by Lucy Auburn
They snap closed just as the white-haired Grim shows up, a dozen masked Grims behind her, face contorted into a snarl of rage. Her impossibly pale blue eyes haunt me as the doors close inches from them; there’s something about her, something different than a usual Grim.
“Well.” Lynx looks around at all of us. “What now? We don’t know how to kill her, and she’s apparently quite capable of creating an army even if we slaughter every single Grim she brought with her. How do you stop the unstoppable?”
It’s exactly the kind of curious question Lynx likes to say aloud despite not having any answers, pointing out a problem that lacks a solution.
But something is niggling at a corner of my mind, bothering me insistently. And it doesn’t help that there’s a certain cell just around the corner and a few hallways down.
“We have to talk to Meyer,” I reluctantly admit. “I have the feeling this is the Grim he was warning me about all along.”
Chapter 30
Normally when you haven’t seen someone in four months, they don’t look ten years older.
Meyer does. He has a thick streak of grey running through his hair, instead of its previous salt-and-pepper state. The fine lines that were forming at the corners of his eyes are full-blown wrinkles now. A mole has darkened at the edge of his jaw, and there are sun spots on the back of his hands, even though there’s no direct sunlight here inside the aptly named Darkness Island prison complex.
But more than anything, he looks older because he looks tired. It’s like one of those black-robed evil whatever-they’re-called things from the Harry Potter movies sucked on his face for a while and sucked little bits of his soul out with a silly straw.
I guess that’s what no longer eating the flesh of supernaturally regenerative beings will do to you.
I want to gloat, to feel proud that he looks worse for the wear because I put him here, but all I feel is sad and frustrated. Reuniting with my bio dad should’ve been better than this—he should’ve been better than this. But now here we are face-to-face, alone while the others scout out the rest of the complex for a way out of our situation, and try to contact Headmaster Towers for backup.
When I push back the partition blocking off the speaking holes, he simply says, “She’s here. Vera.”
“If you mean the white-haired chick with the ability to do evil shit despite the power dampeners, who a bunch of creepy fucks she rose from the dead called Lainey, then yeah. She’s here in all her murderous glory. Probably to break you out.”
He shakes his head, frustration lining his face, and gets to his feet to stalk towards me. Despite the thick bulletproof glass between us, it’s all I can do not to back away—some part of me, despite putting him here and growing stronger in the months since, is still afraid of him.
“Vera isn’t here to break me out, though you’d be well served to consider letting me out to fight her.”
“No chance, psycho.”
“That’s what I thought.” His lips press together, turning his mouth into a thin line. “You can’t face Vera alone, Dani. You’ll need my guidance. She’s different.”
“Why don’t you guide me from in there by telling me what makes her so different.” I cross my arms over my chest. “I’m not going to let you out.”
“Vera is going to come here,” he says, voice grave. “She’s going to find me, and she’s going to kill me. It’s what she’s here for—that, and your heart, and any other strong phoenix hearts she can get.”
I have to pinch my arm to keep from banging on the glass. “Get to it. Tell me why she’s different. Tell me why she can summon voltari and use her powers in here like it’s nothing.”
Meyer sighs, runs a hand through his hair, and studies me briefly. I can’t tell what he’s thinking, but I can guess: he knows the only leverage he has over me is information about Lainey Vera. The sooner he gives it to me, the less power he has. It’s the only thing he’s got that might let him slip out of our fingers and escape.
But there’s no way I’m letting myself trust him and fall for one of his tricks again. Not after what it cost me last time. This semester with my guys at my side has been a breath of fresh air after a lifetime of sticking my head in the trash. I’d rather get stabbed to death and come back to life than risk what we’ve fought so hard to get back.
“Fine, I’ll tell you,” he says, sounding reluctant. “But you have to promise me that you won’t try to face her alone.”
“I’m never alone,” I point out. “Spill it or I’ll come in there and make you.”
“You wouldn’t. You don’t have the heart.”
“Look in my face and see if I give a shit.” I let all the complicated feelings I have about him, every disappointed hope and childish fear, fall away. All that’s left in me is the anger: that he left, that he came back, that he lied, and most of all, that he betrayed me. “We don’t have much time. They’re going to slaughter every student here, break through those doors, and let all the prisoners free. If you’re telling the truth, your ass is on the line too. So give me something I can use against her.”
He nods, once.
Then tells me everything, in clear and simple words.
“Lainey Vera, like you, isn’t just a Grim.”
“She’s a phoenix?” The thought of cracking open the ribs of someone like Reena and taking out their still-beating heart to use for spells makes me nauseous. I can't imagine another phoenix doing that to her.
“No, she’s not.” He runs his hand through his hair, a nervous habit that makes him look older, as it emphasizes his increasingly receding hairline. “Centuries ago, she was brought back to life by her father. Like the Risen, but... different. Autonomous. He used a phoenix heart to revive her.”
The thought of a phoenix heart beating in that woman’s chest sends revulsion through me. “So she’s lived that long because of the heart.”
