Page 102 of Shift of Shadows

Evie put the bubble of silence around her once more.

“She won’t give us anything.”

Rowan wiped his hands on his jeans. “We have to find what she wants.”

“And then take it away,” Evie finished.

“Me,” I said. “If there’s anything else, I don’t know what it is.”

Soren slowly shook his head. “Not you necessarily, Moira. She wants her youth. Your mother wants power and immortality.”

True. “How can we give that to her?” I frowned. “Without really giving it to her?”

Mom lay curled on her side, weeping. My gorge rose, and I shoved it down. She’d done far worse to me and reveled in her sadism. I was trying to save someone’s life.

“Do you think she’s right?” I asked softly.

Evie understood what I was asking. “About Ethan?”

I nodded.

She let out a heavy breath. “Hard to say. I think⁠—”

“He’ll be furious,” Soren said. “Ethan has a way about him. His anger isn’t explosive. It’s magma, ever hot and churning. When he explodes…” He shook his head. “You won’t want to be around him.”

“Even if he hates me, we should still save him.”

I looked up. Rowan stared at me, empathy brimming in his eyes. He fully understood what it was like to lose someone you loved. But he’d gotten Evie back.

I knew Ethan well enough to know he wouldn’t come back to me after this. He’d try to forgive me, but he would hate himself for it. The hateful bitch was right.

Even with her trussed up and defeated, she’d still managed to win.

There was an odd shift in the air. A dark wind rose around us. I noticed a hair too late that the silver thread wrapped around my mother’s body had faded and died, freeing her from her captivity.

A thin beam of dark power shot from my mother’s gnarled fingers. Evie screamed my name, but she was too far away.

Soren’s eyes turned molten gold. He leapt toward me, his lips pulled back in a snarl of effort. We crashed to the ground, his heavy bulk slamming me into the earth.