rose didn't flinch. The silence stretched for what felt like an eternity, the only sound the wind moaning through the pines and the distant creak of the castle's iron gate swinging on its broken hinge. Then her finger stopped on a page.
"There's a spell that might allow us in." She lifted her eyes from the book. "But it will take everything Alice and I have. Every last drop of magic between us. It will open a door in the barrier, but it won't hold long — seconds, not minutes."
Seconds. We'd have seconds to get eight people through a gap in a demon's forcefield, into a castle built for slaughter, with no magical backup once we were inside. Rose and Alice would be spent. No spells. No wards. No safety net. Just fangs and fists against whatever Vex had waiting for us.
It was a terrible plan. It was the only plan we had.
"Might?" Lucien growled.
Valentin scowled. "What do you mean, might?"
"I mean I've never cast it before, and the forcefield is demon magic. There are no guarantees." Rose closed the book and held Lucien's gaze, unflinching. "Alice and I can peel back a door in the barrier. One door. It won't stay open long, and once we do it, we're spent. No magic left for whatever's waiting inside."
No magic. No backup. We'd be walking into a demon's stronghold with nothing but vampire speed and brute strength— against a creature who'd already proven he could swat us aside like insects. The odds were suicidal.
But Raven was in there. And the clock was ticking.
She let that sink in before adding, "We go in naked. No spells. No wards. Just us."
"I'm fucking going inside," Lucien said. It wasn't a request. It wasn't even a discussion. His eyes were black with fury and something worse—the kind of fear that turns men into weapons.
I glanced at Selena. She was already tying her hair back, her jaw set, her eyes hard with the same look she'd had when she'd thrown herself at Vex in the tower. She knew what I was about to say before I opened my mouth.
"Stay—"
"Not happening." She didn't even let me finish. Her eyes were hard, her feet already planted like she was daring me to try.
We lined up at the barrier. Lucien at the front, coiled tight as a spring. Valentin and Darius flanked him, swords drawn. I gripped Selena's hand and positioned us behind them. The second that door opened, we'd have to move—no hesitation, no second chances.
Alice and Rose clasped hands. Their eyes closed. When they spoke, their voices merged into something larger than either of them — a single, raw incantation that vibrated through the ground beneath my feet.
"Ignis animae, frange tenebras. Quod malum clausit, virtus aperiat. Sanguinem damus — via patet!"
The barrier erupted. Sparks crackled across the invisible wall, sizzling and spitting, burning a jagged outline in the dark — a door, barely wide enough for one person at a time. The air inside it shimmered like heat rising off asphalt.
Lucien didn't hesitate. He threw himself through.
Selena and I were closest. We lunged after him, the barrier crackling against my skin like static electricity as we crossed the threshold.
Behind us—a sound like a gunshot. The door snapped shut. I threw myself over Selena, shielding her body with mine before my brain caught up. Not a gunshot. The barrier had sealed behind us.
We were inside. And there was no way out.
Darius was thrown backward, slamming into the earth. Alice and Rose cried out and crumpled where they stood, their magic spent, their bodies folding like puppets with cut strings.
Valentin. Darius. Rose. Alice. All trapped on the other side.
