I do the only thing I can think of, useless though it is. “Stop!” I scream, as loud as I can—over the thump of Dave Cassady battering the owner of Sapphire Springs’ sole tattoo shop with a folding chair, the cackles of the Blood Witches, the groaning of the earth as yet another seam of light breaches the surface. “Don’t you touch him!”
I don’t know what I expect to happen. Maybe Jill to give me a mocking smile before she chokes the life out of Donovan once and for all. Maybe nothing at all.
But instead, she lets go.
Donovan staggers back, coughing but otherwise unharmed, his hands going to his throat in disbelief. “Rune?” he says.Says,not yells.
Because around us, everything has fallen silent. No one is screaming or fighting or evenmoving.Other than Donovan, every single person has become a statue.
Stop,I said. And they did.
It’s the opposite of my curse. Instead of no one believing me, they’re all doing exactly as I said.
Except him.
Chapter
Fifty-Eight
“Holy shit, Rune,”Donovan says into the silence. “Are you okay?”
I’m about five thousand things right now—terrified, stunned, confused, relieved.Okaydoesn’t begin to make the list. “Wh-what—” I gaze around me, trying to make sense of what’s happened. “Areyouokay? She was ch-choking you…”
“You saved me.” He smiles, a huge, beautiful grin that lights his eyes. “I have no clue what’s going on here, except that you were telling the truth all along. You can see the future, Rune. You tried to warn me. And I’m so sorry I didn’t listen.”
“Youbelieveme?” My voice shakes. It makes sense, though, right? Mina lifted the curse. But how did I freeze all of these people? How did my curse invert like this?
Donovan looks stricken. “I should have believed you from the start. I don’t understand why I wouldn’t listen. When I try to think of it, it’s all foggy…” He runs a hand through his hair. “I’ll apologize more later, I promise. When we’re not in the middle of the goddamn apocalypse. Mina—mygrandmother—” His gaze roves over her prone body, then over the Blood Witches and theparalyzed crowd. “What the hell happened? And why are all of them…like that…and I’m fine?”
“I-I’m not sure. She reversed my curse. And I-I just wanted them to stop hurting you…” I wrap my arms around my body, trying to hold myself together. Around me, the exposed ley lines bubble and surge. Their pull echoes inside me, a magnetic draw that has me edging closer to them, away from my sanctuary at the epicenter of the quake.
Donovan’s eyes narrow. “Where are you going?”
“I just want to touch them.” My voice is low, filled with yearning. The lines call to me, their energy a crooning, alluring siren song. If I could dip my hands into them, let that energy flow through me, everything would be all right.
I’m meant for them, and they are meant for me. We are a perfect circuit. If I could only?—
“I don’t think you should do that. Whatever the hell is in these ley lines, they made everyone lose their shit, until you stopped them. Look.”
I tear my gaze away from the shifting blue light, taking in the Blood Witches and the residents of Sapphire Springs. All of them, including Charlotte, are still frozen. Only their eyes shift back and forth, glazed with panic. They may be unable to move, but they’re still in there. Trapped.
“I need to save Charlotte and the Sinsters,” I say, edging closer still to the ley lines that surround me. “To set them free, without doing the same to the Blood Witches. If I let the power of the lines run through me, I know I can do it. The lines will show me, Donovan. They’ll teach me. You’ll see.”
He shakes his head, taking one tentative step toward me, then another. Through the glowing light, I can see him setting his jaw, squaring his shoulders. No matter what the ley lines might do to him, he’s determined to reach me. And if he does,he’ll stop me from knowing what it’s like to bathe in that blue energy. From becoming what I’m meant to be.
“Your brother,” I blurt. “You need to check on him.”
“Shit,Cooper.” Donovan spins, catching sight of Cooper, who’s as frozen as the rest of them, eyes wide open, staring up at the sky. It’s ablaze with red and orange, the sun still above the horizon but sinking fast. “Don’t do anything reckless, Rune, okay? Just wait. I’ll be right back.”
He picks his way over the buckled ground, through the Blood Witches’ immobilized bodies—some on their feet, some on hands and knees, some on the ground—careful to step over the exposed ley lines as he goes. And I seize my chance.
Leaning forward, I plunge my hands into that glowing blue light. My fingers sink beneath the surface of the earth, into a wellspring of pure power. It shoots through me, traveling up my arms, heating me as it goes, until finally it connects with the pool of light that lives within me—filling it, overspilling it, flooding me with energy the likes of which I’ve never felt before.
My head goes back and I let out a roar that shakes my entire body. I can’t contain this power. It’s too much. I’m glowing, just like Cooper was—that blue light spilling forth from every single pore. I've become the light, nothing but a vessel for its power. And I understand what Cooper meant when he said it could drive people mad. The energy inside me is too big for my skin. It seeks an outlet. It wants to be used.
My head snaps left, as if controlled by a force outside of my body.Your mother was apersuasio, I hear Ethan whispering. And then I know.
I am a seer, yes, just as Cooper said I was. But I am so much more. I hold my mother’s persuasive power within me, and it is that power Mina bound when she cursed me years ago. When she lifted the curse, it didn’t just mean that people would finally believe me when I foretold the future. It meant that I could claimmy legacy. The one that, with a word, has the power to bring the Blood Witches down.
