Chapter 65
The explosion crashed through me in jarring, disconnected fragments. The meteor’s brilliant red flash seared my vision, and my hot-streaking tears blurred the hall, making everything fly at me in unreal, disjointed moments.
Sometimes when adrenaline is shot through your blood, the world slows, and milliseconds draw out like a drop of molten glass spooling out in a long, sticky thread. The next five seconds seemed like minutes.
A wave of furnace-blast heat slammed into me. The wind roared, flinging me backward. I soared past stone shrapnel and exploding marble. I somersaulted in the air, pelted by raindrops of burning stone.
As I catapulted with the wedding-arch stones, the two old men—Celia and Ragnor—twisted their hands in unison. A violent, swirling mass of water combined, braiding together in a long, spinning waterspout. It raced at Last. She wasn’t looking. She’d been knocked to her knees by the explosion.
I was flying past her, but Jagger’s orders yanked at me.
I reached out, tugging at Celia and Ragnor’s blood knots and chain splices.
Thirteen—the Clark’s body—dove in front of Last. The waterspout ripped through him.
He was flayed. Torn apart. The water shredded his body into a hundred narrow strips and threw them like gray confetti ribbons through the air.
Last looked up and watched death approaching in a waterspout. I yanked the final knot free. It collapsed an inch from her bowing form.
I slammed into Primus, and the world sped up again.
We rolled together. My skull punched his chest, and our limbs tangled. He crashed into a marble column, and I crashed into him.
He grabbed me and yanked me upright. His grip was painfully tight. When he looked at me, his black eyes were flaming with an eerie yellow-green light. There was a sadistic, hungry glow in them.
“You saved my sister.”
I gave one sharp nod then spun out of his grasp.
The wedding hall was chaos. The waterspout that had nearly shredded Last wasn’t the only one Celia and Ragnor had created. Another raced to the back of the hall, toward Jacob. A third spun wildly toward the destroyed arch. It didn’t seem to have a target; it was shredding everything in its path.
Jacob laughed and leaped across the hall as if he were running across a trampoline.
Each bounding step was higher and farther than the one before.
He raced from the water, launching bursts of air to divert it and slow the spin.
His cheeks were red; his eyes were bright.
I think he was playing with the waterspout.
He was the only one who seemed to be having fun.
Last screamed, the ruins of the wedding arch around her, her poison vine smoldering. Her wedding dress was smoking. Bright orange embers singed the tulle and the lace, winking like hell’s gemstones.
She snarled at the old men and twisted her hands. Giant, dinosaur-size teeth snapped through the air, racing at Celia and Ragnor. The disembodied teeth were twice the size of a human and as sharp as a needle. With every bite, a spray of venom shot from the teeth, leaking a pungent, evil smell.
The taller old man stumbled back, and the smaller steadied him. He twisted his hand and conjured a giant hand that swept the teeth aside. At the same moment, the Clark threw a giant granite slab. There wasn’t any time for them to counter it or even dodge.
Celia and Ragnor were about to be crushed. A breath before the granite hit, Jacob rolled in front of them and ducked under the rampaging waterspout. The water hit the stone. The stone exploded, and the water evaporated.
“Ha!” He laughed and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Now, this is a wedding.”
“Ward,” the Clark yelled, “move!”
Behind him, the shorter old man—Ragnor?—twisted his hand. A volley of knives flew through the air, speeding toward the conjurers.
Last had stumbled again, her tall, narrow heels catching on the rubble. She grabbed Luvic’s hand, yanking herself upright. He spun, shifting her behind him.
I pulled the knots free, and the knives disappeared.
The shorter old man snarled and shot a stream of poison at Primus. I was like a marionette on a string, tugged by Jagger’s will. I jumped in front of Primus and frantically untied the knots. The poison stung the air in front of me and then was gone.
Primus’s laugh rolled over and through me, leaving me cold. “Look,” he said, pleasure filling his voice.
I’d missed it. While I’d been protecting Primus, the older man—Celia?—had conjured a long golden spear. The old man’s face twisted with wrath. The spear shot through the air, speeding lightning-fast toward the Bard.
The old man snarled, his chest heaving.
The Bard threw out his hand, twisting, attempting to conjure a defense.
It was too late.
He knew it.
The spear moved as quick as a blink.
It slid through the Bard’s chest, piercing him. The metal struck cleanly through his breastbone and thrust out his back. Blood seeped free, and the Bard collapsed to his knees. He fell forward and grunted as the spear lodged against the stone floor and skewered him further.
