Chapter 13
"Ibet the penthouses have terrible feng shui for storing ancient death artifacts," Stella chirped from ahead of me.
Her voice was somehow still bright despite descending into literal darkness.
"All that natural light would probably make the evil vibes super uncomfortable.
They'd have to install blackout curtains, and where's the ambiance in that? "
"Oh, sweetie," Nana's voice drifted back, dripping with sarcasm.
"I'm sure it has nothing to do with trapping us underground with nowhere to run and everything to do with interior decorating choices.
And here I thought evil masterminds cared about tactical advantages.
Silly me—they're probably just really committed to the aesthetic. "
I couldn’t help but laugh with Stella at that. It eased the tension enough that each of my steps wasn’t so shaky. We fell into silence then and descended for what felt like forever. Nana’s words played through my mind as we spiraled down into the earth.
Stella conjured a ball of light, so we weren’t going in blind. The magical pressure mounted until my ears popped from the sheer density of accumulated power. It felt like diving deep underwater, except instead of water crushing my lungs, it was raw magic suffocating me.
"How far down does this go?" Stella's voice was thin and strained. Unlike the sunshine-and-rainbows of a moment ago.
Behind us, the door we'd locked was still holding. The sounds of Thessmark battering against reinforced metal echoed down the stairwell like war drums. It was a countdown to our deaths if we didn't move faster.
"Far enough that we're definitely not under the building anymore," Nana replied, her breathing surprisingly steady for a woman her age. "This is dimensional magic. Space folded in on itself."
“We can possibly use that when it comes time to escape,” Aidon replied. “I can manipulate some dimensional magic.”
“It’s about time you being a god came in handy,” Nana told him as we reached the bottom.
Stella’s ball of light illuminated as we emerged into a massive circular chamber. There was no way it could possibly fit under the Corvus building. The room was perhaps two hundred feet in diameter, with a ceiling lost in shadows above. Emergency lighting ran along the walls at regular intervals.
And in the center, mounted on an altar of black stone that looked like it had been carved from a single piece of obsidian, was the Essence Scythe. It wasn't what I expected. The "Scythe" was actually a staff, about six feet long.
It was made of something that looked like petrified heartwood with spirals in the grain. The color shifted between deep plum and gray depending on the angle. Threaded through it were veins of what could have been mother-of-pearl. Runes were carved into the surface.
At the top of the staff was a blade composed of jagged formations resembling calcified coral. And it pulsed with the same nauseating orange as the energy lance that had nearly killed Melaina at the farmer's market. Each pulse sent ripples through the air.
With each pulse, I felt a tug against my magical core. A pull. A hunger. It was trying to drain me from ten feet away, and the worst part? I could feel it working.
"Don't get close," I warned, pulling out the protective stone Clio had given me. I clutched it tightly. It was working overtime to shield me from the Scythe's influence.
My gaze skipped around the chamber's perimeter, and my heart stopped.
There were hundreds of glass containers.
Each about the size of a large mason jar lined the wall in neat rows.
They were three deep and stacked on shelves that ran the entire circumference of the room.
And each one glowed faintly with stolen essence.
Holy fucking shit. Each one represented a murdered child. The room tilted sideways. My knees threatened to give out entirely. The only thing keeping me upright was Aidon's hand on my elbow. However, his fingers were digging in hard enough to bruise.
Stella made a sound somewhere between a sob and a retch, doubling over like she'd been gut-punched. "Oh Jesus," she choked out, her eternal sunshine fully eclipsed. "There are so many."
I couldn't speak. Couldn't process the sheer scale of what I was seeing, what it meant. Jean-Marc had only been able to connect eighty-three deaths to the medical group. But there had to be at least five hundred containers in this room. Maybe more.
So many lives snuffed out and distilled into—into this. Fuel. Power. A means to an end. My magic writhed inside me, furious and sick.
"I've lived through the fucking Holocaust," Nana said, her voice low and shaking with a fury I'd never heard from her before, "and this—this—might be the most evil thing I've ever laid eyes on."
She wasn't wrong. We were going to make them pay for every single one. Aidon's hand found mine. Through our bond, I felt his fury—cold, controlled, and absolutely lethal. "We need to end this," he said quietly.
I walked closer to the nearest shelf, making myself look at the contents. The essence inside swirled with faint colors. Blues, greens, and golds. Each one was unique. It was five hundred murdered children, reduced to fuel.
I forced myself to keep looking when my stomach heaved. I had to bear witness to what these monsters had done. Each container was labeled with a date and a number. There were no names. Names would make them human. It would make what the Thessmark had done real in a way that numbers couldn't.
