“Favor?” I snap, jumping to my feet. “If it was such a favor, then why didn’t you just tell me you planned on doing it?”
“I told you: I thought it might kill you. And honestly I wasn’t sure how I was going to draw it out, or if I’d even be able to, until just recently. Not until I saw the way you reacted to the other keys. Then it became obvious that your power was drawn to theirs, even while they were in their neutralized state.”
“You could have explained that to me. I should have had a say in this!”
“Maybe. But I wasn’t sure you would have agreed to help me if you thought there was a chance you’d die in the end.”
The trees continue to moan and creak around us, nearly drowning out my voice as I quietly say, “I was never afraid of dying. I only wanted to fix this world, whatever it took. And I thought you wanted the same thing.”
He smiles. It’s small—the subtle reaction he has when he realizes he’s right about something. When one of his illusions has successfully tricked someone.
It fills me with a pulsing, aching dread.
“What else have you lied about?” I demand. “Was it all a lie? Everything you told me about yourself? Everything we did when we were alone together?”
For a fraction of a second his smile is replaced by something uncomfortable, and then his expression turns stony. Instead of answering me, he focuses on running his hand across each of the keys, stripping the spells he’s casted over them.
I can feel their power building. It’s not pulling me, not driving me crazy anymore, but I still feel almost overwhelmed by it.
They shouldn’t be collected like this. I can’t stop thinking that. It’s too much power in one place.
And suddenly I realize the only question that I should have been asking—the only one that really matters now: “Did you even want to fix this world at all?”
Black flames twist around his hands, reminding me entirely too much of the last time I faced his father. Maric Blackwood. The enemy I thought I was fighting. The one I thought I could outrun and outsmart. That I could defeat.
How can I even think about defeating his son, when just minutes ago I thought I was falling in love with him?
“There are things that I plan to fix,” Soren says. “But how this particular world holds up…Well, that’s not really my concern, because I don’t plan on staying in it much longer. Though, for your sake, I hope it lasts.”
I realize what he’s going to do the instant those black flames start to twist away from his hands and encircle the keys instead.
I don’t think. I just throw myself forward, slamming my shoulder into his chest and knocking him backward. A cheap shot at his existing wounds, maybe, but it scatters his magic and allows me to step protectively between him and the keys.
“Destroying them isn’t going to close the link to the other world, is it?” I demand. “You said it yourself when we first met: if I had been killed, it might have ripped open a permanent fissure. And that’s exactly what you plan to do, isn’t it? You obnoxious, piece of—”
“I don’t think it will be permanent.” He climbs back to his feet, wincing and holding his side. “And less like a tear and more like a stable bridge, now that I’ve collected enough power to do it, along with researching the proper spell, but—”
I punch him. I aim straight for his head this time. He manages to twist so that I’m only able to land a glancing blow, but it’s enough to disorient him long enough that it gives me time to grab one of the keys—the one that came out of me—and I shove it into my pocket. As I finish securing it, I see him diving for the others. I kick them both as hard as I can in opposite directions.
He abandons his pursuit of the keys and turns furiously after me instead. “You’re going to force me to deal with you, aren’t you?”
“You should have seen that coming, asshole. If I didn’t back down to the demons we fought, what made you think I would I would let you get away with this?”
He narrows his eyes and lifts his hand, bending his fingers as if beckoning magic to them. The air around him shimmers and swelters.
I lift my hand as well, focusing on my nails, thinking of all the times I’ve almost transformed them to claws in the past. I can’t help the fear that skips through me out of habit, warning me, repeating those three words that have been my existence for so long: Human. Control. Peace.
But I’m more than human.
I’m in control, now.
And the only way I’m going to find peace is by stopping him. However I have to do it. So as Soren steps toward me, I draw back and prepare to strike, and as I do I feel thick black claws curving out from my fingertips.
He clenches his fist, and two mirror images of himself materialize in that shimmering air around him. All three versions of him reach for the dagger at his back. I bolt forward before any of them can draw the weapon, and I swing toward the center Soren—the real one that I haven’t taken my eyes off of—and my claws slice easily through his clothing and catch him just above the hip as he tries to spin away. They carve into him as easily as if he’s made of water. The scent of his blood explodes into my nostrils, and the memory of the last time I smelled so much of this blood crashes into my head along with it.
I’d been so afraid of losing him.
I’d thought he was actually mine to lose.
I feel the raw, stabbing pain of his betrayal all over again. A hot rush of fury follows it. It makes me blind and stupid for a split second—enough time for him to counterattack by hooking an arm around me and slamming me to the ground. I roll over and spring immediately back up, but by this point, the three different versions of him have mixed themselves. And they’re all bleeding, suddenly. They all have torn clothing, like I attacked all three of them.
My heart skips several beats faster.
“Go home, Elle,” says one of the Sorens.
“No,” I snarl back, wiping away the dirt and pine needles sticking to my arm.
