Silas pursed his lips. “The witches are likely making it very unpleasant for anyone who goes into those dungeons.”
“I thought they weren’t able to cast any magic down there,” Marcus said.
“That doesn’t mean they aren’t able to terrorize their enemies,” Silas said. “If the Queen is any indication of their personalities.”
“That’s rich coming from you, mate,” Marcus said.
Silas merely answered with a scowl.
“Enough bickering,” Eli said with a heavy sigh as he gave both Silas and Marcus pointed looks. “We need to work as one cohesive unit here, or we’re never going to make it out of this alive. Tomorrow. Midnight. We’re going in.”
In the distance, a clock chimed out the hour. Midnight. Shivers raced down my spine at the noise. It was just as in my dream, only now I was lurking around the exterior of Dreadford Castle, not gasping for my last breaths in a damp alley somewhere near the Thames.
The plan was simple. Eli would cut the power. The rest of us would fly in under the cover of darkness. Thankfully, it was a rainy night, and the moon was hidden under a thick blanket of clouds. Jasper would carry me while Marcus took in Tess. The shifters would enter the dungeons and release the witches while Tess and I stood on guard. Together, we wielded enough firepower to stop anyone from trying to get down those steps.
All we had to do was get the witches up those stairs, and then they could cast their travel spell and get the hell out of there.
“Do you think this is going to work?” Tess hissed in my ear as we watched the glow of the spotlights shine their beams on the steel sky.
“It has to,” I said. “Because if it doesn’t…”
We both knew the ending of that sentence. The witches were living on borrowed time. And if we failed tonight, they were unlikely to survive another day.
A pop, and a shudder went through the Gardens. And suddenly, darkness consumed our team of winged warriors.
“That’s our signal.” Jasper’s strong arms encircled my waist, and I held on tight to his shoulders as he pushed us off from the ground. This time, he didn’t fling us into the sky. Instead, he rose slowly and quietly, no doubt hoping to avoid the gazes of the tower guards. And then only seconds later, we touched down in the courtyard just outside of the temple.
Silas and Marcus, along with Tess, landed silently beside us. Eli would keep a watchful eye from above and warn us if—or rather when—a larger force headed our way.
“Stay hidden,” Jasper whispered fiercely. “And don’t fight unless you need to.” He turned toward Tess. “Swear to me, you’ll protect her with your life.”
I opened my mouth to retort: I don’t need protecting. But he was gone down the steps before I could get out the words.
Marcus frowned but followed right behind him. On the top step, Silas hesitated, his ice blue eyes searching my face. For what, I didn’t know.
“Be careful, Rowena.” And then he was gone.
Tess and I huddled in the shadows outside the temple. My eyes scanned the skies for any sign of Eli. In the distance, I heard the pounding of footsteps. And even further in the distance, the blare of a screeching alarm. Was that alarm about us? It was impossible to know.
But those footsteps certainly were.
Two guards appeared before us. The ones from the drawbridge towers. They were clothed in all black, and their shirts had a symbol on their chests I’d never seen before. Probably something to do with the magic hunters.
Within seconds, they had their pistols aimed in our direction, but Tess got off a shot of pure power before they could pull the triggers. One of the guards was slammed back, knocked off his feet and onto his knees. The other guard was stuck in place. Shimmering ropes of shadows curled up from the ground and wrapped around his legs and arms. They squeezed his wrists. Tighter and tighter until he was forced to let go of his gun.
It fell with a splotch onto the muddy ground.
And then the vines slithered up his chest, twisting and turning until it slid tight around his neck. It squeezed and squeezed. The guard gasped, his face turning the color of blood. When he lost consciousness, Tess gently lowered him to the ground with the ropes that then disappeared as if they were nothing but mist.
The second guard jumped back to his feet and rushed toward us, roaring in rage. With a deep breath, I pulled my sword from my back sheath and held it before me, bending my knees as Jasper had taught me so many times before this night. But the hunter was gone before he reached me, smacked aside in a powerful punch when Eli came roaring into the courtyard, his fists full of fury.
