Lucas dives, rolling on the ground.
I throw my arms out, screeching the incantation. An inferno erupts from my hands. Several wards squeal as my attack tumbles down the hall, singeing the tips of Lucas’ hair and engulfing his cap. The sphinx screeches and a too-human voice cries out the counter spell. With a mighty beat of wings, my fire is smothered in the wind.
The blood leaves my face. “Oh sh?—”
Ice spears strike the sphinx, shattering on impact, and sending the beast hindquarters over head, down the hall. Valen arcs his arm up and a crackling wall forms behind Lucas. My brows rise. “Nice.”
Valen grabs me again, anger flushing him. “Shut up and run.” He roars, “Get up, magician, or you’re getting left behind!”
I don’t have a choice. I’m dragged behind Valen as he sprints through the halls of the museum. I look back once to confirm that Lucas is on his feet and following, but Valen doesn’t let go of me and I stumble.
The ice shatters and a heart-stopping roar steals my breath.
Valen spits out angrily, “I can’t believe you convinced me to do this! Insanity. Fucking insanity.”
We burst into a large display room with the bones of a long-dead monster sitting in the center. Six doors lead into it. Valen heads to the second on the left, but the one across the way bursts open. The sphinx bounds towards us and there’s no escape. Magic crackles and collides. It’s chaotic, the wards on the skeleton shrieking angrily, the pitch threatening to make my ears bleed.
I pant, mind rapidly going through plans. We’re three extremely powerful magic wielders against one beast, but the creature is barely out of breath. I scream as loud as I can, “I wish to hear your riddle!” But it’s no use. The sphinx either cannot hear or doesn’t care.
I swallow. We’re going to die if I don’t do something.
Sharp needles ripple up my back and I hiss, stepping away. I backed too close to the skeleton’s wards. My eyes flare and I risk death by taking my eyes off the sphinx to wave a hand over the magic. The wards on this thing are the true pieces of art. Three fat and juicy soul-curdling curses lie in wait.
A mad, terrible idea hits me. Magic builds in my hand. “Hold her still!”
“Easier said than fucking done!” Lucas’ gold threads form a whip and he wields it masterfully to force the sphinx back.
Ice crackles and the sphinx leaps away with a shriek. She turns on Valen, hissing words so quickly that I barely track the incantation. Fire roars from her fanged mouth, forcing Valen to dive away. But it was a trick. The sphinx launches at him, wings stretching wide. Valen isn’t going to get up in time to evade.
He was wrong. She would kill him if given the chance. My mouth stretches wide in a scream, but I’m too far away to stop her in time.
Her claws slice into Valen’s jacket, her teeth glinting as her maw stretches wide. Gold threads wrap around the sphinx’s wings, halting her midair. With a groan, Lucas throws his weight back, his rings pulsing with power. Valen’s jacket shreds as she’s thrown back from him, flipping and slamming down on her back with her wings at odd angles. More and more threads wrap around the sphinx as she writhes in frustration, encasing her like a cocoon.
Valen is still on the ground, his eyes too wide and skin a touch clammy. Lucas grabs his arm and hauls him up to standing. He smirks at the weaver. “Saved your life.”
It snaps Valen out of the shocked space he retreated to in his mind. He scowls, “Enjoy the moment while you can. I doubt you’ll get a second.”
Lucas laughs. “We’ll see about that.”
Claws pierce through the cocoon of Lucas’ threads and she tears them apart like they’re nothing more than cotton. Valen’s power surges and his ice crackles along the threads to seal up the cracks and keep her trapped within.
Lucas barks an impressed, “Fucking nice, V.” He holds up his hand and clicks his rings together. “Think you can combine that with my threads? Or is that too hard for you?”
Valen’s jaw clenches and his chin tilts up. “Too hard? No. Beneath me? Possibly.”
Lucas’ smirk is all teeth. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes,’ you fucking asshole.”
Lucas steps behind him, his arms stretching out to frame Valen’s shoulders with his fingers splayed out, palms down. The gold rings pour out threads of magic and Valen inspects them before he lifts his hands palms up. Their magics weave together as art and magic combine into one so beautifully that it distracts me from my task.
The sphinx rips my attention away and I gasp when her head gets free of the cocoon. Whatever Valen and Lucas are planning, it won’t hold her for long. I need to focus.
“Hold her still.” Power hums in my chest, my voice echoing with it. “And if I die, don’t let Jinx destroy my shop.” I plunge my right hand into the dangerous web of curses surrounding the exhibit, twisting my fingers in the magic, and pull.
I scream soundlessly, my mind sizzling as the curses swarm down the web towards me. My teeth crack, my eyes glowing a bright green as black lightning crackles over my body. My magic twists with the curses, with the strands of their web, the threads within my own soul threatening to burn me alive for the audacity of my plan. But I loop the magic like Lucas’ rings, forming a metaphysical leash. My lungs spasm, but I drag my left hand down my right, pulling the curses along with it. My heart hammers, my soul screeching, but I force the Entropy magic down to my center and circle my heart, where the magic ripples with interest at my soul hiding within. I drag them away and to the clear.
With my body an extension of the wards’ web, I throw my left arm towards the sphinx. Magic explodes from me, my skin splitting in electrical crackles along the line the curses followed through me. The sphinx screams. Burning hair and feathers choke me and my knees buckle, but I cannot fall. The magic has me pinned as it uses me as a conduit, my eyes flicking green and black and blood smoking.
Miles away, I feel my shop’s pentagram flicker with the spluttering of my heart. Darkness claims my mind and the wet ground meets my skull with acrack.
