His nostrils must flare for little bubbles stream out and pop against the ward.Touch her forehead to see if there’s any blood to lift.
I bite back my disgust and reach over. Her skin doesn’t tingle with magic. I frown. Could Behati truly not have been embroiled in her granddaughter’s scheme to remove me from power? But her cane…
Could it have been just a cane and not some giant vial of poison?
I get my answer when Kanti crouches and flattens her palms against the ward above her grandmother’s ghoulish face. “Look at where your loyalties to the Mahananda brought you, Taytah.”
“Honestly, I’m sort of surprised she turned you down.” Soorya lowers her palm from her forehead, her skin tonebrowning, her violet eyes pinkening, her hair lengthening. I suddenly hate her the most for having used my daughter to placate me.
“Really?” Kanti crooks her head to look up at the former healer. “She threatened to leave Shabbe the day Priya led Fallon into the Mahananda instead of Lorcan. I heard them argue. She told Priya it would cost her her life.”
“If she hadn’t been with you in Nebba,” Rosh says, “I would’ve been convinced she’d had a hand in freeing Meriam.”
Kanti draws a slow oval over Behati’s face as though sketching her. “You were right, Taytah. But you’re not going to be right about the rest of it. The Mahananda willneverturn down my bargain, for if it does, not only will we never release it, but we will also draw out every single drop of its magic until it’s as dry and desiccated as the Selvatin desert. And then we will create a new source. One that won’t turn humans into monsters and monsters into humans. One that will put Shabbe and the Shabbins before every other species.”
“That’s why you haven’t been speaking to me,Mahananda.Not because you’ve abandoned me but because you’ve been trapped. Like me.” Even though my question will never land, I ask, “How do we break free?”
Thunder growls and lightning sparkles, illuminating a thousand Crow wings. But not just Crows. I see two women with pink eyes and one man with long orange tresses kneeling in midair, drawing knots of blood on what must be another ward.
Lore’s here,Cathal murmurs.
He is, and he’s not alone. My eyes sting because, not only did my daughter come, but my mother and Justus did as well.
Chapter 70
Zendaya
Isuddenly want to rip the invisibility sigil from my forehead so they can see me.
Not yet,Cathal says, drawing my attention back to the clustered witches huddled over us.
Can you communicate with Lore?
Let me check.His fingers melt out of mine.Don’t move.
I won’t.
“What just sent Behati’s body skittering?” Rosh’s pitch is unsteady.
Kanti jumps to her feet and scuttles back so fast that she almost trips over her long white skirt that’s streaked with blood. Hers? Antoni’s? “Crow,” she gasps.
“Didn’t Lazarus plant the sword inside his heart?” Rosh whirls toward the embankment where the Faerie healer stands planted like a tree, his face as stark as the lightning-striated heavens.
I’m guessing I’m no longer invisible?Cathal murmurs.
No.Did his shapeshifting shorten the duration of my spell or is our watery environment to blame? I check my own body. Find that I’m still concealed.
“Hey, Lazarus, you fucking missed his heart!” Rosh’s hair gleams as though shot through with the same molten gold that decorates her ears and neck and wrists. “Shit,” she suddenly says, “Meriam’s here.”
“They won’t be able to carve through wards drawn by a hundred witches.” Soorya gives them a little wave. “At least not for a while. Come, sisters, let’s not tarry.” She starts walking, the other two falling into step beside her. “Aori!”
Of course Aori’s involved. Did Tamar also rejoin her old Akwale, or is she staying out of this conflict?
As Aori’s familiar, hateful form comes into view just beside my ladder, Soorya asks, “Did you manage to penetrate the guest wing?”
I grit my teeth so hard my mandible squeaks.
“No, Asha warded it.”