One punch. Two. And the hunter was out cold, his body crumpled on the mud.
Eli gave me a nod and then shot back up into the sky, once again on watch for any new arrivals.
“Well, that was certainly impressive. I thought that guy only knew how to read and nothing else,” Tess whispered in my ear.
I pressed my lips together to keep from smiling. But she had a point. This was the first time I’d seen Eli in action, doing anything other than sticking his nose in a book. And I had to admit that it had been pretty damn impressive. The way he’d radiated power, the way he’d surged through the sky with a ferocity that would rattle any sane mind.
I lowered my sword and waited.
Five minutes passed. And then ten. The witches still hadn’t come up from the dungeons. When another five minutes had passed, I began to shift uneasily on my feet.
Something was wrong.
They should be out of their cells by now. Or, at least some of them should. And why hadn’t any more hunters stormed the castle?
“Tess,” I whispered. “Why has nothing happened yet?”
She gave me a grim nod. “I was just wondering the same thing. Something’s off. I can feel it in the air.”
“One of us should go down there and see what’s going on,” I said.
“Not happening. I have my orders. I’m to stay by your side no matter what. Your shifters would kill me if I left you up here by yourself.”
I didn’t miss the your shifters in her comment, but now wasn’t the time to think about that kind of thing.
“One of us should stand guard…”
“Eli is keeping watch overhead,” Tess said. “We’re not splitting up. We’ll go down there together.”
I could see there was no arguing with her, so together, we inched down the cold stone steps and into darkness.
Part IV
A GRAVE OF MAGIC
Chapter 26
We came face to face with ten armed hunters, all clad in black and blocking the passageway forward. From behind us, at least five more crowded in. Their guns were aimed right at our skulls.
“Drop the sword,” the woman in the front said, her dark hair held high in a tight ponytail. When I did no such thing, she turned the barrel to point at Tess’s skull. “Drop the sword, or I will shoot your friend right in the head. And make no mistake, I have no qualms about spilling her blood. We know she’s a witch.”
I tightened my grip on my sword, fear and confusion rolling through me. But then the hunter’s finger twitched on her trigger, and I let my sword clatter to the ground, heart roaring in my ears.
“Good. Can’t have you trying to lop people’s heads off, not that you’re capable.”
Anger churned through my gut.
“Where are they?” I asked through gritted teeth. And how had she taken down my winged guardians? They might have weapons, but they didn’t have the power. Not to take on the strongest creatures I’d ever met.
“Who do you mean?” she asked in mock question before her face transformed into wicked amusement. “Oh, you mean those grotesque stone creatures that have been following you around? I think you’ll find that magic doesn’t work down here, so it was easy enough to get them into one of the cells. Though they are very heavy.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, though Kipling’s words echoed in my ears. If magic vanished from the world, gargoyle s
hifters would no longer be able to shift. They’d just be… “You didn’t. You couldn’t have.”
“I didn’t do a damn thing,” she said with a smile. “It’s their own fault for coming down here and trying to free those witches. Their magic doesn’t work in here. Which means they are nothing more than stone now. Although…” She let out a laugh. “We knew you would come here eventually.”
Blood drained from my face. They’d expected this, our carefully plotted break-in of the castle. This had been a trap all along. And we'd walked straight into it. The only one of us who hadn't been caught was Eli. I just had to hope he wouldn't make the same mistake we had. The second he walked down those stairs, he'd turn to stone.
“Now,” the dark-haired hunter said, in a voice that sounded strangely familiar, as she shifted in her thick army boots to point the gun at me. “I’m afraid this is the end of the road for you, Rowena Mortensen, silver-haired demigod. So-called protector of magic.”