The old man—Celia?—smiled with triumph, his grizzled face limned with justice.
Luvic shoved Last away from him, pushing her roughly toward the Clark. Then he began to laugh.
A chill skittered over me. That wasn’t Luvic’s laugh. It was melodious, as clear and bright as a bell. Luvic’s laugh was a mischievous gurgle that flowed from him like an underground spring. It made you smile despite yourself.
This laugh was a striking bell, hateful in its intensity.
The old man’s grin slipped from his face.
He glanced at the dying Bard. The man on his knees with the spear through his chest—he’d fallen forward, the metal pole sliding through him.
His two hands pressed against the stone, trying to keep from slipping any further.
A dark, hoarse cough tore from his throat, and blood dripped from his mouth.
Then the illusion that had been netted around the Bard began to unravel.
It was a weak illusion. I hadn’t thought anything of it—the Bard always had illusion around him.
Knots to keep his hair brown and perfectly windblown.
Knots to hide his wrinkles. Knots to make him as beautiful as any Bard a hundred years his junior.
I hadn’t looked below the illusion, because I didn’t think I’d needed to.
Besides, looking below it would show me a Bard.
A horrible premonition filled me. I tugged at the unraveling knots. They slipped free.
The dying Bard became Luvic.
The old man—Celia—stumbled backward. Luvic stared at him, the corner of his bloody mouth lifting into a smile, and then he collapsed. The spear jutted grotesquely from his back.
The one who looked like Luvic but wasn’t began to laugh again. It was the Bard’s laugh, but just to make sure, I slipped through the knots and pulled them free. The illusion flew away like a piece of paper in the wind.
The Bard didn’t notice—or didn’t care—that his illusion was gone.
“You’ve killed my heir,” he said, pointing to the old men. “Now let’s see about killing you.”
The conjurers—the Bard, the Clark, Primus, and Last—all of them conjured at the same moment.
The floor opened like a giant Venus flytrap.
Its maw snapped wide, leaving only air beneath Celia and Ragnor.
Vines slithered on the walls, and as Celia and Ragnor conjured ropes to pull them up to the ceiling, the vines grabbed them and yanked them into the pit.
A flood of frothing water slammed over them.
Jacob was at the edge of the pit. He balanced precariously on the rumbling earth, his arms pinwheeling.
Then the maw shuddered, and he lost his balance.
He might have recovered, but a gust of wind hit him and shoved him into the roiling water.
At the splash, the pit snapped shut, swallowing the three of them.
The Bard let out a startled, delighted laugh. “Well. That worked out better than I thought.”
“Better?” Last grabbed her dress, shaking out the embers. “This is better? I want my groom!”
The ground began to rumble. It shifted, and I caught myself on a column.
The conjurers looked around, tensing.
I ran across the hall, jumping over fallen rocks, then skidded to my knees. Luvic’s face was ashen, the skin around his throat mottled and gray.
He was in the wedding tux I’d seen him wearing in the hall. The deep red rose was still in his buttonhole, but now, it wasn’t the only splash of red on him. His white shirt was soaked with blood.
I held my fingers to his throat. Nothing. I felt nothing. No pulse. No breath.
But then. Yes! The faintest throb. He was still alive. Barely.
The ground groaned again. Then it shook and growled like an angry beast.
“I don’t think they’re dead,” Last whispered.
“The Ward,” Primus said. “He won’t be happy.”
“It wasn’t meant for him,” the Bard murmured, staring uncomfortably at the bucking floor.
I rifled through my purse, pulling out Rou’s Perk Me Up powder. My hands shook as I unlatched the pillbox. I licked my pointer and swiped it through the white powder, then I shoved the medicine into Luvic’s mouth.
“Come on,” I whispered. “Come on.”
If it worked, then Luvic would open his eyes in seconds. I held my breath, counting. One. Two. Three. Four.
No.
Five.
I let out my breath.
Nothing.
The ground bucked. I was thrown a foot in the air and then slammed back to the ground. My knees stung.
The Clark shouted and threw a pile of boulders on top of the space where the ground had eaten Celia, Ragnor, and Jacob.
Luvic’s pulse stuttered under my fingers. Last crouched next to me, her black dress scattering around her like funeral petals. Her cheeks were smeared with dirt and blood, and her hair hung limply around her gaunt face. She stared with a wild, angry expression at Luvic’s pale form.