Everyone,I tell my pack mates,Aodhan and Reid vanished in the home Behati and Kanti have been staying at since their return. The sorceresses probably warded it. You’re welcome to leave Aodhan in there, but I’m sure Agrippina would appreciate getting Reid back.
Several snorts resonate through our pack link.
Lastly, Enzo and Agrippina are inside the moat, along with a bunch of corpses. Fallon, can you and Meriam drain the water?I soar over a trail of bloodied bodies—brave palace guards who must’ve tried to fight back. I spot Abrax but kick him from my mind before I inadvertently broadcast his death to my mate.
I’ll tell her,Lorcan says.
I think he means Daya, which makes me wonder why the underworld he would tell her…but then I realize he means he’ll tell Fallon, and my selfish heart stops. Just stops. How could I have forgotten that my daughter no longer has access to our pack’s mind link?
I cast my sorrow aside to focus on the Cauldron that’s ringed by dozens upon dozens of sorceresses. The traitresses’ number is so great that they form six circles.
They’ve emptied it!Daya hollers.
My gaze judders off the kneeling witches and sets on the birthplace of magic. It’s hollow, shallow, no more than a drained washbasin.
“What have you done, Kanti?” Behati’s ancient voice hurtles against all eight wings of the palace.
“We’ve done nothing but correct all the wrongs committed by our mothers, Taytah.” Her long black hair snaps in the turbulent winds of Lorcan’s anger.
Cathal, Meriam says she needs me to go inside the Mahananda!Daya cries out.
Go inside? There’s nothing left of it!
She says that the medley of our royal blood will revive?—
She can feed itherblood. You’re not going anywhere near that courtyard.
Cathal, if we don’t nourish it, then?—
I. Said. No.
Blood suddenly stains the bottom of the basin. It doesn’t bubble from the stone, though. No, someone’s painting a sigil. Someone who’s made herself invisible. It better be Meriam, for if it’s my daughter…
Lore, where’s Fallon?
On my back. Why?
My relief is short-lived, for one of my fellow Crows barrels toward Priya’s Akwale.
Erwin?I snap.What the fuck are you doing?
I’m distrac?—
Rosh swings her arm, spraying my fellow shifter with blood that makes him shriek and…
And…
No.
No…
It must be a spell.
One that’ll wear off.
I don’t know whether I speak these thoughts or if my fellow shifters do. All I know is that a small black bird is flitting around the courtyard like some distraught bumblebee.
“Anyone else want to become a forever-Crow?” Rosh taunts.