My entire body went cold as I stared down the barrel of the gun, down the barrel of my impending death. As soon as the hunter pulled that trigger, I’d be nothing more than an empty shell. My life would be over. I’d never again see the sunrise over the sea. Magic would vanish from the world, and the gargoyle shifters would never be men again. They would be stuck as stone forever.
The hunter pulled the trigger, and a loud crack shook through the room as the bullet slammed hard into my chest. Time slowed as I watched the weapon whirl through the air. I could feel and see every motion it did. It ripped through my heavy jacket, through the soft material of my sweater, and hurtled into my body. But instead of sinking into my skin, it…
It bounced off.
And fell with a clank onto the stone floor.
Heart hammering, I stared open-mouthed. The bullet hadn’t hit me. Or, well, it had hit me, but then it hadn’t done a single bit of damage. My shirt was ripped, but my skin wasn’t pierced. My magic, I thought. It must have been my magic. The power of the witches and the gargoyles didn’t work down here in the Dreadford Castle dungeons, but mine? Mine did.
And I was immune to their deadly guns.
Triumph hurtled through my chest as I raised my eyes to stare at the wide-mouthed hunter, a smile lifting the corners of my lips. She pulled the trigger again, and another bullet bounced off my body. Another and another until her arm finally dropped to her side. She sucked in a breath and stumbled back, her hands now trembling like butterfly wings.
“Looks like you weren’t expecting that,” I said, flicking my gaze to my sword on the ground. If I could just grab the weapon before they could, the advantage would officially be back on our side. They couldn’t hurt me, and I was pretty damn sure I could hurt them.
But the hunter raised her arm once again before I had a chance to make my move. And this time, she pointed the gun at Tess.
“You may be immune to gunshots, demigod, but this witch here certainly isn’t.” She took two steps closer to Tess and pressed the steel against her skull. Tess swallowed hard and met my eyes, silently begging me for help. “You reach for your sword or you make any move at all, and I’ll shoot this one.”
I swallowed hard, heart lurching once again. After my training with the sword, and my mini-fight with Sebastian, I knew I could move fast. Faster than any normal human could. In theory, I could grab the sword before she could get off a shot.
In theory.
And I knew there was no way in hell I’d risk Tess’s life to test that theory.
The other hunters in the dim dungeon shifted uneasily on their feet, though they kept their guns trained on me and on Tess. There were at least ten of them and only one of me. Tess was strong. She likely had her blade hidden underneath her jacket, but we’d have to get her away from that gun for her to use it.
With a heavy sigh, I held up my hands. “Fine. I surrender. I’ll do whatever you want me to do. Just don’t…don’t hurt Tess.”
A victorious smile lit the hunter’s lips, even though her eyes flashed with worry. “You’re not invincible, demigod. Our ancestors destroyed your ancestors. Tell me how.”
“You want me to tell you how to kill me?” I said. “Well, I hate to break it to you, but you probably know more than I do. Didn’t your ancestors write it down in some book somewhere? Seems short-sighted if they didn’t.”
The truth, but also a way to stall. If they thought they might be able to dig up the information from some old dusty magic hunter tomes, they might hold off on killing the witches. At least for a little while. It might give us enough time to figure out a plan. And stall them long enough for Eli, who was still out there in the clouds somewhere, to rescue us from this dungeon, just as long as he didn’t make the mistake of coming inside like the others.
He was the smart one. Surely he would put two and two together, realizing that he’d turn to stone if he walked down those stairs.
“You’re lying. You can’t honestly expect me to believe that you don’t know how you could die,” the hunter hissed, shoving the gun harder against my friend’s skull. Tess flinched and squeezed her eyes shut, praying to the goddess to save us. But the goddess wasn’t in this realm. Not anymore.
Only her granddaughter was.
“Have you met Queen Selene?” I asked with an arched eyebrow. “She’s not exactly the kindest witch on the planet. She kept the truth from me all these years. I had no idea I even had any powers until two weeks ago. So, no. I don’t know.”
