32. Chapter 32
Chapter thirty-two
The smell hit first—blood, sweat, and the sharp bite of burnt magic, thick enough to coat her tongue.
Emmaline stepped into the back room, her heel snagging on uneven stone.
“Shite!” She pitched forward, but Deyric caught her elbow without missing a beat, like he’d been expecting it. His eyes stayed glued ahead, but she caught the faintest ghost of a smile tugging at his lips.
Steady once more, Emmaline looked around the small room, taking in the others. Margo, Aeren, Cassidy, Ursula, and even Lara were all gathered now, silent as wraiths.
Lashed to a heavy wooden chair, Caelith’s arms were wrenched back, hands bound tight enough to turn his fingers purple where the shadows cut into his skin. Ursula sat closest, ready to summon more darkness at a moment’s notice.
Sitting straight, Caelith lifted his chin despite the blood crusted down one side of his face. His mouth was still sealed shut, skin stretched smooth where his lips had been, but his eye—the one Aeren hadn’t destroyed—gleamed sharp and clear.
Emmaline’s voice came rough. “How long was I out?”
Ursula didn’t glance back. “Hours.” The word dropped flat and heavy. “It’s nearly dawn.”
A thin spark flickered behind Caelith’s chair—lightning sputtering bright enough to catch Emmaline’s eye. Before it could build, a tendril of shadow shot from Ursula’s hand, wrapping around his wrists like a vise and snuffing the spark to nothing.
“He’s been at it since we got him tied down.” Her shoulders slumped slightly.
“Are you okay?” Emmaline asked.
Ursula sighed, rubbing her sleeve across her forehead, smearing sweat into her silver hair. “Didn’t expect to have to hold him this long. I’m sorry you won’t get much time with him,” she said, cracking her neck side to side. “We need to finish this.”
Another surge of power flared to life behind his back, this one faster. Ursula moved just as quickly, and darkness snapped over the lightning as her hand snapped across his face, the crack of bone cutting through the air as his head whipped sideways.
Blood welled fresh along the line of impact, tracking down his chin to drip onto the floor. His head turned back slowly, the good eye glaring at the witch.
Ursula leaned in. “I wanted you to have at least one eye left—to see them when they take your life. But if you keep testing me, I’ll seal that hole too.”
The glare faltered, fear taking root, and this time, it stayed.
Aeren’s arms folded tight across her chest. “He looks so much smaller.”
One eye tracking her movement, Caelith’s arms worked more desperately against the bonds as though he could still claw his way free if he tried hard enough.
“He is small.” The words slipped out before Emmaline could stop them. He barely looked like a man at all, trapped in the chair with one eye swelling shut and the other just a red hole, his once-golden hair matted with blood. This… thing… was just a crumbling artifact of the monster she remembered.
Her feet carried her forward with Deyric behind her every step of the way. Not touching her, not speaking—just there, an unshakable pull, like the earth itself remembering where she belonged.
“I have a whole bag of toys in the back if you’d like to pick something special.
” Ursula’s voice broke the silence. “Just be quick. We’ll leave Aeren’s magic for the Patrol to find; they’ll think it was Margo fighting back.
But I still need to clear any traces of mine that won’t fade with the sun, and the cleaning crew will be here in an hour or two. ”
“This won’t take more than five minutes.” Emmaline turned toward Margo, holding out her hand. “Can I borrow that pretty little blade you took to my mate earlier?”
Behind her, Deyric’s low chuff of laughter rolled through the room, just a single exhale, but it landed square between her shoulder blades, heat chasing down her spine. She’d finally said the words.
Margo’s mouth pressed into a thin line, but she pulled the slender hairpin free and laid it across Emmaline’s palm. “All this for a quick death?”
Emmaline hummed low in her throat, slipping the pin between her fingers as she reached into her dress’s hidden pocket with the other hand.
“Quick for us.” She drew out a small glass vial, the liquid inside catching the low lantern light, shimmering dark and syrup-thick as she held it up for everyone to see. “I made this especially for him.”
Caelith’s eye followed the vial’s rise, his expression flat, curiosity dulled by arrogance. He still didn’t see her as a threat.
“What is it?” Aeren stepped closer, hand lifting, but she stopped halfway. “I can’t read it. It’s not Light magic.”
Emmaline smiled without looking up. “Ursula was wrong earlier, you know.” Her thumb rolled over the glass. “I didn’t tell you everything about the plan. Like how we adjusted the signatures at the statue to frame him.”
Aeren’s brow arched. “I wondered about that.”
