Chapter 38
C HAPTER 38
RUBY
I’m panicking.
Truly, wholly panicking in my magical cage—heart pounding a wild clip, jaw so tense it might crack.
From my frozen vantage, I have a perfect view of the moment Hex and Ada crash up the path from the cemetery, my very wish that they would feel their parents’ magic sparking in their blood. Which means I also see the very moment zombie Hector and Sanguine capture them like flies in a web.
The twins cry out in a wail of surprise and pain, left to hang mid-step as the warring hope and confusion slip away, melding into solid horror as reality kicks them in the teeth.
They’ve been snatched by a Death witch controlling their zombie parents.
“A little harsh, Nona,” the real Lavinia purrs. “You don’t have to hurt them. The twins have been so helpful in reacquainting us to the lines.”
My wild heartbeat fades to nothing. Helpful? Something cold drops in my gut as Hex’s repeated assurances to his own mother in the moment we were “reintroduced” replay in my mind.
We know each other, Mama.
“Oh, I didn’t mean to hurt your pen pals, Lavinia.” Marsyas plays innocent with a tacked-on smile that returns me to the here and now. “I simply asked their magic to hold you in place. Whoops. Don’t know my own strength.”
Marsyas pauses in her work with Ursula and turns the force of her attention to the twins. “I’ll make this quick—I will be the next High Sorcerer. Commit to me now, pledge to neutralize any of the remaining witches, should they fight back, and I shall remove your parents’ compulsion over you.”
Hex’s charcoal eyes flash, every cord in his neck tensed as he yells across the lawn, “You want us to fight with you? You killed them! We know it was you!”
Marsyas laughs. “Yes, and now they have no choice but to see things my way. Isn’t that lovely?”
“Fuck. You,” Ada grits out.
Marsyas turns to unseeing Hector and Sanguine. “Such spirited children.”
Her eyes slide back to the twins, and she winks hard enough that even I can register it, which means they most certainly can across the distance.
“Well, a funny thing about Blood witches is that if your parents want you to do something, they can do more than ground you to make it happen.”
She knew their secret.
Unlike the black cloud before, this magic is as invisible to me as the rest, waking in their blood. I know it is, and yet in that moment, I swear I can see it work as Marsyas sends a bolt of instruction to the elder Cerises. Both of them widen their stance, flex their fingers, and, with dead-eyed precision, they turn up the volume on the blood spell they have racing across the distance to their children.
“No, Papa. Mama, please—”
Hex’s words die as his whole body splays starfish-wide. The whites of his eyes shine, big and wet and open more than they should be even at this distance.
Ada’s twin reaction is so violent she’s bent over backward like a palm tree in a hurricane, the ends of her long blond hair snagging in the dying carpet of lawn.
Despite the undead state of their parents, the scene is eerily similar to hours earlier. The twins are literally compelled to step forward, reeling in like fish on a line.
Hitting the brakes as best he can, Hex puts all his weight on his heels, pulling back with every bit of the strength he earned on the football field. Eyes now screwed shut, teeth gnashed, hands thrown up together and yanking backward as if he’s playing tug-of-war with an invisible line. Beside him, Ada has bent into a bear-crawl position, and is using the lower center of gravity to latch onto a small ornamental tree.
Marsyas tuts. “Children, you just bolted up that hill, racing back to see your parents. Now they call to you and yet you resist? I must say, that is both fickle and rude.”
“How…? What…? Why?” Each of Hex’s words are spit out between labored inhales.
“Do you want to toss in ‘when’ and ‘where’ too, just to be thorough?” Marsyas asks, snide and smiling. She chuckles at her little zinger and, presumably, the twins’ terrible predicament. “Kidding, kidding. I’m aware that you’re under some strain from all that fickle, rude resistance. Perhaps if you come nicely you’ll be able to be a little more pointed in your questions, and therefore get better answers.”
“Murderers… aren’t… funny!” Ada shrieks.
“And children who don’t obey aren’t clever.”
The mirth in Marsyas’s eyes flashes cold. “Hector and Sanguine, I believe your children need some heavier encouragement.”
Marsyas’s arms swim through the air like a conductor’s, small hands flexing and collapsing with each spelled thought, directives aimed at the zombie bodies of the elder Cerises.
The husband and wife lurch into motion in my periphery, going from standing at the ready to a flat-out sprint at their children, all the while reeling them in with the power they still have over their blood.
With every step closer to their marks, the parents’ hold on the twins seems to grow. More compelling, more painful—until the result is just too much.
Ada cries out first, yanked toward her parents like a magnet. She can’t stop it, her speed accelerating with every lost inch.
“Here’s the thing, you insolent children,” Marsyas announces, her voice raising to nearly a shout. “The how —how can I control your parents? How have I brought them back and gained control of their magical abilities? I am the world’s most powerful Death witch amplifying my powers through my master relic, that’s how. Even better, I have the Blood master in my possession, which means your magic is my magic, their magic is my magic.”
Marsyas lets that settle in, the box tight in her palm and uplifted, unmistakable in the late morning light, even under the cover of clouds.
“ What will I have them do?” she bellows, clearly enjoying this. A woman who has waited a decade to say her piece. “Fight at my side, of course. And because you don’t seem interested in surrendering to me as High Sorcerer, well, the why is simple. Because they can control you. And because they are no longer your parents, simply my very fancy puppets, they don’t have any inconvenient attachments to either of you anymore.”
“So you’ll have them kill us?” Blood dribbles from one nostril, staining Hex’s lips and teeth.
