She gave him a thumbs-up and headed over to the generator. Nick ducked again, hiding next to the rig and squinting into the circle.
No.
It was his first thought. His second thought was the sort of swearing that Zahide did in French because she thought the rest of them couldn’t understand her.
A woman lay in the center of the circle, curls of shadow rising off her and being zapped into nothingness by the bright light. Her eyes squeezed shut, and sweat covered every inch of her skin. Gaunt cheeks and a stomach that was hollowed out from hunger were the evidence of what Durkavic’s captivity had done to her.
Around her, the green of six circles rotated, and Nick winced when he saw it. The circles were not quite even, not quite right. Durkavic might have the power that came with fae blood, but he didn’t have any of the discipline of real alchemy training.
Mark Woolworth had been able to make his circles work because of years of training and research. Nick’s cousin was many things, but he wasn’t careless or sloppy.Thiswas careless and sloppy.
The anchor points weren’t grounded to anything of use. He’d grounded them to an ideahereinstead of a location or a time limit like Zahide preferred. The first circle was not simply a containment spell, it limited the amount thatanythingcould get in, meaning the woman inside wasn’t just breathing that hard from pain, but because she was running out of air.
Moreover, the inner layers pulled Shadow out of her heir. Nick could see the spell pulling the god loose bit by bit, the pieces of Shadow drawn out and being trapped in small pockets of the spell. Whether that was by design or by accident, Nick couldn’t tell. He thought the latter, because the rest of the spell was so sloppy he didn’t think Durkavic capable of designing a spell on his own.
The circles barely worked. It would only take a few cuts to force them to stop altogether. The trouble was they were filled with power. If they ground to a stop, the power would blow up. This close to the World Tree, Nick wasn’t willing to risk an uncontained explosion. He blew out a breath.
The ground under his feet rippled, and Nick felt a root push its way closer to the circles. Or he could try a Parker solution.
Nick knelt and winced because he was going to feel like anidiotif this didn’t go right. “Hey, uh, trees. Old One trees? I’m going to slice the circle, and when I do, there’s going to be a lot of power available. There’s going to be alotof power that needs a new home or it’s going to go boom.” Nick actually had a wholelecture in his head about how that was wrong, it wasn’t that the power was going to suddenly beavailable, it was that the power would begin building up at the places he was going to force the circle out of alignment by cutting the lines, and that would… well, frankly, his explanation would be beyond most alchemists’ comprehension. He wasn’t about to try it on a tree that he wasn’t sure could understand him.
Nick cleared his throat. “Can you drink up the power? Fast? So it doesn’t explode and we don’t end up with a damaged World Tree?”
The ground under his foot rose a good inch, the root pushing its way to the surface and Nick decided that was good enough for him. He looked over at Laurel who nodded, cutting the lights as he sprinted into the circle, slicing through the first layer of the spell at a weak point. After that, he only needed two more cuts—one at the level that contained all the bits pulled loose from Shadow, another at the central layer, and then he crouched next to Shadow, and it was second nature to pull up a shield spell around them both.
Zahide might yell, but he knew he could do it, heknewhe could do it.
The ground shook and Nick watched with critical eyes as the spellwork ground to a close, like pieces of broken metal slamming into each other, a car crash right in front of him. The magic cascaded up, spilling over the rest of the spellwork, and Nick had a single moment to swear because this was more magic than he’d thought.
But then the magic disappeared, and around them, the trees groaned and creaked andgrew. Parker was yelling his name, but Nick yelled back, “Get Durkavic!”
The circle was ash, pieces of it still visible, but most of it blowing away as a wind screamed through the clearing. Then there was quiet and Parker said in the voice he usually reservedfor when one of the fae monarchs had tip-toed up to war or when his Doordash order arrived wrong, “Youdaredmess with the balance of the thousand realms formoney? Cayo Durkavic, your greed has nearly killed a god, and I am here to tell you that, as the Windrose, there will be consequences for your actions.”
If Parker said anything else, Nick didn’t hear it because Shadow reached out, bits of her sliding back and rejoining her body. She grabbed hold of Nick’s ankle and said, in a soft broken voice, “Father?”
Nick knelt, taking her hand from his ankle and holding it between his own. “I’m sorry, no. He is dead.”
And Shadow began to weep, the sound soft and pained. “I know. I know.”
He held her hand until Laurel came close, holding out her own. She bit her lip. “I’m sorry, I can’t tell what the standard magic level for your kind is.”
Nick blinked and tilted his head. “She’s human.”
Laurel shook her head. “She’s not.”
Under his hand, Shadow rippled, her flesh changing color and shape. Still holding Nick’s hand, she got her legs under her and sat up. “My heir comes from one of the thousand realms. Her kind adapt to the world they live on. In their own realm, they have managed to colonize their whole solar system because of this ability.”
“That explains why you looked like alchemy,” Parker said, coming close.
Nick squinted past him and saw Durkavic struggling against one of the trees, which had grown branches around him, wrapping him in a tight hug of wood and leaves.
“Yes,” Shadow said. “I took on this ability from her. We have been together a long time, it was… habit to make myself adapt to the world we were on.”
“But how did Durkavic even get you?” Parker asked. “How did he trap you? You’re an old god. I’ve seen old gods destroy cities. Destroythiscity.”
Shadow gave a small, embarrassed smile. “He summoned me. I have been searching for my father for a long time and when he called, I sensed… I sensed my father. An echo of him here.” She looked at Nick, searching his face. She raised her free hand and touched his face. “It was only when I saw you that I knew that was simply an echo. My father is dead.”
“I’m sorry,” Nick said. It wasn’t enough.