“Murder’s one thing. Torture’s another.” Emmaline finally raised her eyes, and the grin on her mouth had no warmth to it—only jagged edges and something far darker. “But this…” She held the vial up, turning toward Caelith. “This is Grey.”
For a second, Caelith didn’t react. Like the word meant nothing, or like his mind simply refused to register it. Then his eye narrowed, flicking between Emmaline and the vial, once, twice—his muscles pressing uselessly against the restraints.
A crackle of light sputtered from his fingertips, a desperate flash, but Ursula’s shadow clamped over it like a steel trap, smothering the spark with a grunt of effort.
“You can’t be serious.” Aeren’s throat worked hard to swallow. “That’s… that’s outlawed.” She looked around the room, pausing on each of them, like maybe one of them would step in and call this madness off before it tipped too far. No one did. “It’s blasphemy. It could take down the whole city.”
Caelith nodded sharply, the movement jerky, almost frantic.
“I love you, Emmaline, but adjusting a signature was one thing.” Cassidy stepped forward, Lara a solid wall at her back. “What does this actually do? I can’t let you endanger the Vale.”
“Since when do you decide what I can and can’t do with my magic?” Emmaline’s breath came faster, her shoulders rising with it. “He deserves this.”
“No one’s arguing that.” Cassidy’s hand slid into Lara’s fur. “But it’s my duty to protect the Vale.”
“And you think I’d do something that could hurt everyone, including all of you?”
Arms circled her waist from behind, warm and certain. Deyric. His chin rested lightly on her shoulder, his breath stirring the hair against her neck. “Just tell them what it does. It’s a reasonable request.”
Without thinking, she leaned back into him, squeezing her eyes shut for a second. He was right.
“Sorry, Cassidy.” Her voice softened just a little. “It’s been a long day, and nearly dying at that asshole’s hand has me on edge.”
“Some thanks we get for patching you up,” Lara muttered, giving Emmaline a heavy dose of side-eye.
“I said I’m sorry, mutt. Want me to bow down and kiss your feet in thanks?”
“It’d be a start.” Lara licked one paw, deliberately looking away as Ursula stood up, the screech of chair legs scraping across stone sharp enough to set teeth on edge.
“Just tell us what it does already.” Ursula’s grin was all teeth, dark eyes practically gleaming. “Then we can send the Sentinel’s little choir girls back to the Patrol to file their precious report.”
All eyes swung to Emmaline, expectant, waiting, and her stomach kicked sideways. She scowled, half to herself. “Well, now the moment is ruined.”
Deyric gave her a quick squeeze, and she shook him off with a muttered, “Fine,” before stomping over to stand next to Caelith.
His breath rasped wet through his nose, his good eye darting between them.
“I just hope this still works with his face all mangled.” Emmaline frowned and angled herself toward Ursula. “Hold him tighter.”
Without waiting, she bent low, pulling Margo’s slim blade from her belt. The metal caught the low light as she slid the edge carefully beneath Caelith’s swollen eyelid—the one eye he still had—and with surgical precision, she sliced it clean away.
Caelith moaned, the sound raw and muffled against the skin sealed over his mouth.
His body convulsed, muscles straining, but the shadows binding him didn’t give.
Blood slicked his cheek, a thick sheet running the curve of his jaw before spattering onto the floor below, each drop hitting with a soft, wet patter.
“Okay.” Emmaline wiped the blade on his ruined sleeve. “As I was saying…”
She held up the vial again. “His death will be quick for us. We’ll have time to file reports, mop up blood, plant some convenient evidence to link Isolde to Allistair’s crimes, and still be home in time to get ready for the ball.”
She turned back to Caelith, leaning close enough that her breath stirred the blood cooling on his face.
“But for him?” She tapped the vial lightly against his cheekbone. “With a drop of this in each eye and the right magical trigger… for Caelith, his perception of those five minutes will stretch into eternity.”
She let the silence hang just a beat too long, watching the flicker of confusion cross Aeren’s face, followed by the slow, dawning horror.
No one spoke.
“An eternity of straining against the bindings.” Emmaline’s voice dropped lower, each word slow and deliberate. “An eternity of feeling the blade slide deeper and deeper into his chest. An eternity of dying, inch by inch.”
Her friends held quiet. No arguments, no questions, just the heavy weight of what Emmaline had promised hanging between them.
Emmaline watched Caelith’s remaining eye, the frantic flicker slowing as tears welled at the corner until one broke free, sliding a crooked path down his blood-smeared cheek.
She leaned in, close enough for her whisper to curl like smoke into his ear. “Oh, no. No, no, no. She won’t hear your pleas, Caelith.” Her lips almost brushed the ruined shell of his ear. “She heard mine first.”
A sharp clap shattered the silence.