“Magicae, locum alibi quaere. In terram fluant, floreant loco huius vasis,” she continues, speaking much more quickly now, rushing through the phrases like speed might somehow salvage her failing spell.
I can feel it then, the absolute certainty settling into the core of me like molten metal. This power crawling up and out of me isn’t something she can control or redirect or steal away. It’s been mine all along, compressed and contained but never truly absent, just waiting for the right moment to explode back into existence. The force of it rises with such incredible violence that the leather restraints begin to smoke and burn where they touch my skin. Light cracks through the clearing, bright and white andabsolutely blinding, and the next breath I manage to take feels like drawing in a lightning storm.
Lenora’s chanting stops abruptly, her eyes widening in shock and dawning horror as the true magnitude of what I am finally erupts into the world.
Power tears out of me in a single, catastrophic wave that slams through the clearing with enough raw force to throw Lenora backward like she weighs absolutely nothing. She flies through the air with a strangled cry, her body tumbling end over end before she hits the ground hard enough to drive all the air from her lungs. Harold goes flying in the opposite direction with a shout that’s immediately swallowed by the thunderous roar of unleashed magic. The precious pages in Lenora’s hand ignite before they even leave her grasp, flames devour them so quickly and completely that by the time they hit the forest floor, they’re already nothing but ash and memory.
The restraints around my wrists and ankles don’t just break, they disintegrate, burned away by the sheer heat of the power pouring through me. The stone slab beneath me cracks down the middle, splitting wide and spreading until the entire altar fractures and crumbles, finally setting me free.
For one suspended, impossible second that stretches like eternity, the entire clearing is nothing but pure light and wind and the wild, ecstatic scream of magic that’s finally been loosed with nowhere left to go but out into the world where it belongs.
Then silence crashes down behind the explosion of power, sudden and complete and almost deafening after the chaos. The magic doesn’t disappear, it continues to pulse through me like a living thing, flowing through my veins with every heartbeat. It moves through me with terrifying ease, vast and alive and utterly, completely mine in a way that makes the entire world feel suddenly too small and fragile to contain it all.
I’m on my feet before I even realize I’ve moved, my body responding to commands I don’t remember giving. My knees shake slightly from the aftershock of what just happened, but after a few experimental steps, I feel steady and strong and more myself than I’ve ever been in my entire life.
Somewhere to my left, I hear Lenora coughing and groaning as she tries to push herself upright.
I turn and find her sprawled in the dirt like discarded trash, her perfect crimson suit streaked with mud and torn in several places, her usually immaculate hair half fallen from its careful pins and hanging in disheveled tangles around her face. The expression twisting her features is one of pure, unadulterated disbelief, like she can’t quite process what she’s witnessing.
I want to smile at the utter shock written across her face, to revel in seeing her brought low and humbled. I can’t summon even that small satisfaction. The rage burning in my chest is too pure, too consuming to leave room for petty gloating.
Instead, I lift my hand without consciously deciding to do it, and her body rises in response to my will. My magic responds to my intent with such fluid, effortless ease that I want to weep from the sheer relief of it.
Her feet leave the ground in a sharp, violent jerk, her breath cutting off with a choking gasp as an invisible force closes around her throat and chest, hauling her upward until she hangs there completely helpless, eyes wide with terror as she claws desperately at nothing but air.
For the first time in my entire thirty-five years of existence, I know exactly what I’m doing and exactly how powerful I really am.
“You wanted to hurt me again,” I say, and my voice comes out frighteningly calm, each word measured and controlled despite the storm of magic crackling around me. “You wanted to takefrom me one more time because apparently the first theft wasn’t enough to satisfy you.”
Lenora tries to speak, tries to choke out my name, “Kei?—”
I step closer until there are only inches between us, close enough to see the fear and growing comprehension in her eyes as she finally, finally understands what she’s unleashed.
“You did this to a child,” I continue, letting each word land with the weight of absolute judgment. “An innocent baby who never did anything to you except exist. Then tonight, decades later, you tried to do it again because you still believed, right up until this very moment, that I was something you could control and manipulate and destroy.”
Her face contorts with a mixture of pain and fury, still trying to maintain her hatred and superiority even while dangling helplessly in midair. “This is your fault,” she manages to spit out between gasps for breath. “Everything that’s happening to this town, the failing wards, the magical instability, all of it began because you came back here and disrupted the careful balance I’ve maintained for years.”
I almost laugh at the sheer audacity of it, the way she’s still trying to blame me for the consequences of her own actions. She truly, genuinely believes that everything wrong with Ruby Springs is somehow my responsibility, that her own complete lack of control and decades of magical manipulation have nothing to do with the current crisis.
Instead of giving her the satisfaction of a response, I tilt my head and look at her with something approaching pity.
“You talk far too much,” I say simply, then flick my wrist and send her flying away from me with casual indifference. I make sure she doesn’t land hard enough to kill her. I’m not a murderer, no matter how much she might deserve it, but she hits the ground with enough force to knock the wind out of her lungs and hopefully shut her up for a few precious minutes. Sheshrieks once as she tumbles across the forest floor, then finally, blessedly falls silent.
I turn to deal with Harold next, but before I can take more than a step in his direction, movement explodes from the edge of the clearing like a small army charging into battle.
Two massive wolves burst through the tree line first, snarling low and absolutely lethal as they charge straight toward Harold, who has only just managed to drag his bruised and battered body upright. One of them slams into him before he can even think about running, sending him sprawling back into the dirt with a bone-rattling impact that has to hurt. The Wolf plants one enormous paw on Harold’s chest and snaps his powerful jaws inches from the councilman’s terrified face, every line of his body promising violence barely held in check.
Maceo.
The second Wolf circles the perimeter of the clearing, teeth bared in a permanent snarl, fur bristling along his spine, radiating barely controlled fury. Within moments, what looks like half the pack arrives through the trees, surrounding the clearing and cutting off any possible escape routes. My heart swells with warmth and gratitude despite everything that’s happened, they came for me.
More figures spill into the clearing after the wolves, and I recognize them immediately. Lucien moves through the chaos like something carved from moonlight and barely contained rage, elegant even in his fury, bending tree branches out of his way with casual sweeps of his hands. Ezra follows half a step behind him, his usually calm face, etched in cold anger that’s somehow more terrifying than shouting would have been. Behind them, what looks like half the town gathers at the edges of the clearing, shocked murmurs breaking out as everyone takes in the scene laid bare before them.
Lenora crumpled on the ground, semiconscious and covered in dirt. Harold pinned beneath Maceo and surrounded by the rest of his pack, terror written across every line of his body. Me standing in the center of it all, practically glowing with magic that continues to pour off me in visible waves. The circle of overturned lanterns, the shattered remains of the stone altar, the ash scattered where worn pages once held their secrets. It won’t take much deductive reasoning for the assembled townspeople to figure out exactly what happened here tonight, to witness the truth about their supposedly beloved mayor and her loyal accomplice.
Harold is predictably the first to crack under the pressure, because of course he is.
“She made me do it,” he blurts out, pointing frantically at Lenora’s prone form while scrambling backward in the dirt as much as Maceo’s restraining paw will allow. “She threatened me, said she’d destroy my business, ruin my family’s reputation in town, make sure I lost everything if I didn’t help her. She forced me to bring Miss Thorne here tonight. This was never my idea, I swear it wasn’t.”
