Triche looks at all of them with complete, utter rage.
He smiles.
The battle has begun.
As the echo of Marcherie’s siren song hangs in the air, Triche’s eyes are shaking, darting back and forth like a nervous animal. Where Odette bit him, a black stripe of burned skin sizzles from his right shoulder to his left hip, and the edges of his robes glow with green embers. Only a few feet away from where Odette and Triche stand, Claudia and Cassius gag at the scent of charred flesh curling in the air. Claudia squeezes his hand once before pulling away and casting Telescopium, Vulpecula: To Induce Visions of Madness. The paper upon which it was written shimmers until it turns to thick green smoke. It darts across the sky toward Triche, then burrows into his nose, his ears, and his wide-open mouth. Thin streams of blood drip from every point of entry, and Triche collapses farther onto the ground, wailing in agony. Odette’s form shifts back to human.
Claudia’s eyes cut to Odette across the clearing. She flashes their stellinguistic spell. “Now?”
Odette shakes her head. “Weaken him further.”
Claudia nods as Cassius screams her name. She turns, but she’s too late to move as Triche leaps toward her with unexpected strength. A spell on his lower abdomen, half covered by the shreds of his robes, glows as he seems to pull color directly from the sky, wielding the twilight like a whip. This is the first time Claudia realizes that he doesn’t have to speak the spells that are carved into his body to use them—those spells are part of him, as much as a hand or a heart. They respond to his instinct.
Fuck.This means they won’t even know what he’s castingwhile he’s doing it. It’s going to be harder to combat and defend than they thought.
He brings the whip down on Claudia, cutting her face from cheek to chin. The magic seeps into her blood and turns her entire body cold as ice, freezing her in place. She can’t move or scream when he charges her. Just before Triche’s whip lands another strike across her body, Cassius comes between them and says, “Optorqueo.”
To twist. To turn. To betray.
Triche, bewildered, stumbles back as Cassius’s command forces him to turn the whip on himself. Cassius makes him mutilate himself for a whole minute, earning as much time as he can while Claudia grabs a healing potion from her pocket, uncorks it with her teeth, and drinks it down even though it tastes like poison and feels like glass sliding down her throat. It works, though—the cut on her face stitches itself back together, and her body warms and untangles from the spell that held her in place.
Odette rushes forward, casting Cancer, Canis Major: For Ice and Teeth. The spell erupts, its magic reaching for Triche, but it dissipates the moment it touches his skin. The magic backfires, chilling Odette to the bone and shattering her needle into a thousand tiny shards. She shrieks, falling on her back.
Terror tears through Claudia’s body. It looks like she was right—Triche does have some celestial immunity, and they don’t know which constellations won’t work against him.
Claudia and Odette shoot each other knowing glances across the clearing. They know what this means—it’s possible that their stellinguistic spell won’t work.
It’s possible that one of them will be the one to die.
As dread builds, Alistair and Angel swallow bright blue potions that provide Herculean effects. They strike in perfect synchronicity.
Sometimes, simple brute force is more effective.
Triche is strong, but the six of them are stronger in their own way—for now, at least. They’ve taken their buffs, swallowed their potions, and used up spells, but it’s almost over. Claudia stands back, going over their stellinguistic spell with careful eyes, praying to any and all listening gods that it will work.
“Malevimus, help me,” she murmurs.
Triche is weakening. They need to force him into the lake.
The six of them close in on Triche, forcing him to the very edge. His legs are shaky. His body is covered in burns and blood. Claudia gives Marcherie a subtle nod, and the singer dives into the water, ready to become a true siren. Triche tries dealing out a few more blows before crumpling with exhaustion.
“Cassius,” he heaves. “Everything I’ve done has been for you and your family’s legacy. You will lose everything if you lose me.”
“You’re wrong. Claudia is everything, and you tried to take her from me.”
“You cannot want her more than you want revenge on Sidarphion. I do not accept that. I know you, boy. You’re driven by that undying need for justice. She”—he points at Claudia—“cannot give that to you. She cannot give you anything you need. You will never become a god.”
The stellinguistic spell trembles in Claudia’s hands. She and Cassius share a look, and he gives her a soft, reassuring smile.
Looking back at Triche, Cassius says, “Neither will you.”
At the center of the lake, Marcherie pokes her head out of the water. Her siren eyes glow with magic. As she rises farther, her shoulders emerge from the lake. She takes a deep breath and releases an alluring, haunting melody that could bring whole ships to the bottom of the sea, each sailor wearing a smile upon their death. Even though they all took elixirs to make them immune from the call, Claudia’s knees still go weak. She still feels a slight tug on her heart, pulling her toward the beautiful, enticing witch.
Triche is no match for Marcherie’s music. At the start of her song, his eyes become wide and wet like those who witness oneof Dolericym’s recitals. Powerless to resist, he turns toward the lake and smiles like a madman when he takes his first step into the water.
“Come close to me, love. I am what you dream of.”
Triche trudges through the lake, the glittering surface rippling around him. The farther he walks, the higher the essence rises around him. When it reaches his chest, Claudia, fighting off the trance, clears her throat and reads the first line of their stellinguistic spell.