“You’re fixed,” says the Soren to my right. “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? You’re stable. You can go home and live your life in peace and forget about me.”
“If you do something stupid with those keys, it’s still my fault! I’m the one who gave them to you. The one who was stupid enough to trust you!” My eyes dart frantically between the three of him, trying to come up with a plan. Trying to see the real him, somehow.
And then I realize—none of these are real.
They all still have those deep blue eyes that I know don’t really belong to him.
I’ve made his illusion slip before. So maybe there was something real between us that night on the Irish hillside, and maybe I can use it to draw him out again.
It makes me cringe inwardly to do it, but I lower my voice and my claws, and in the most vulnerable tone I can manage, I say, “I thought I was falling in love with you, you know.”
All three of his bodies draw back half a step. But then they quickly redistribute their weight back to a casual stance, and they all regard me with the same relaxed smile as the center one says, “You should have known better than to fall in love with someone that’s constantly changing. It could only have ended poorly.”
“I’ve seen the real you. There are things about you that you can’t change. And those things we did—you can’t change those, either. I know you felt something. Even if almost everything else about you was fake, at least tell me those feelings weren’t. The two of us almost split the sky open that day at the inn. That was real.”
He’s silent for a moment. Hardly even breathing. I can hear those voices on the beach again, and the steady ebb and flow of the ocean waves, and the way my heart seems to have paused along with his breathing.
“Go home,” that center Soren repeats, quieter this time.
“I want to see the real you first. One more time. Please?” I lock eyes with the one closest to me. Still blue. I’m scared to look away, because I’m afraid I might miss them changing. But then I hear t
he one to my left move—just the tiniest bit of uncertain shuffling.
I spin around, and I immediately find his eyes.
Green.
My breath catches at the sight. I don’t hesitate long enough to think about all the reasons why. I just jump forward, claws outstretched. This time I make sure they sink more completely in, deeply into his shoulder. He tries to grab me and throw me to the ground again. I dig in and hold on, dragging him down with me. We roll several feet, kicking and punching and scrambling for position, until he manages to get a hand tangled in my hair. He uses that grip to slam my head into a gnarled, protruding tree root. The jarring pain that shoots through my temple makes my vision dance and my stomach lurch, threatening to throw up all that questionably greasy food I ate earlier.
I sense him looming over me.
My inner wolf surges up, and for once, I don’t bother trying to keep it chained.
I let my instincts take over, let my beastly strength throw him off me. It springs me to my hands and knees in the next instant. I’m still shaped like a human, but my mind is all wolf, sending me scrabbling on all fours until I’m close enough to pounce on his chest and pin his squirming body underneath me.
I feel sharpness in my mouth. Fangs sprouting, jaw unhinging and shifting and growing powerful enough to crush.
He throws his hands up and takes my face in a vicious grip. He yanks it closer to his, almost as if for a violent kiss, and he harshly whispers, “I really didn’t want to have to hurt you this way. But you’ve left me no choice.”
His fingers clench tighter into my skull. Electricity tingles across my scalp. I let out an involuntary whimper that sounds more canine than human. I remember the way he tricked my mind into feeling comforted, and I have a feeling I know what’s coming next—and it isn’t going to be a brief relaxation spell. But my mind is a strange mix of human and wolf, and it’s too confused to stop him.
He overpowers me, and he injects the sensation of pain directly into my mind.
I feel my body convulsing with it, over and over again until I can’t feel anything anymore, just a strange weightless sensation. My mind blanks. The trees towering around me become blurs of shadows that collapse over my still body, plunging me into total, unconscious darkness that lasts for I don’t know how long.
When I manage to blink my eyes, to actually see again, Soren is far away, bending to pick up something in the grass.
But my first coherent thought isn’t of him.
The first coherent thought I manage is, Liam was right. I was so stupid to let that boy mess with my mind. And suddenly all I can think about is my best friend, and how I wish he was here. I would almost swear he is here—would swear I can smell him, feel him all around me—because I’m thinking so clearly of his voice, his words, that argument.
There’s no such thing as a harmless spell.
I try not to think about the lingering harm this latest spell has done to my mind. My head is throbbing, and I don’t know if it’s with real or imagined pain, but I push myself through it, rising up onto shaking hands and knees.
“Don’t move,” Soren says, his back still to me as he stands, one of the keys now clenched in his hand. There’s one in his other hand too, I notice.
How long was I out for?
“Stay where you are, and I won’t hurt you again,” he says. “I won’t hurt any of them.”
“Any of…?”
(ELLE!)
I twist around—too fast for my throbbing head, and I almost pass out again. But the sight of the people running toward me helps me find my balance. I wasn’t imagining Liam’s smell. And it isn’t just Liam. Carys is there too.
And my parents are right behind them.
I try to get to my feet, but Soren’s quiet, threatening voice stops me cold: “Tell them to stop. Or they’ll regret it.”
