Rowan helps Asher settle the last of the young witches and straightens. “Use your blood bond to track them. If they’re here, you might be able to sense them.”
Well, if it works when I’m tracking Tharuzel, it makes sense that it might work with my sisters.
Closing my eyes, I stretch my neck from side to side, but it does nothing to relieve the tension. With a deep breath, I try to relax enough to sense the Hallowind bloodline.
I know the way the soul energy of my ancestors feels… how the energy of our family intention honors our connection with the Goddess Mother…
If I can sift through all the magical chaos outside and find that…
At first, there’s nothing.
Then something shifts.
It’s not a direction exactly. It’s more like a tug.
Soft and familiar.
The bond with Tharuzel always feels sharp and wrong, like barbed wire brushing my ribs from the inside. This is nothing like that.
This feels warm.
Two sparks flicker at the edge of my awareness—separate, but unmistakably connected to me. I feel the energy of their souls through the distance and somehow know it’s them. Like recognizes like.
Relief hits so hard my knees almost buckle.
“They’re here. Both of them.” And now that I know what I’m feeling, the connection steadies.
“You go,” Rowan says. “I’ll stay with these guys in case they wake up.”
I squeeze her wrist. “Okay, but be careful. And shout if you need us back here.”
“Will do. Now, go find your sisters.”
I race deeper into the building when a thundering crack shudders the building around us. Explosions of magical energy rattle the walls, and dust rains from the ceiling.
“Garrison and the Order are still in full assault outside,” Wylder says, peering out the window to the courtyard beyond.
They can destroy the world around us, for all I care. All I want is to find my sisters and to take them home.
Where are you? Lily, Violet, where?—
There.
“In the basement. I can feel them below us. Someone find the stairwell.”
We spread out, and everyone is opening doors, searching.
“Got it!” Wylder shouts a short time later.
I hit the stairwell at a dead run. The others follow. Outside, the sounds of battle intensify—shouts, crashes, the sharpcrackof both magic spells and physical battle.
We burst into the basement, and I stop cold.
Rows of metal tables. Forty, maybe more. Each one holds a body—teenagers, young adults, pale and motionless. Tubes snake from their arms, glowing with siphoned magic that feeds into a central collection tank.
The tank pulses with stolen power, a grotesque heart pumping energy to gods-know-where.
"What the actual fuck?" Asher's voice breaks. “What is wrong with people?”
