by Sarina Dorie
He held up the metal device. This was a dwarf-made heart, the one Elric had given Derrick when the Raven Queen had stolen his heart and replaced it with magic.
Vega took it from him and returned to Odette’s side. Odette’s chest looked sunken, possibly from the lack of heart or magic to replace one. Vega performed her ritual, pushed aside the plunging neckline of Odette’s gown and stabbed the unicorn horn into Odette’s chest. Blood splattered across Vega’s face.
Odette exhaled, her eyes momentarily fluttering open as she took in Vega looming over her, the horn stabbed into her chest, and the rest of us around her. Vega yanked the horn out. Odette’s eyes closed. Vega shoved the clockwork heart into the hollow of her chest, grimacing as she twisted it into place. Vega performed her ritual again. Odette’s hands spasmed, and her back arched.
“Her body is rejecting the metal of the heart,” Elric said. “You’re killing her.”
Vega wiped the blood from her cheek, smearing it. “She’s already dead.”
Thatch left my side to crouch beside his sister. He sliced his wand against his palm, using his blood to draw runes onto her face and arms. He chanted a spell. Odette gasped in a breath and then another. For a moment, I thought his magic was working. Then she convulsed. Her eyes rolled to the left and right in panic. I wanted to help her, but I didn’t know this kind of magic.
Vega’s eyebrows knit together. “This was supposed to work.” She touched the unicorn horn to Odette’s chest again, but her seizures didn’t stop.
Vega was supposed to know everything now. She had the Ruby of Divine Wisdom. I projected my awareness into Odette, trying to find the problem. I floated through the valves of the mechanism. Blood pumped through the device, functioning as it should, but great pain racked Odette’s body. She convulsed from it.
I couldn’t blame her. She’d just been impaled by a unicorn horn. That would hurt anyone. But this went beyond that. Pain was her weakness, just as it was for me. That meant blood wasn’t her affinity.
I understood then. She’d never been a blood affinity. That had been a lie to keep her secrets safe from the queen.
I shook Thatch’s arm, interrupting his chant. “Take her pain. Like you do for me.”
Understanding crossed his face. He took her by the shoulders and sucked away the fire from her chest. He funneled the pain into his fingers and transformed it into energy.
I handed off my baby to the person next to me, not even turning to see whom I gave Aubrey to. I didn’t need to. Everyone in this room was a friend. All were trustworthy.
I placed my hands on the sides of Odette’s face and kissed her forehead. I stroked her hair and projected soothing comfort into her. If I had done this to her when I’d been full of magic, I would have been able to do more, but I did what I could manage. Maddy reached past me and placed her hands over Odette’s heart. Hailey took Odette’s hand, and Ben grabbed her other one. I felt Darla and Balthasar crowding closer as well, each stroking her and projecting peace and calm.
I wondered whether Felix Thatch had known what his sister was for all these years, and protected her by keeping her secret, or she hadn’t even confided the truth in him. It was a heavy burden to bear one’s affinity alone. I thought back to the time I had beaten Odette with a stick and used pain magic to call the Raven Queen. Odette had said I would need to give the queen a sacrifice. Hers had been greater than I’d realized.
Odette’s eyes stared into mine. The convulsions melted away. She breathed easily now.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“Maybe,” she said uncertainly. She looked down at her chest, healed from the unicorn horn. “How is this possible?”
“We used our Red affinities,” Maddy said.
“I’m not a Red affinity,” Darla said. “But I felt drawn in. I felt compelled to give pleasure and relief.”
“Yeah, it was super weird,” Balthasar agreed.
“Did I forget to mention, there’s a side effect for the spell used for resurrection,” Vega said. “If you want to consider it a side effect. I would call it a bonus. All you Witchkin are Red affinities now. You’re welcome.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Lost and Found
The implications of what Vega had done sank in. She had created a group of Red affinities. All the Witchkin in the room who had been Amni Plandai, Celestor, and Elementia were now doomed to spend the rest of their days as the most hunted affinity. They would be persecuted and shunned.
