Ian was quiet too, which was unusual, but something I was grateful for because I didn’t feel much like talking, let alone trying to hide how devastated I was that we’d lost the only remaining chance of awakening my magic. The Lore Book would have resolved all our questions.
Halfway home, I began to hope that my blood sample was compatible. Because that meant they needed something from me, and we would have room to negotiate.
As the car ate up the miles, my head began to throb in exhaustion, the gnawing worry of our position only aggravating my headache further. It was close to three in the morning by the time we turned onto the driveway leading to the Estate. A familiar tingle passed through me as we crossed the wards. They definitely had less of an effect now, and I wondered if it was because I was becoming accustomed to them, or whether they were beginning to recognize I was friend, not foe.
The sky was still a dark inky black, the dawn nowhere in sight. Our headlights pierced the thick fog with a watery glow as Ian took the drive slow and steady. I think, like me, he was dreading the moment when the car would come to a halt. It would mean facing each other again, and our failure to attain the Lore Book.
It was the smell that hit me first. A cloying smokiness that permeated through the vehicle’s air conditioning unit. At first, I didn’t quite understand what was going on, but then Gage roared, “Floor it!”
As soon as the words left his mouth, my lower back, where the tattoo was inked across my skin, burned fiercely.
Without hesitation, Ian put his foot to the floor. I was thrown against the seat as the Rover lurched forward. “What is it?” I cried out.
I grabbed the handhold above my head and moved forward on the edge of my seat, shifting to ease the burning heat at my back. Gage didn’t need to answer because the tires skidded around the last bend of the drive, and there it was. The Estate. A blazing orange beacon in the night.
Ian brought the Rover to an abrupt halt. Gage was out of the car before we’d even come to a complete stop. “They may still be inside! Stay here!” he shouted before he sprinted toward the inferno.
McKenzie and Aiden. Oh god! Please don’t say they’re still in there!
My gaze fixed on the Estate. The fire was out of control. It had already ravished the east wing of the castle, the flames lavishly licking the night sky above. I began to tremble at the truth before me—there was no saving it.
26
Gage
I didn’t second-guess my actions. As soon as Ian put his foot on the brake, I threw myself out of the Rover and raced up the steps to the Estate. I burst through the entranceway, a shield hastily created around my form to ward off the searing heat of the fire. The foyer was ablaze; I was blinded by a foggy mass of thick, roiling smoke.
My ears roared with the all-consuming voracious hunger of the flames. I knew I didn’t have much time before the building succumbed to their fiery wrath. I needed to get to the west wing. At this time of night, McKenzie and Aiden would have been asleep in their rooms. I knew there was a chance they could have escaped, but I wasn’t willing to leave it to chance. I’d never forgive myself.
Crouching low, I moved under the smoke, up the staircase, and turned left, down the west wing. Here, the smoke was blinding, as if there was another isolated fire on this floor.
Fuck! Where was their room?
As I stood there agonizing, there was a tremendous groan, and a force buffeted me powerfully backward. My head hit the polished stone of the hallway floor, and my shield dropped. The smoke curled viciously into my lungs, my skin instantly boiling, blisters immediately bursting against the searing heat. Dazed and breathless, I reinforced my shield, gritting my teeth against the agony of my burnt skin and released a tendril of my water magic, aiming it toward my charred skin. The pain was unbelievable as the flesh knitted back together. I rolled awkwardly to my side and looked back over my shoulder, confirming what I’d suspected: the east wing had collapsed.
The fire wasn’t done, though. I watched it move greedily into the foyer, enveloping everything in its path as it moved ferociously toward me.
Turning swiftly, I looked ahead, narrowing my eyes for a sign of movement. There was nothing but more cloying smoke. I could feel the heat under my hands and knees, understood there was another fire on the ground floor below, knew that it was only a matter of time before this wing also collapsed.
I couldn’t leave if they were still here. Not if there was a chance they could still be alive.
Forcing myself to focus, I closed my eyes and brought up an image of McKenzie. If she was anywhere, she’d be with her son. But my probing senses could find nothing—no awareness of her location, no cries for help. There was only the roaring of the fire and the sweat that trickled down my back.
Christ! Where were they?
Then it hit me—my tattoo! I raised a hand to the back of my neck. The tattoo wasn’t itching, and aside from the heat of the fire, it wasn’t pricking with an urgency that screamed of danger. It was telling me that McKenzie wasn’t in the building.
Time to leave.
There was another loud crash, and I was thrown to my knees again as the fire ate away a section of the floor in each direction of the hallway. At the same time, the structure above me groaned. I froze, looking upward. Was there a fire on the third level too?
I sent my senses to the floor above and felt the responding sear of heat on the third floor. Another isolated fire. These fires were not an accident. How had they gotten past the wards?
But I couldn’t answer that question now. Time was not on my side, and my shield would not protect me from a falling ceiling. I couldn’t go forward, and I couldn’t go backward. But there were rooms around me, and I could jump out of a window.
I pushed to my feet and moved back urgently. Then I ran forward, my shoulder twisting at the last second to ram into the door in front of me. There was a splinter of sound, but it remained in place. I backed up and rammed it again, grunting as my shoulder popped on a whiplash of agony. This time, the wood fractured, and the door burst open. Supporting my shoulder, I moved to the bed, picking up a candlestick. Discarding the candles, I raised it above my head with my uninjured shoulder and smashed it against the window-pane. As it shattered, I didn’t hesitate to leap through and out of the building.
Instinctively curling my body into a tight ball, I hit the cobbled path on the lawn at the back of the Estate, automatically rolling to dislodge the force of my impact. The momentum propelled me forward just as there was a drawn-out wail that ended in a splintering crash. A windfall of hot air, ash, and embers hit my back, and I flew forward again, the damp grass on the lawn buffeting my fall.
Swinging a look over my shoulder, I confirmed both wings of the building had gone. Only the original entrance was now standing, and it didn’t look as though it would last long. This was no natural fire—stone couldn’t burn.
“Gage!”
My head snapped to the right at the familiar tone. “McKenzie!”
Forestalling a groan, I pushed myself to my feet, spying her familiar figure running toward me from one of the garden areas. I looked past her, searching. A few meters behind was Aiden. Relief flooded through me. I pushed myself into a jog, meeting them halfway across the lawn and motioning them to take cover back inside the garden. Here, we were a sufficient distance from the blazing Estate.