Chapter 10
Raven made Con put her down. She leaned against me as we staggered toward the mansion. Her bare feet slipped in the damp grass, and I tightened my grip around her waist, ignoring the hot, sticky feel of her blood seeping through my fingers.
“Hey,” I murmured. “Stay awake for me, all right?”
“I’m trying,” she breathed. “No promises.”
Con walked on her other side, one hand hovering near her arm, ready to catch her if her knees buckled.
His jaw was clenched, eyes sweeping the graves for any sign of more enhanced humans.
Val and Quinn were still at the storage shed grabbing something to carry her on, but waiting felt like a luxury we didn’t have.
The cut along Raven’s side oozed steadily, a dark line against her pale skin. The edges of the wound still had that strange shadowed hue, like something caustic smoldered beneath the surface.
Fear tightened under my ribs.
“We’re not losing you in our own cemetery,” I told her. “That would be too embarrassingly poetic.”
Her mouth twitched. “It would be very on brand for me, actually.”
“Nah, too dramatic,” I said. “Even for you.”
She let out something that might have been a laugh, then hissed as another wave of pain hit.
We stopped beneath the old yew tree near the center path. She was shaking now, breath coming faster. Con moved in closer, bracing her with both hands while I pressed my palm more firmly above the wound, trying to slow the blood.
“Raven,” I said quietly, “tell me how to help you.”
Her pupils were blown wide, violet irises barely visible around the black. Sweat beaded at her hairline despite the chill. She swallowed, throat working.
“You can’t fix poison you don’t recognize,” she whispered.
“No,” I replied. “But I can help you fight it.”
She tried to shake her head and winced. “Cass, you’re already—”
“I know what I did earlier.” I tightened my grip on her shoulder. “This is different. I’m not boosting Rene, I’m stabilizing you. Tell me what to do.” Surprise flashed in Raven’s eyes. Oh, right, she didn’t know I boosted Rene earlier.
Con’s gaze slid to me, wary. “Cass—”
“Not now,” I cut in. “Raven?”
Her lashes fluttered as she tried to focus.
“Our bond,” she murmured. “You can use it like a conduit, but you have to be careful. If you pull too hard, you’ll drag the poison toward you.”
“What if I push instead?” I asked.
She blinked once, slow. “You can try. But don’t aim at the wound. Aim at the core. My center.”
“Where your power sits,” I said.
“Yes.”
“How do I keep it from spreading?” I asked.
Raven drew a shaky breath, voice turning low but even in its explanation. “Think of it like… a circle. Contain first, then cleanse. Use your magic to wrap around the poison, not blast straight through it. If you hit it head-on, it will scatter.”
“And that’s bad.”
“Very,” she breathed. “You want to cage it, then burn it out a little at a time.”
I nodded slowly. “You’re asking me to do delicate work while I’m pissed and running on adrenaline. Lovely.”
Her lips curved. “I believe in you.”
Con shifted. “This is too risky.”
“So is bleeding out while we drag her to the house,” I snapped. “We need to slow it.”
His jaw worked, but he didn’t argue again.
Raven’s fingers fumbled for my wrist, gripping it weakly. “You’ll have to draw deeper than you did for tracking or boosting. Not from your usual reserves. From our link. From where our souls touch.”
The words made the air feel thinner.
“I don’t want to take from you,” I said.
“You’re not taking.” Her gaze sharpened for a moment, cutting through the haze. “You’re sharing.”
She was asking me to reach into the very core of what tethered us. Not the surface magic, not the convenient flow we used to track relics or send warnings. The deeper place. The thread beneath everything.
“Okay,” I said softly. “Then talk me through it.”
We sank to the ground together, knees dampening on the cold grass.
Con shifted to kneel behind Raven, giving her something solid to rest against. He braced her gently, his hand pressed against her uninjured side, the other hovering near mine in case he needed to drag me away from this brilliant idea.
“Close your eyes,” Raven whispered.
I did.
The world narrowed to sound and sensation. The distant thump of my undead heart. Raven’s uneven breaths. The metallic scent of her poisoned blood cutting through the usual night smells.
“Find the tether,” she said.
I reached inward.
I’d touched it dozens of times by now—when we coordinated across distance, when I hunted for the echo of stolen artifacts, when she showed me glimpses of the visions that haunted her.
It usually sat like a line of warm light behind my ribs, connecting my center to hers.
Tonight it flickered, but it was still there.
“I have it,” I murmured.
“Good,” she said. “Now follow it to me. Not my body. Not the wound. Me.”
I let my awareness travel along the line of warmth.