I pulled the bag of enchanted chalk from my pocket. It was ordinary white chalk that we had soaked in a potion that made it glow faintly purple in the darkness. Before we'd left, we had walked through a containment circle design that would keep the Primordial fire contained.
"Twenty feet from the altar in all directions," Tarja reminded me, speaking directly into my mind. "The chalk is infused with binding magic. It will hold the flames along with most of the discharge when you destroy the Scythe. It has never been tested on anything on this scale."
None of us had asked what would happen if it failed. We already knew.
"We need to work fast." My voice cut through the oppressive silence. "That door won't hold much longer."
We moved quickly, using the chalk we were each carrying to draw the complex pattern Tarja had helped us design.
It was essentially a massive circle with runes that would help contain the worst of the potion.
It was a huge risk using the potion here, but I didn’t want to touch the relic. None of us knew what would happen then.
Nana took the north and south points while Stella handled east and west. Aidon kept watch on the stairs. I worked on the symbols, my hands shaking so badly that my lines came out uneven.
"Steady," Aidon murmured as he came over and put his hand over mine for a moment. The contact grounded me, and I finished the line properly.
I worked alongside the others, my hands moving mechanically while my mind churned through what I was seeing. The glass containers lining the shelves weren't just innocent storage. That would've been too simple.
My eyes traced the nearly invisible channels carved into the stone floor.
They were as thin as spider silk but unmistakable once you noticed them.
They ran from each shelf straight toward the altar, converging like tributaries feeding a dark river.
Or veins. Veins pumping directly into the heart of something monstrous.
My throat tightened. If we destroyed it, all that power had to go somewhere. The discharge could be exponentially larger than Clio had calculated. From upstairs, the sound of metal tearing echoed down the stairwell. The door was giving way.
"You guys stay close to the stairs," I told them in a sharp voice. "I want you far enough from the altar to avoid the worst of the discharge and ready to intercept anyone coming down those stairs. Keep them off me while I work."
"With pleasure." Stella began gathering her witch fire in her palms. She and Nana darted across the room and positioned themselves near the stairwell entrance. They created a terrifying choke point.
"You'd better know what you're doing, Buttercup," Nana muttered, chambering a round.
"I really don't," I admitted. "But we're doing it anyway."
I finished the last line of the containment runes, and the chalk began to glow.
It brightened as the magic activated. Purple light spread through the lines.
Aidon moved to stand beside me at the circle's edge.
His shadows were already gathering around him.
"Our powers combined should be enough to enhance the warding. "
Through our bond, I felt his determination. He would not leave my side. If the roles were reversed, I wouldn’t either. We'd faced death before. We'd survived Lyra. Survived the parasite. Survived every threat that had come for our family. We'd survive this, too.
I pulled the vial of primordial fire from my pocket and unwrapped it carefully. The liquid inside was contained by Mom's enchantment, which was largely her sheer force of will. "We hit it with this first. Once we break through the warding, we follow up with everything we have."
Aidon's shadows grew darker and denser than I'd ever seen them. They were death itself, concentrated into a weapon. "On three. We hit it with everything. No holding back, no second-guessing."
I called my Pleiades fire, feeling it surge through my veins until teal flames engulfed both hands.
My brain still processed things from a mundie perspective at times, and in that moment, I was struck with the impossibility of creating and holding fire.
This part of me had become as natural as breathing.
"One," I counted in a steady voice.
The protective stone at my hip was scorching hot now as it worked overtime to shield me from the Scythe's draining effect. Around us, the containment circle glowed brighter, preparing to do its job. "Two."
From upstairs, I heard shouting. Footsteps thundering down the stairs. Multiple sets, too many. The door had given way. "Incoming!" Nana shouted.
My magical senses picked up at least six Thessmark at the top of the stairs.
They immediately began descending fast. Stella cast a protective barrier of pure radiance that forced them back.
She conjured her pink witch fire and tossed balls of it.
Nana's shotgun boomed twice, the blessed rounds finding their marks. We were out of time.
I looked at Aidon—this man who'd given me everything. He'd become a father figure to Nina and Jean-Marc before our triplets were even born. He'd stood beside me through every nightmare our lives had become. "I love you." I let him see the depth of my emotions.
His hand found mine, squeezing tight. "I love you too. Always."
The Thessmark were breaking through Stella's barrier. Their gray forms pushed forward despite the light searing their skin. "Three," I said. I hurled the vial of primordial fire at the Scythe with everything I had.