“They’re going to have to hide what they are,” I said. “If people find out, they’ll—”
“They’ll what? Try to use them? Kill them?” Vega asked. “No. I think not. I am Vega Bloodmire, the Raven Queen, ally of the Red Court and those who belong to it. Would anyone dare defy me?”
“A Witchkin queen?” Elric asked. “Some will.”
Vega raised her chin. “Not with the amount of power I possess. No Witchkin or Fae can stop me or my electrical magic. None will be able to overpower me now that I have the Ruby of Divine Wisdom. I am the most powerful witch alive. Fear my wrath.”
She didn’t look like she was full of power at the moment. Her magical batteries were going to go out if she didn’t recharge herself soon. I glanced at the drops of fluid left in her glass jar.
“Do you have enough energy to heal Khaba?” I asked.
Vega sighed in disgust. “There’s no point in resurrecting a demon unless he can control himself.”
“I have the Seal of Solomon,” Elric said.
“Don’t even bother.” Vega shook her head at him. “The ruby is cracked. The only reason your father allowed you to borrow it was because someone damaged it at some point in the past.” She pointed a finger at the shattered remains of the bong near the throne. “You didn’t properly bind Khaba to the vessel, so your plans went sideways. When Khaba attacked, he fractured the ruby even worse. It’s a piece of useless garbage.”
“Oh.” Elric examined the ring. “I don’t suppose I’m going to be able to give it back to Father without him noticing I broke it.”
Vega crossed her arms. “Probably not.”
Elric’s eyebrows rose hopefully. “What if we ask an Elementia to cut off a small sliver of your ruby to fix the ring—”
“Why don’t you ask someone with a rock affinity to fix your ring?” asked a new voice with a Transylvanian accent from across the grand ballroom.
It was Sam! Standing beside him was Ludomil, the school’s custodian. They were all right. That meant no one had tortured and killed them while they’d been in the dungeon. They’d been safe, just as Vega had said.
Ludomil strode forward. “I’ve never met a rock I couldn’t heal.” He spoke about stones as though they were people. “This one shouldn’t give me any trouble.”
“For one thing, it’s a magic ruby. It can’t be fixed because of the Fae enchantment on it,” Vega said. “Second of all, it’s not really a gemstone. The crystalline structure is made out of organic matter.”
I thought about all I had learned about the dragons and their wisdom—and their warnings. “That ruby is really a dragon egg. It’s a Ruby of Divine Wisdom.”
A sly smile played at her lips. “A piece of one anyway.”
“Perfect.” Hope lighted Elric’s face once again. “We can just use a small piece of Vega’s ruby—”
“No,” she said firmly.
“Then what are we going to do?” I asked. “We need to bring Khaba back. He’s our friend.”
Vega hefted the unicorn horn into her hands. It looked as if it took a tremendous amount of effort. Elric placed a hand on her lower back, the gesture either meant to be tender or to ensure she didn’t fall over.
“I will do my best. Clarissa, get over here.” Vega ushered me closer. “Everyone else, stand back.” She placed a hand on Elric’s chest and kissed his cheek. “You too, dear. This is going to be dangerous.” She shoved him away. “And brilliant.”
; He stumbled backward, shaking his head at Vega, but doing as she asked. I suspected that was one of the reasons they got along: Vega was bossy; Elric didn’t mind being bossed—when it suited him.
Thatch held our baby, watching me with apprehension in his eyes as he edged away. The sight of him with a baby in his arms was endearing. I liked thinking of him as a father.
“What are we going to do?” I asked.
Vega leaned in closer. “Dance.”
I laughed, thinking she was kidding, but music started up. It was salsa. I had once been mediocre at salsa, then I’d swallowed the competency lozenge and my skills had improved drastically—at least it had for that night. Perhaps because my hips had slipped into salsa instead of the tango when we’d danced together previously, she had chosen this music.
Or perhaps this occasion felt appropriate for the festiveness of salsa.
She held out her hand.
I placed my palm against hers. “Why me and not Elric?” My two left feet would slow her down and annoy her.