“Yes.” He sounds weary. “Though every few decades or so she has to replace it. The weaker hearts don’t last as long. She’s grown tired of the process by now, and wants stronger hearts. She's tried a Red Phoenix, and it works for longer, but it's not enough. She'll take another if she gets the chance I'm sure. But she'd prefer all of them, every subtype. She thinks if she gets enough of them together and combines their powers with a spell, she’ll never have to replace her heart again.”
Something occurs to me. “It can’t be easy to perform open heart surgery on yourself.”
“It isn’t.” An understatement if I’ve ever heard one. “She has to use one of her followers to do it. Only a Grim can take her heart out, sever the dying connection, and use necromancy to put the new heart back in and revive her.”
“Sounds risky.”
“Very. She dies briefly during each procedure. It means trusting them not to just let her die on the table and use the phoenix hearts for themselves—something that has come close to happening more than once. That’s one reason why she wants to extend her lifespan for as long as possible.”
Studying his face, I can see no obvious signs that he’s lying.
Then again, I didn’t see his lies the first time around, and it almost cost me everything.
“And you know all this about her how?”
“Not important,” he says dismissively. “Let’s just say I’ve been around for a while, and so has Vera. We have our... differences. Reasons why she wants me dead. I found out a while back that you were here, and knew that if I’d gotten ahold of the information, she would too. That’s why I came here—I realized she was coming here for you.”
“Gee, thanks,” I respond, as drily as I can. “You were a big help.”
He bristles. “Everything I did, I did to protect you. I knew only a Grim would be able to fight Lainey—only a Grim can sever her necromantic connection to her heart. And the only way to fight her is to accept casualties, which meant an army of disposable fighters willing to bend to my command.”
“You’re sick.” The words nearly stick in my th
roat as I say them. “You were going to sacrifice all the students just to fight this one woman.”
“And they would’ve died in glorious battle. Now she’ll slaughter half of them in their sleep and kill the rest quite easily.”
“I’m not going to let that happen.” I hate the simple way he talks about death, as if it’s nothing at all. Each life, to him, is easily discarded—and no wonder if he’s seen so many people die across the centuries. “We’re going to fight, and we’re going to win. I can sever the necromantic connection between her heart and her body just like any Grim. We don’t need you—but thanks for the info, and goodbye.”
“Wait!” He smacks the glass angrily. “You have to know how to open up her chest. If you’re going to do this, I won’t let you go in without all the info.”
I frown at him. “How hard can it be? Just spread open her ribs with a knife or something. We already sunk one knife in her chest—I’m sure we can get another in there. I just have to shove my hand inside,” it’s a fight not to shudder, “and finish the job.”
“Lainey Vera isn’t made of human flesh. Listen to me, Dani: there’s a spell on her chest. Her ribs won’t spread open wide unless four lives are sacrificed for a portal spell. And Grim lives won't open it. She always used upper demons she summoned—it made the bloodshed easy. I knew I’d probably have to use students.”
“Great.” I can’t keep the disgust out of my tone, but at this point, even he has to know how vile all his plans and machinations were. “Anything else you’d like to tell me? Can she only be killed under a full moon when the Santa Ana winds are blowing? Do the sacrifices have to be virgins?”
He frowns. “This is serious.”
“As serious as murder.”
Sighing, Meyer rakes a hand through his hair, eyes flicking to me and down to the floor. “There is one last thing.”
“Great. I love all this learning. So glad it came at the last second after I forcefully dragged it out of you.”
Ignoring my tone, he says, “I suspect strongly that Lainey stole her last heart from a Red Phoenix reborn in the South of France at the francophone mage academy. If I’m right, it would explain why she’s been spotted using fire as a weapon. And the instant she isn’t on this island with the power dampeners, it’ll be her ace up the sleeve.
“She’ll burn you all to death if she has to, just to get what she wants.”
Chapter 31
Four is just a number.
It’s one of those meaningless things you could just as easily skip over: one, two, three, five. No one would even notice the difference.
I could keep what Meyer told me to myself.
But as I walk away from his cell and towards the central hub of the prison complex, I know that I won’t be able to hold my tongue. The minute Ezra looks at me quizzically with those green eyes of his, or Mateo makes a joke to smooth over the tension, I’ll blurt it all out.
Four lives sacrificed.
All to stop one woman.
One terrifyingly powerful, undead woman who hasn’t even shown us everything she can do and yet has bested us time and time again.
It’s not fair. You’re supposed to battle the Big Bad Monster at the end of your journey, not the beginning. I’ve barely got two semesters of learning all this ass-kicking shit under my belt, and the first was mostly a wash, what with all the running away and dying. If Lainey Vera had any good sense for the rules of Good vs. Evil, she’d wait until my graduation day to invade the school.
Instead she’s chosen today, when I barely feel ready, and still hardly know what I am—except chronically incapable of putting on false eyelashes. That fucking glue is a sadist's joke.
Four lives, sacrificed.
It makes me uneasy that it has to be four.
I still haven’t figured out how to break the news to the demons when I make it to the central hub and see them standing there, waiting for me. Ezra frowns in my direction, looks me up and down, then declares, “I told you we shouldn’t have let her talk to him alone. What did he do this time?”
“It’s not what he did as much as what he said—and the fact that I think he’s telling the truth.”