I jerk my head toward him. And that’s when I realize: he doesn’t just have two keys. He has all three. They’re hovering just above his outstretched hands, each one emitting a menacing cloud of black, swirling energy.
“Last chance,” he says.
But there’s really no chance. It all happens too quick. Before I can shout at him to stop, before I can warn my family to look out, before I can even turn away myself, it happens: the energy of those keys seems to overwhelm Soren, and he’s thrown back against the ground. He fights to keep his arms stretched above him, trying to keep the keys steady in the air.
There’s a low rumble—like distant thunder.
It grows louder. Closer. It builds and builds until it gives one final, massive BOOM.
And then all the stars above us go out.
Chapter Twenty
That dark expanse of no stars stretches further and further, until I’m afraid it might engulf this entire world in an endless, impenetrable night.
But just when it all starts to look completely hopeless, I see the first of the showering dust—like fissure residue, except that it glows as bright as any of those stars that were driven away. Just scattered, tiny specks of it at first, but soon it’s falling faster and thicker, gathering into a waterfall of stardust that cascades down to where the three keys now rest against the ground.
Soren staggers to his feet, and he starts toward the bottom of that cascade.
I run after him.
My mom is faster than me. I’m less than ten feet away from Soren when she grabs hold of my arm and jerks me back. She wraps me into a tight embrace without taking her eyes off the scene before us.
“What in the world is going on?” she whispers.
I can’t even begin to explain, so I just lean against her arms to steady myself, and we watch as Soren takes out his dagger and stabs two of the keys, over and over, directly in the center of their respective marks. Magic sparks from his hands and down along the blade as he does.
And soon enough, those two keys shatter.
The waterfall of dust weakens, most of its light flickering out save for a wobbly stream still collected in its center.
He steps to within a few feet of that center. And my heart seizes with fear for him, even after everything he’s put me through. I can’t help it. Especially not after his eyes, with all their true, brilliant color, drift from the final key and up to me.
“This path only goes one way. After I’m gone, destroy that last key for me, will you? And hopefully it will close everything up and stabilize things.”
I don’t know what to say.
The path only goes one way. There are none of Canath’s monsters coming out of it—so he must be telling the truth. He wasn’t trying to use me to unleash anything, the way the rest of his kind wanted to.
But then why?
Why would he do this?
Everything seems to be moving too fast all of a sudden. I wriggle my way out of my mom’s embrace. She’s too confused, too stunned to really fight me over it. I don’t go far, anyway; the rest of my pack folds in around me, and together we stare at the strange sorcerer boy who just tore a hole in the world, all of us completely unsure of what to do about it.
He hesitates before stepping into the dust, just long enough to stare back at us.
And I’ve seen that look on his face before: jealousy. Last time, I’d thought it was because of my relationship with Liam—that it was some silly lust and unwanted love triangle thing that was making his jaw clench and his gaze harden this way.
But now a deeper truth occurs to me: he’s jealous of my family.
Which explains exactly why he’s doing this.
“You think they’re still alive,” I breathe in sudden realization, just loud enough that maybe he hears it, maybe he doesn’t. “You think your mom and your sister are alive in the other world.”
He meets my eyes and gives me that soft smile of his one last time. “Good-bye, Elle,” he says. “And thank you, and I’m sorry, and you know—everything else I should have said.”
What if he’s wrong? The thought slams through my brain. What if he ends up even mo
re alone on the other side? What if he can’t find them on his own?
He steps under the showering dust, lifting his hands as if trying to catch their little bits of light.
And within seconds, he’s gone.
For a long time after, I can’t seem to look anywhere other than where he was standing. Can’t seem to manage a deep breath, either. I hear my mom take one, though, and a moment later she says, “Let’s destroy it, then.”
My dad moves toward it first.
I stop him by throwing my arms around him the way I’ve been wanting to do for weeks now. It startles him a bit at first, I think. And he’s not really the hugging type, but he relaxes after a moment and then crushes me so tightly against him that I can hardly breathe. I manage to grab my mom’s arm and pull her into the embrace as well. And Carys has always been a fan of group hugs, so she’s there a second later, too.
The only one who doesn’t join in is Liam. He stands just a few feet away, watching me. Suspiciously.
He always could read me better than anyone else.
(Don’t you dare,) he thinks at me.
(I’m really, really sorry,) I think back.
“I love you all so much,” I say out loud.
And then I jump back, and I sprint for the falling dust. I draw my dagger as the first cold flecks of that dust fall over me, and I focus all my energy on trying to summon that once-forbidden magic that I know dwells in my blood. I only manage to transfer a few flashes of it to the dagger. I can only hope that it’s enough. Because I’m not letting anyone else follow me this time.
They all try.
But I’m too fast, and my aim is far too good.
I fling the dagger.
It pierces the center of the final key, and a burst of light and cold swallows me up and sweeps me away.
Afterword
Blood and Wolf Page 19