“He won’t amplify my magic like you will. We need to create a balance. Light and dark. Life and death.” She positioned my hand on her shoulder and placed one palm on my lower back.
I nodded with understanding. It was the prophecy. This was the balance of the Dragon Court’s blessing.
Vega flashed a wicked grin. “Plus, if this goes wrong, I need to drain your magic to save myself. It’s nothing personal.”
Lucky me. I got to be the chosen one.
She sandwiched the unicorn horn between our hands as she led me in a dance. She started slowly. My foot caught on the hem of her beaded dress, scattering beetles from the fabric. Quickly they scampered up her gown into place again. Ick.
Her hand left my back to tug on my hair. “Look straight forward as you dance, not down.”
“If I look straight forward, I’m staring at your chest.”
She clucked her tongue. “More dancing. Less talking.”
The steps became easier as muscle memory came back to me. Her face flushed with warmth, and her breathing became labored. I sensed the magic inside her churning. Her hips swayed in time to the music, guiding me around the ballroom floor, dodging past dead bodies with the grace of an evil queen. Occasionally she twirled me, discreetly kicking dead bodies out of the way.
“Are you really going to be able to help Khaba?” She’d said this would be dangerous.
“Perhaps.” Her face radiated calm.
“Or do you think we’re going to have to kill him again the moment we resurrect him because he’s going to be evil?”
“Perhaps.”
“Is there something you know that you aren’t telling me?”
“Always.” She grinned.
Her hips shimmied backward, and she guided me toward her before playfully pushing me back. I could feel the dance inside her, the music a frantic beat. I felt us nearing the other end of the ballroom where our friends waited.
Her cheeks were flushed with healthy color. “Khaba will be weak when we resurrect him because death will have broken his connection to his unlimited powers. He won’t be a djinn anymore. Either that or I’m wrong. If that’s the case, he’s going to be strong. Stronger than I am at the moment.”
“Uh-huh.” I tried to focus on my feet and my words. My heel crunched into a lump behind me. Probably a dead body charred to cinders. I wasn’t going to think about that. “Why don’t you think he’ll be djinn anymore? What else would he be?”
“Think about it. You have to rub a djinn’s lamp. That’s touch magic. Djinn are demons, yes. Many demons are Fae. But not djinn. They’re Witchkin.”
“What?” I faltered in my footing.
“Djinn are just out-of-control Witchkin with the Red affinity who were corrupted by the Ruby of Divine Wisdom,” Vega said matter-of-factly. “It takes another ruby enchanted with a Fae spell to enslave them. Duh.”
“Whoa! Mind blown!” Balthasar said, making an exploding gesture with his hands from his head.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Apparently we were closer to our group of friends than I’d realized. And Vega was speaking louder than the music.
“How do you know all this?” Elric called from where he stood next to Ludomil.
Vega’s hand left my back as she twirled me. She tapped her temple. “Divine wisdom, remember?”
“Right.”
It wasn’t just that divine wisdom could be dangerous in the wrong hands, but it could be annoying when Miss Know It All claimed she had the answer to everything.
We danced our way back to Khaba. The music was fading as we reached him. Vega hadn’t ground up against me or lost herself in a magical dance orgasm, but she looked healthier and less fatigued.
When she kneeled beside Khaba, she motioned for me to move behind her. As if that was going to help me run fast enough from an evil djinn. She performed her ritual. Khaba woke with a start, looking from Vega to me.
“I feel like I have a hangover,” he moaned.
Vega’s eyes narrowed, wariness in her tense posture. “Shall we rub your forehead and see whether that helps?”
“Be careful not to rub my lamp. My bong? My—” His brow crinkled. “Something is off.”
Vega drew herself to her feet. She held the unicorn horn protectively in front of herself, as though it were a sword. “Do you feel evil? Like you want to smite us?”
“I s’might not.” He chuckled at his pun and then groaned again.
I suspected evil Khaba wouldn’t be making jokes. I kneeled beside him and hugged him.
“Did we win?” he asked.
