I don’t move. “No. We can’t leave him,” I say, my gaze fixed on the door to the castle.
Luca huffs a sigh. “We don’t have time to argue this. If they caught on to him, we need to go. Now.”
I turn and stare at him. “I’m not leaving yet,” I say through clenched teeth.
Ivan places a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Luca is right. We have to go. We’re not prepared for a rescue mission. We have no clue if they know who he is or if they’re coming for us next. We can’t risk staying here any longer.”
He’s right.
“Let’s just wait. One more minute. Please.” I hate that I’m asking for permission, that I sound like I’m begging, that the thought of Asmo being taken has my chest constricting this much.
Luca draws his mouth into a straight line and casts another sidelong glance at the castle doors. I count to sixty in my head, but the doorsremain shut. Fuck. Without another word, I swallow my fear and the way my brain is screaming at me to stay put. Luca and Ivan flank my sides as I head back toward the portal location.
The walk back is swift but silent, tension radiating from Ivan and Luca as we walk. The fear of Marik’s guards coming to grab us before we can make it back is palpable. The knot in my chest doesn’t abate when we’re back at the cabin. It only strengthens with the knowledge that Asmo is no longer with us. That he’s now with the enemy.
Holly’s confusion is evident the moment she opens the door, her features twisted and brow furrowed. “What—where’s…who’s missing?” she asks, frantically looking behind us for any sign of the final member of our group.
Luca slashes the sigil. “Asmo,” he says, his voice back to normal.
I stalk past Holly and into the cabin. Ivan calls my name, but I ignore it. I don’t think I could speak if I tried. My thoughts are spinning and my jaw is locked, too many thoughts and screams threatening to spill.
I shut myself in the tiny bathroom and sit on the stone floor, the cool surface welcome against skin that feels hot and tingly. I lay down and curl into a ball, hugging my knees to my chest and trying to control my breathing. But it’s coming too fast, and my lungs feel too small, and my skin feels like it’s buzzing in the wrong way.
My hands ball into fists as the tears come.
There is too much against us, and not enough of us. With Asmo, it felt like we had a chance of figuring this out, but without him…It’s just too much.
My breathing slows as I focus on the feel of the floor beneath me—a trick Willa once taught me to lessen my anxiety. I refuse to think of her as Cora, to taint whatever positive memories are left.
Focusing too much on what went wrong won’t help me. At least, not right now. The urge to self-harm is overwhelming, but I shove the thought away, focusing again on the feel of the stones beneath me. When my breathing is regulated and I no longer feel like crawling out of my skin, I push myself to my feet. I nearly scream when I look in the mirror and see the unfamiliar face looking back at me.
I need to get out of this body. I grab Ivan’s razor blade from thepedestal and yank my pants down, exposing the dark mark. Before I can think too much about how good it would feel to draw the blade further than necessary, I mar the sigil and toss it back onto the counter. The blood evaporates in a shimmer of black before disappearing into the air. I feel lighter with the sigil gone, the dark magic no longer etched into my skin.
But then I remember that Asmo didn’t come back with us.
A heavy knock pounds on the door. “Mae. We need to talk.” Ivan.
I yank open the door and slink past him. He looks like himself again. Holly sits on the sofa, wringing her fingers.
“We have to go back,” I demand.
Luca shakes his head in one firm motion. “Absolutely not.”
“He would go back for any of us,” I fire back.
“It doesn’t matter. We need to give it a couple of days and see what happens. We can’t go barging in there. Have you forgotten it’s just us?” Ivan says softly. “We don’t have an army of people to back us up.”
My shoulders slump. Ivan is right. It doesn’t matter that I’m still the High Queen. It’s only the four of us. There’s nothing we can do right now.
That night, I toss and turn and beg for sleep, thinking about Asmo in Marik’s and Cora’s hands. Whenever I close my eyes, images of Asmo writhing on the ground in black flames fill my mind. I swallow a scream and wrench back the covers.
Ivan is already sitting outside on one of the dining chairs that we dragged onto our sad excuse of a front porch. I settle into the other chair and he tosses me a thick blanket. I wrap it around and cocoon myself in it.
“Have I ever told you how I came to be in your father’s service?” he asks me, foregoing any kind of greeting.
I shake my head, still not trusting myself to speak. Still not trusting that a scream won’t come out instead.
“Your father and I knew each other as boys. He lived in the castlewith your grandparents. I lived in one of the nearby villages, and I stumbled across him one day in the woods on the edge of the grounds.”
