Chase was there too. And what did you know, she had an ax in one hand and a hatchet in the other, magic trailing behind each strike like electric acid.
Fuck this damsel-in-distress bit. If I survived this, I wasn’t signing up for self-defense classes, I was signing up for battle training.
More and more of the beasts poured out of the gate, a black wave of muscle and fang. So many, they filled the room.
My Shield broke; Zayvion pressed the machete into my hands and pulled a glass-bladed whip from out of thin air.
He looked up at the gate, half a room and fifty or more beasts away, and then turned his head sharply at the scream to his left.
The dark-eyed twins fell beneath the beasts. I scanned the room and realized there were other people missing: my dad’s accountant, the linebacker. And I could not see Chase.
Zayvion swore and laid into the beasts, making his way to where the twins had fallen.
That was all I had time to watch. I hacked at the first thing with fangs that jumped at me like the mother of all rosebushes was out to kill me, and then fell into a steadier rhythm, my body catching on pretty quickly how to use this much metal.
Which was great, because I liked breathing. It was one of my most favorite things to do.
But in the heat of battle, no one could reach the gate, Sedra, and Mikhail.
I stumbled backward over a dead beast and spotted a clear path to a column. I jogged to it and pressed against its relative safety. From here, I could see Sedra.
She stood in front of the gate, looking up at Mikhail. She didn’t look angry. If anything, she looked strangely happy.
The rope in her chest was gone. She had managed to cast another spell. Something that attached at the edges of the gate, trying to close it.
Mikhail stared down at her. He held up one hand, and she held up hers. Magic, dark and light, shot like caught lightning between their palms. They seemed to be caught in a stalemate. She pushed him away as he drew her closer. Her spell tried to shut the gate, but Mikhail had cast a counterspell. Neither moved.
More beasts poured out of the gate, streamed past Sedra and Mikhail, whose hands were now clasped, fingers twined.
We were quickly going to run out of room for more bodies in here.
Someone needed to close the gate.
I took a deep breath and calmed my mind. Even took the time to set a Disbursement. Then I closed my eyes. Going off of nothing but memory, I traced the glyph for End.
It was an old spell, Maeve had told me. It was, I was certain, my father’s spell.
I didn’t know it. Not really. I hadn’t been trained in it. But I cast it with a certainty, a gut knowledge once.
I didn’t aim at the gate, because that wasn’t what needed to End. I aimed at Sedra and Mikhail.
And threw the spell with all my strength. End slammed into them. Sedra yelled and turned toward me, her hold on Mikhail, or perhaps his hold on her, broken.
For a brief second, I could see them both clearly. Two handsome people, filled with rage.
Not exactly a Hallmark moment.
And then Mikhail lifted his hand and tore my End spell to ribbons.
I wove it back together as fast as he unraveled it, but it was clear I was losing ground.
“Not even your father could stop me, Allison Beckstrom,” he intoned, his voice so loud, the wings against the rafters trembled.
He traced a spell. Sedra stared straight at me, unable or unwilling to stop him. And I knew that spell was my death.
A hand brushed against my fingertips. I jumped and looked down.
Beside me stood Cody, or rather, a ghostly version of Cody. My brain went blank a second. Cody wasn’t dead. Zayvion had Closed him, but he wasn’t dead.
“Cody?” I said. “Why are you dead?”
Tact. I got it.
He seemed older somehow, his sunny sky blue eyes calm. Even though he smiled, I could tell he was sad.
“Not dead. Just. . separate from myself. When Zayvion Closed me, my mind was already broken in two. It’s been that way for a long time. But now that I’m Closed, I can’t. . reach myself anymore. It’s okay. The part of me that is still alive is happy.”
This was one of those moments when I just wanted to call a time-out. This didn’t make sense.
“Promise me you will make this right,” he said. “All of this.” He lifted his hand, long, artistic fingers pointing at the room, and somehow also taking in just Sedra and Mikhail, the Hungers in the gate. “The fight over magic, over who should rule it. The light and the dark. Promise you’ll make it right. For all of us.” He tipped his head in question.
“If I can,” I said, not knowing what I was promising. Because, hey, I had about three seconds left to live, and then I’d probably be a ghost like him, and who wanted to spend their last seconds of life making someone sadder?
“I think you can. I think you were born to do this.” He nodded, solemn, as if we’d just sealed a deal.
Then he turned. Looked at Sedra, who stood silent outside the gate. Looked at Mikhail, who stood silent within the gate.
“Don’t take too long, okay?”
Cody smiled.
And ran. Ran past me, past the beasts, past the people who fought the beasts. He ran past Sedra. Images of fields, of summer sunlight and kittens, flashed before my eyes. Then Cody jumped, flew, arms wide, back arched, a specter, a ghost, the soul of a broken man-child, laughing as he fell inside the gate. He somehow held himself there, between life and death, his soul outlined in silver, gold, copper magic that wrapped him in satin ribbons. Cody became fire, became magic, as he stretched to bridge the space between life and death, burning and sealing the gate, his laughter fading, fading into a childhood song.
Beyond his fire, I could see Mikhail’s eyes, blue, so blue, eyes just like Cody’s, wide with shock, with sorrow. I could see Sedra yell, “No!” her fingers stretched out to the flame as if she could reach Cody and pull him back to her. But it was too late.
The gate closed. Light snuffed. Ashes fell to the black stone floor.
And the room was just a room again.
Cody was gone. Mikhail was gone. The gate was gone. The beasts fell like toys whose batteries had gone dead, faded into shadow, then nothing more.
Sedra, her hair a little mussed, but not much-I totally had to find out what kind of hair spray she used, because, damn-looked over at me.
I swear I saw tears.
Then her bodyguard rushed up beside her, and other people-Maeve, Victor, Liddy-approached. Sedra pulled the pale, brittle, beautiful mask over her face, and brushed their concerns away. She walked into the center of the room.
“Allison Beckstrom,” she said, her voice soft and surprisingly musical, a little like Cody’s. No, a lot like Cody’s.
I might be dense, but I wasn’t stupid. She had to be Cody’s mother. And I bet Mikhail was his father.
Poor kid. I thought I had it bad.
I pushed away from the column, took a step. Winced. Every muscle hurt. Even the bottoms of my feet. I was so going to pay for tapping into the magic in the well.
“Zayvion Jones,” she called.
Zay appeared from somewhere toward the front of the room, looking a little bruised, bloody, burned.
But whole. A wash of relief flooded through me.
We walked together but not touching, and stood in front of Sedra.
“There are no laws written to guide me in my decision of your test today, except the law that states that if a user of magic causes harm to others or violates the laws of magic, he must be Closed.”
Was she kidding? We’d just fought nightmares, dealt with a whacko from the other side of death, and watched as part of her kid’s spirit sealed a gateway to death. And she wanted to go over my test results? Talk about focus. Or denial.