Fiza dove, catching her around the middle and sending them tumbling into the snow. They rolled, and Elizabeth scrambled up, running deeper into the forest.
Even though Asmodeus had healed her, running on her freshly healed leg was not enjoyable in the slightest. Her finger and arm still burned like they had been seared with an iron. Elizabeth gritted her teeth and kept running, her feet skidding on the ice-covered trails.
If she catches me, I die.
Suddenly, Fiza tackled her ankles, sending her sprawling. Fiza pounced and held her in a freakishly strong grip. She fought, but she couldn’t wrench herself away.
There would be no escape.
Elizabeth stilled and looked at her friend, her enemy, one last time. “Just tell me why.”
Fiza snarled. “Why should we lie in the waters and shadows when we were designed to prey upon you? We have grown—no—evolved to destroy you.”
“I thought you hated the surface, and you loved your home in the Underworld? Why not just return there?” Elizabeth asked, desperate to keep her talking.
Fiza slowly smiled, choosing not to reply.
She was cornered, with no magic left, and they both knew it. The water demon opened her mouth, razor-sharp teeth glinting, and tore into her arm. The pain was unbearable, like being stabbed with a hundred needles. Her vision edged in black. She thrashed, kicking and pushing with all of her remaining strength, but Fiza held on to her arm like a viper.
Fiza held her down and lapped at her wound, and Elizabeth looked to the skies and pleaded to any deity or angel who was listening.
“Please…” she pleaded as Fiza suckled on her wound like a grotesque babe. Fiza raised her face, and her lips and chin were covered in red.
Moments passed in silence as Elizabeth counted her last seconds among the living. Soon, she would be no more, and the world would grow dark.
Her vision flickered.
A rustling sounded in the bush. Perhaps Maud had come to gloat and revel in her end.
Elizabeth lifted her head to glare at Maud one last time. But it was not Maud who had stepped into the clearing.
A cloaked figure walked swiftly. Two others trailed a step behind her. She saw a faint light that grew stronger and watched in wonder as purple fire gathered at the stranger’s fingertips.
The world blinked in and out as she struggled to stay awake.
Not yet, she wanted to whisper.
The cloaked figure pointed a long-nailed finger towards her, as if damning her.
“Let her go.”
That voice—she recognized that voice.
Fiza crouched over her, hissing like a creature of the deep. There was nothing kind, nothing human in her face anymore.
Elizabeth watched the scene as if detached from her body, as the cloaked woman twirled her fingertips, and a sphere of pulsating violet magic formed in the air. The figure shot her palms forward, and her magic slammed into the demon.
The force from her blast of magic threw the woman’s hood off, and Elizabeth gasped.
It was Charlotte.
Elizabeth blinked in surprise.
Charlotte? Was she hallucinating?
Fiza snarled and lunged, but Charlotte threw her palm out, shouting something. The water demon was wrenched into the air, suspended by violet magic.
Charlotte had magic? Not possible.