My heart leaps, willing him to open his eyes.
Hex doesn’t know Ada is nearly captured. I can’t tell him. And Marsyas and Lavinia most certainly won’t warn him.
“If you won’t join my team in life, then you certainly will in death.”
Frozen and horrified, I watch as the moment Marsyas’s declaration drops, Ada’s unbroken path collides with Hector and Sanguine. They converge upon her, and the girl disappears from my view into the roiling movement of their animated corpses with a raw, high-pitched wail.
Hex’s eyes snap open. “Ada!?”
He falters in shock at whatever he can see. Panic flaring in his features, Hex rights himself, resistance renewed, before something hard clamps over his expression—determination. And he purposefully gives in, letting his parents’ magic draw him in as he attacks right back, flying toward them at the speed they want with the fight they aren’t expecting.
They blow apart as he crashes into them like a bowling ball into a cache of three pins, the screams of the dead now ringing out among Ada’s keening and Hex’s battle cry.
“What are you doing to them? Stop!”
A new voice enters the fray. Bodies flash in my periphery. I can’t see, but I know exactly who it is.
Winter with the demands. Infinity confirms their presence a moment later with a shocked “Grandmama?!”
“Nice of you two to join us. You remember Lavinia? Yes?”
“Hello.” Lavinia smiles from beside Ursula’s body. “And your grandmothers, I’m assuming you haven’t forgotten them?”
Neither of them are tricked by their personal emotions. They see this situation for what it is.
“You—you broke into their shrouds?” Infinity asks, voice shattered with horror.
Winter is more blunt, less horrified than disgusted. “You turned them into fucking zombies?”
Marsyas dismisses her with a flick of her hand. “I tire of questions you know the answers to, and honestly, we’re busy right now.”
Winter only digs in deeper. “I know what you’re doing but I don’t know how you can do it. The manipulation of several corpses at once has been unheard of since Morgana’s time.”
Marsyas absolutely beams. “Oh, ‘unheard of’ isn’t the same as ‘doesn’t happen,’ baby Hegemony.”
“You have the Death master.”
“ We have the Death master,” Lavinia corrects, presenting a clenched fist.
“But—” Winter’s protest dies as the Blackgate matriarch begins to laugh.
“But nothing, sweetheart,” Marsyas crows, one hand still directed at the Cerises, scrounging with their children on the tiles around the fountain, the other now cuffing the knobby, ashen shoulder of Ursula. “Proximity to the Elemental relic made generations of Hegemonys the most powerful witches on earth, all while they claimed they were just like us, and mere shepherds for the power of the Four Lines.” She squeezes Ursula’s shoulder so hard the decaying flesh compresses under the pressure like rotting fruit, the skin splitting, blood and viscera oozing. “Lies!”
Winter gasps audibly as she blinks at her grandmother.
“Here’s the thing your Hegemony ancestors never wanted anyone to know. Holding the master relic of one’s line makes them infinitely more powerful than they would be alone. And the Death relic happens to be in a form that allows more than one person to hold it at once.” Marsyas smiles. “Luna, please collect your grandbaby and their new special friend.”
“No!” Winter and Infinity protest together.
“Yes,” Marsyas insists, wheeling around to the Starwood matriarch and drawing her forward, with a hand holding the Celestial master. “Lavinia, be a dear and break Ursula’s spell. I have you covered.”
The real Lavinia smiles her Blackgate grin and takes Ursula’s limp arm in her own, wheeling on Wren and the final master relic in her hand.
Luna jolts forward, sunlight ropes shooting from her hands in an effort to lasso Winter and Infinity who run toward her, dodging her efforts. But they look past their attack—and that’s when I realize: they’re going for Ursula. They’ve just joined this situation and prioritized the most important piece of the puzzle.
The final relic.
Luna’s magic lasso loops around Infinity’s wrist and yanks them away. Winter dodges and shoots ice from her own palms, turning the ropes into a sizzling steam. But the magic reforms into briar-like vines, coming at both of them in a wave. I realize then that I can truly see exactly what they’re doing. Maybe it’s their ingredients, like in the truth spell. Maybe it’s the prism of my prison. Either way, I’m grateful.
They fight it off with spells and grunts, but the vines crawl and grow, multiplying faster than either can burn them away.
“It’s the master,” Infinity wheezes.
“That’s right, child,” Marsyas coos. “I hold Luna’s magic, and I hold Luna’s master. She’s more powerful than either of you, and she’s a literal sack of bones.”
There’s a shout and Hex breaks free from the scrum with his parents bleeding and holding Ada, limp in his arms. But then Hector staggers to his feet, one arm hanging at a sick angle at his side, and launches himself onto his son’s back.
“I would tell the twins that too, but I fear they wouldn’t hear me over their own yelling. So loud .” Marsyas tosses her grinning visage over her shoulder. “Now, Lavinia!”
And there’s my doppelg?nger, just feet from Wren, wielding Ursula’s limp arm, the corpse’s fingertips aimed directly at Wren.
But before the magic can burst through, a fireball shoots in from the direction of Hegemony Manor.
A body comes next.
Lavinia dodges the fireball but not the person.
Auden.
He plows into Lavinia’s side with all the skill of the lacrosse player he is. The trajectory of the magic arcs with Ursula’s guided arm, swinging wide, away from Wren’s frozen form.
The three of them crash to the garden tiles, falling in such a way that Ursula’s arm is still forward, a jutted sword of magic.
Pointed straight at me.