I rubbed his temples. “Yep. The good guys won.”
“I thought we would.” He winked. “That means I won a bet with your husband. I told him if we won, he was buying me dinner.”
“If we lost?”
“I’d probably be enslaved and tortured for all eternity.”
I grinned. “I’m glad you won the bet.”
Abigail Lawrence was next to be resurrected. We had to exit the castle for her. Yoshi, the kimura yokai who worked for Elric, Sam the satyr, and Elric helped me search for her tree.
Ludomil went to free Josie and Pinky from the dungeon. Pinky would be a great help with his nature magic.
I knew oaks by their leaves, but the plants were barren in the Raven Queen’s domain. We trampled through the mud, examining trees in the darkness. The light of our wands lit our way.
Vega stood on the path with Felix and Lucifer Thatch.
“This spell is for bringing the dead back to life,” Vega said. “It isn’t meant for transformation. I think it will work, but there’s a chance it won’t.”
“You must try,” Lucifer said.
She held up her bottle. “There isn’t much potion left. I really should reserve it for anyone else who might have been killed within the castle.”
“You will save my Abby,” Lucifer growled.
“Don’t take that tone with your new queen.” Vega lifted her nose at him. “I’m the one who gets to be bossy in this castle.”
I didn’t have any doubts that Vega could save my mom. She could do anything. She was a Celestor and a Red and had divine knowledge. She was badass.
As we searched, the clouds opened up as if a hole had been poked into the gray gloom above, to reveal golden clouds and pale blue sky.
“Look,” Thatch said, pointing. He grinned like a child seeing the sun after weeks of rain—something quite common where I’d grown up in rainy Oregon.
“Big deal. A sunrise,” Vega said.
Thatch closed his eyes and lifted his face. “This is a land of perpetual darkness. The Raven Queen’s darkness kept the sunlight away.”
No wonder he was so comfortable hiding in the shadows of the school dungeon after living in the dark for so long. It made sense why he’d made his own personal hidey hole in Elric’s mansion.
“A lack of sunli
ght can’t be very good for growing crops.” Vega placed her hands on her hips. “Aren’t there any farms out here? Or do they only grow mold and mushrooms?”
The wind wafted Thatch’s hair back from his face, the strands rippling like dark water. “They import the food.”
Vega harrumphed. “Now that I’m queen, a few things around here are going to change.”
As the morning light washed over him, I could truly see how beautiful Felix Thatch was to behold. He was so calm and carefree. It was a joy to see the transformation.
Lucifer eyed the parting clouds and the forest warily. “Are you doing this magic?” His voice was deep and rumbling.
“Of course I am,” Vega said. “I am Queen of Everything. I rule this land, and the earth obeys me now.”
That sounded like a load of bullshit. She was weak and had hardly any magic left for showy acts like weather magic.
A moment later, I saw what Lucifer had seen. It wasn’t just the sunlight. Pinpricks of green dotted the mud. Plant life sprouted up from the earth, dormant seeds awakening. Budding leaves burst forth from the trees. The scent of earth and wet wood perfumed the air.
Yoshi leaned closer to Sam. “Perhaps the curse that plagued this forest has simply been lifted now that Queen Morgaine is dead.”
“There. That’s an oak,” Sam said, pointing.
I saw it too, the leaves giving it away. I walked toward the tree, expanding my awareness with my magic. It was an oak. The tree was the right size from what I remembered, but I didn’t feel my mom’s essence as I had when she’d first changed.
I placed my hand on the tree. It thrummed underneath my fingers. Deprivation from sunlight wasn’t good for an Amni Plandai. I thought I felt a hint of her, but I wasn’t certain.
“It’s Abby,” Lucifer said from behind me.
He’d glided silently through the forest like a predator. He leaned against the tree and hugged it. Longing filled his frame.
“Out of the way,” Vega said, shoving me aside with the horn. She prodded at Lucifer. “You can’t touch my patient until after the process is complete.” She strolled around the oak, looking the tree up and down. “Remember, this might not work.”