Lynx steps forward, reaches out and puts a hand on my shoulder. He studies me with those warm brown eyes of his, always curious, always taking things in carefully and considerately. “Whatever it is, you can tell us.”
I can. I know that I can.
I’m just not sure that I’ll like how they respond.
Taking a deep breath, I tell them bit by bit. Sebastian curses inventively at the news that Lainey has a stolen phoenix heart in her chest. Mateo suggests, of course, that we blow her up—a plan he’s forced to nix when Ezra points out that it didn’t kill the White Phoenix, much less a bulletproof resurrected Grim. When I delve into the fact that Lainey’s aim here is to steal a more powerful heart, I start to ramble, and Lynx catches it.
“Tell us what we have to do to defeat her.” Lynx squeezes my shoulder and softly, warmly, kisses my forehead. “There has to be a way. If she’s Risen, after all, it must just be a matter of necromancy.”
“It is,” I admit, “mostly. But we’ll also have to take away her heart, and that means opening up her chest.”
Ezra puts a meaningful hand on the hilt of his sword. “We can do that too.”
My own, not-stolen heart seems to thunk against something solid in my chest, like a frightened rabbit kicking its legs against its cage. I’ve never been the quiet sort—any number of chronically annoyed teachers could tell you I’m a novice at the art of Shutting the Fuck Up—but for some reason I can’t seem to get the words out.
I hear the sound of paws hitting the metal floor, and Yohan’s distinctive, rolling footsteps; the others will be here soon to find out about it all.
If I don’t tell them, they could just ask Meyer.
Five, three, two, one.
“We can take Lainey’s stolen phoenix heart out of her chest. But there’s a catch, and you all should hear it from me.”
I take a deep breath, meet Yohan’s patient yet brutal gaze as he enters the room, and try to remind myself of the breathing exercises he’s forced me to memorize. Taking air in, pausing, and letting it out seems to soothe my frightened heart. Even Laura McKinley’s bruise-forming reminders to stand up straight help a little, though I’ve still got the marks from “corrections” she made to my posture during this week’s final.
“So we can take her heart,” I repeat, aware that I’m stalling, “and then I can sever the necromantic connection that keeps her unnaturally alive. That’ll take care of her.”
Ezra, as always, narrows in on the issue at hand. “I’m sensing there’s a ‘but’ coming.”
“Butt.” Mateo snickers, and I love him all the more for these little moments like this, when his immature sense of humor is my only relief from getting crushed by impending doom. “What? You said it, Ezra.”
“But.” I raise my brows in Mateo’s direction, then meet the eyes of everyone here—including two sets of big cat eyes. “In order to open her chest, I’ll have to perform a... a kind of portal spell. Meyer taught it to me. Performing it isn’t hard. It’s the requirements Lainey attached to the spell that will be difficult.”
“It requires a sacrifice.” Sebastian’s normally quiet and dispassionate voice cuts through the air, volume raised, an edge to his words. “These kind of things always do, Dani. Spell it out so we can face it together.”
Deep breath in. One, two, three. Let it out slow.
“The sacrifice the spell demands,” I say, so distracted I imagine the sound of more footsteps coming down the hall, “is four lives.”
There’s a brief moment of silence that hangs in the air, like the sound of the wind before a storm makes landfall, empty with the promise of violence to come.
Then I realize the footsteps are real, and they’re coming this way. Sam whirls, growls, and lopes in their direction—only to stop short, hackles smoothing, twitching tail pausin
g, as none other than Headmaster Towers walks into the room.
“Well,” she says, “this is going to be harder than I’d hoped.”
Chapter 32
Seeing the headmaster here, and not on campus, alarms me. “How is the academy doing?”
“All the remaining on-campus students have been evacuated to the bunkers below the Great Hall, and assigned staff are protecting them, along with a few members of the graduating class. But most of the Grims have come here anyway.” She takes us in, her eyes keen, dark red hair pulled back in a severe high ponytail. “We have to fight them off. I’d hoped that if you hadn’t figured out a way to take them out already, the prisoners here might be able to shed light on the woman leading them. But if what I just overheard you say is right, Dani, we’ve got a hell of a fight in our way.”
“As far as I know there’s no reason why Meyer would’ve lied to me, but it’s not like he makes his lies obvious anyway,” I concede. “He claims that the only way to get to Lainey’s heart is with a sacrificial portal spell. Four lives.”
Headmaster Towers grimaces. “A very dark thing to require.”
“Apparently she likes to summon demons and use them whenever she’s ready for her grisly version of Operation.” I very pointedly don’t look at the four demons standing in this very room. “I was just telling the others about it when you showed up.”
“Well.” Headmaster Towers looks around at each of us, her eyes landing on Yohan, then me. “I think we have four lives between us if we step up to the plate and take some initiative.”
At first I think she’s talking about Sam and Liam, or maybe my quartet, which is off the table. I’m about to try kicking her Red Phoenix ass when Yohan says, “I actually used my last two while I was looking for Victoria, before we knew she’d been captured and killed. I... ran into a few issues infiltrating known Grim clan locations. I should’ve told you, but I knew you wouldn’t approve.”
