It’s the spell Claudia invented to help Lamour.
Lamour.The images of his death flood her mind—his body, the blood, the heat, the smell. Her professor, her mentor, is dead, and Claudia can’t help but feel that it’s all her fault.
Forcing down her grief, she sits upright and clutches her chest, surveying the room.
Odette sits across from her, a black marble table between them covered in a spill of academia: half-written spells, diary entries, textbooks, and the grimoire of celestial spells. Odette must have disenchanted it to take it out of the observatory. She was hiding in the school for so long. Waiting, watching.
Marcherie sits beside Odette, her hand on the shoulder of her resurrected lover. To her right is a Roe grandfather clock, ticking through the silence. Alistair and Angel are on a white sofa to her left. Alistair is holding Bishop. At the other end of the chaise, cradling Claudia’s legs, is Cassius.
All five of them are looking at her like they’re staring down a ghost.
Her eyes land on Cassius. “Hi.”
At the sound of her voice, a visible wave of relief crashes over him. He releases a harsh breath, swiftly and gently pulling her into his lap. As he takes her face into his hands, his eyes well with tears. “You’re alive.” He kisses her like he’s testing her tangibility, making sure she’s a real person in a real body and not some distant dream he can’t touch.
“So are you,” she whimpers with palpable relief. She throws her arms around his neck, then rests her head on his shoulder and turns her face to Odette. “What happened? How long has it been?”
“A few days.”
She looks at Cassius. “How long until—”
“Not long,” Alistair says, stroking Bishop’s head with his thumb. “You have until tonight to kill him, or the bargain takes you.”
Claudia swallows. “You all… you all know everything?”
Marcherie nods and says, “Odette told us.”
She stammers, looking up at Odette. “Can’t we just let the bargain take me? You can bring me back the same way I brought you back, right?”
“No,” Cassius snaps, tightening his hold on her. “I won’t risk that. I will not let that monster have you.”
“He’s right,” Odette says. “There’s no guarantee I’d be able to do what you did. I’m not as strong as I used to be, and Sidarphion never gave me the same amount of power that he poured into you.”
Claudia feels a twinge of shame remembering all those times she let Sidarphion touch her, all the desire she took from him. She couldn’t help herself.
Odette shuffles through the papers on the table. “We’ve been working on a different plan.”
“I can help,” Claudia says, wincing when she leans over.
“You need to rest.” Cassius lays his hand on top of hers.
“I need to fix this. I know there’s a way out.” Speaking to Odette, she says, “Lamour told me there was some way to unbind Sidarphion from the stars, but I don’t know what it was.”
“I think I do. Think about this—Sidarphion is trapped because he’s bound to Dracoemagyl’s stars. What happens if we kill Triche, the witch who bound him? If Triche dies, so does his magic, and so does Sidarphion’s trap.”
“Just because it sounds right doesn’t mean it is,” Cassius says. “A simple syllogism isn’t—”
“It’s not just a syllogism. It’s spellwork.”
Claudia wipes her sleepy, swollen eyes. “If that would work, why didn’t Sidarphion tell us to kill Triche in the first place?”
“I have three theories. The first being he knew we weren’t strong enough to kill Triche on our own, but we’re not on our own anymore, are we?” Odette smiles at the group. “The second theory: He wants to kill Triche himself.”
“What’s the third?” Marcherie asks.
“That this plan won’t work.” She sighs. With resolve, she says, “But we have to try.”
“So, we’re just going to let Sidarphion go free?” Claudia asks, leaning back on the chaise. “After all he’s done to us?”