It crossed the small space between our physical selves, then slipped deeper into something that didn’t have distance or direction.
Her presence surrounded me; wild and electric and layered, like all the storms she’d ever called were whispering at the edges of my mind.
Beneath that storm, I found the core of her. The place where Raven existed when everything else fell away.
“I’m there,” I whispered.
“Wrap around me,” she said. “Then feel for what’s wrong.”
I imagined encircling that core with my own power. Carefully. Slowly. Not choking, not constricting. Supporting.
At first it felt like I was trying to hug lightning. Her magic sparked and snapped, testing my hold, instinctively defensive even with me.
“Easy,” I coaxed. “I’m not here to fight you.”
The sparks softened.
Gradually, the wild current settled enough that I could sense something else. A foreign presence. Darker. Heavier. It coiled along the outer edges of her energy, oozing like thick smoke, sinking invisible fingers into the channels where her power used to flow freely.
I shuddered. “Found it.”
Raven’s breath hitched. “Describe it.”
“Feels like… oil poured into a river,” I said slowly. “Heavy. Slick. It’s not just in the wound. It’s spreading through your bloodstream.”
“That’s why my magic isn’t responding,” she whispered.
“I can cage it,” I said, focusing.
“Do it,” she breathed.
I gathered my magic—not the wild, battle-ready force I used to kill, but the quieter current hiding beneath that. The part that had learned patience from hours of meditation with Rene, even when I rolled my eyes through most of it.
Instead of blasting the poison, I drew lines around it. Thin bands of light, careful not to cut into Raven’s energy. Slowly, I traced a ring around the first cluster of darkness, then another. Each one hummed with quiet force, compressing the oily shadows into a smaller space.
The poison resisted.
It pushed back, trying to seep through the seams of my construct, but I kept reinforcing them, weaving more threads of light until the first cluster was contained.
Sweat prickled at my temples, even though my body wasn’t moving.
Raven let out a tiny gasp. “Something shifted.”
“Containment,” I said through gritted teeth. “Round one.”
Con’s hand closed around my wrist. “Your pulse is climbing.”
“Let her work,” Raven rasped.
I moved to a second pocket of darkness. Then a third. Each time, I wrapped and compressed, pulling the poison into confined spheres that could no longer slide along her channels unchecked.
It felt like trying to braid smoke. Every thread demanded focus. Every slip risked letting the pollution leak further.
“How many clusters?” Raven asked.
“Too many,” I answered, voice tight. “But the biggest ones are caged. It should slow the spread.”
Pain flickered through the bond where she met the poison. The cages pressed it together, making it denser, more concentrated in a few spots instead of diluted everywhere.
Her physical body shivered against mine.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Now you burn it,” she whispered.
A spike of fatigue punched behind my eyes. “You’re serious.”
She managed the ghost of a smile. “You didn’t come this far to stop at containment, did you?”
Con’s grip tightened. “That’s enough for tonight.”
“No,” Raven and I said together.
We shared a small, humorless laugh, then I focused again.
“All right,” I said. “Burning, but not too fast. If I scorch your core, Rene will kill me.”
“Rene will kiss you,” she murmured. “And then kill you.”
I huffed. “Fair.”
I focused on the first caged cluster of poison, now pulsing inside the ring of my magic. Carefully, I fed a trickle of heat into the construct. Not fire. Not lightning. Something steadier. A constant, white-hot glow that tightened the cage, heating the contents from all sides.
The poison stirred, writhing like something alive. It slammed against the walls of my construct, testing for weakness.
I didn’t give it any.
The longer I held the heat, the more the dense darkness began to break apart. Not spreading, but shrinking. The edges frayed, like ash disintegrating under pressure. Particles vaporized, dissolving into nothing as my power ate through them.
Raven groaned softly, fingers digging into my arm.
“Talk to me,” I said.
“It burns,” she whispered. “But… cleaner. Not like the blade. Like pulling thorns out.”
“Good,” I said. “I can work with thorns.”
I repeated the process with each cluster. Contain. Heat. Dissolve. Every round took more effort than the last. My own energy reserves drained steadily, leaving my limbs feeling heavier, my thoughts fuzzier around the edges.
At one point, my vision swam, and I swayed.
Con caught my shoulder in a firm grip. “Cass.”
“I’m fine,” I muttered. “Almost done.”
The last pocket of poison clung stubbornly, coiled near the deepest part of Raven’s center. It was smaller than the others, but denser, as if it had sunk its hooks in deeper.
“This one doesn’t want to go,” I said.
“It’s probably anchored,” Raven rasped. “A failsafe. You don’t have to—”
“Yes. I do.”