A long silent moment passed before the hunter sighed and gave a nod. “Fine. Richard, take this one here and put her with the others. Alex, grab the damn sword and get it out of here before she decides to be dumb enough to use it.”
A burly male hunter strode over to Tess and grabbed her wrists before holding them tight behind her back. Another snatched my precious sword from the floor and disappeared up the stairs, leaving me with nothing but my fists.
“What are you doing with her?” I asked, heart hammering as I watched the hunter steer Tess down the dark stone hallway. They disappeared around the bend, and a moment later, I heard the clang of metal on metal, and then the murmur of soft voices.
“We’re locking her up with the other witches,” the dark-haired huntress said. “She’ll be fine as long as you cooperate. For now, at least.”
“And what do you expect me to do?” I asked, balling my hands into fists by my sides. At the movement, several of the hunters pointed their guns in my direction, despite the fact they knew the bullets couldn’t harm me. “I’ve already told you that I have no idea how you can kill me.”
She sniffed. “I doubt you would tell us even if you did know. Regardless, we’ll check our books. In the meantime, I think it’s best if we lock you up in a cell down here. Only you won’t be going in with the other witches. Your new cell mate will be your precious Queen.”
Chapter 27
Moving into a cell with the Queen was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. And, somehow, the hunters knew it. They led me down the dungeon corridor in the opposite direction they’d taken Tess, deep within the stone recesses underneath the castle. Sconces of firelight lined the thick walls, their flames flickering dark shadows onto the grim faces of the hunters.
Toward the end of the corridor, we reached a small cell where the Queen perched on the edge of a ratty mattress that was stained by goddess knew what. Her usual perfect black bob was disheveled, and her long violet dress had been ripped across her thigh. She glanced up with murder in her eyes. When she saw me, she let out a scowl.
“Don’t tell me you were actually stupid enough to get caught,” she said in a tone of arctic ice. “You and your idiot guardians. Let me guess. They’ve come down here and turned to stone.”
“Nice to see you, too, Selene,” I said in a tone just as frosty. After everything that had happened, I was done taking her shit sitting down.
She sniffed and narrowed her dark eyes. “That’s Queen to you, Rowena. You might have left the castle without permission, but that doesn’
t make you free from my rule.”
“Actually,” I snapped. “I think you’ll find you have no rule over me. I’m the daughter of Circe.”
To my surprise, the Queen’s eyes actually widened a fraction of an inch. Just enough to show that my words were unexpected. The expression lasted only briefly, and then it was gone, replaced with disdain and disgust.
“As entertaining as it is to watch this fun little reunion, we all have somewhere else to be.” The dark-haired female hunter shoved me forward as the burly male unlocked the cell door. I stumbled, falling onto my knees as the door slammed shut behind me. My teeth knocked together, and my palms hit the floor. And then the hunters were gone, leaving me alone with the one woman I both hated and loved the most.
The first two hours passed by in silence. We were in the darkest and grimiest cell I could have imagined. The only light spilled in from the sconces in the corridor, the absence of windows due to the fact we were, well, underground. In any other situation, this would have meant the Queen could gather large swaths of power into her palms. But her own ban of magic down here had come back to bite her in the ass.
Not me, though, apparently. Of course, it didn’t do me much good, other than the fact it had saved my life. If I wanted to use my power, I didn’t know where to start. Now, more than ever, I yearned to have full control, to wield the flames inside of me.
All I could do was sigh and stare glumly at the dirt-caked floor, perched on the mattress opposite of the Queen’s. The silence was deafening.
The Queen finally spoke after another hour. Or two. Or three. It was impossible to mark the time. For all I knew, we could have sat there like that for mere moments.
“Did you know that this castle has not always belonged to the Shadow Coven?” she asked. “Many years ago, it was owned by the Witchfinder General.”
I arched an eyebrow. “The guy who hunted down witches back in the 1600s?”
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