Clio’s eyes flew open. The first thing she saw was Madrigal’s smile.

His aphrodesia hit her an instant later and she arched up from the floor as heat sizzled along every nerve in her body. He touched a fingertip to her heaving chest and traced it between her breasts, dragging at her shirt.

“It sounds like my father is just about done toying with Lyre, so I figured we could have some fun,” he purred, the layered harmonics of his voice throbbing with power. “What do you think, my love?”

She bared her teeth. “Don’t call me that.”

“What? ‘My love’?” He leaned down, getting in her face. She closed her eyes before she got lost in the dark amber. “Oh, but you are my love tonight, Clio. And some other woman will be my love tomorrow. Shall I call you my darling instead? My dearest? My sweetheart?”

He laughed huskily and she clenched her jaw harder. When he was being teasing or seductive, Lyre used similar pet names—but hearing them from Madrigal’s mouth, she realized Lyre didn’t call her those names anymore.

As Madrigal slid his hand back up her belly, she balled her hand into a fist and swung it blindly upward.

Her knuckles met his defensive weaves with a painful crunch that jarred all the way down her arm. Even though her strike hadn’t hurt him, Madrigal recoiled and she slapped her hand to his lower abdomen. With a slice of magic, she disabled his defensive weaves.

His fist swung down and slammed into her cheek. Black spots danced in her vision.

“Stubborn little princess,” he sneered, his voice beautiful but his tone ugly. He grabbed her jaw and pulled her face up. “Look at me.”

She squeezed her eyes shut again.

“Look at me.”

Power flooded his hypnotic words and her eyes opened against her will. She met his black stare and her mind crumbled under the sweeping aphrodesia. Fire tore through her body, lighting every nerve on fire, and she needed so badly it eclipsed the urge to breathe.

Somewhere beyond the arched doorway, something exploded.

The sound jolted through the boiling heat in her veins, and as she stared into Madrigal’s black eyes, she had a sudden vision of Lyre’s mouth pressed to a succubus’s plump lips—her flesh between his teeth, her blood running down his chin. Even deeply caught in aphrodesia, he had fought back.

A strange new pain rose through her—this one ice-cold and burning. With slow, dreamy movements, she reached up until her hands found Madrigal’s face. She slid her fingers across his jaw, and his luscious, inviting mouth turned up in a satisfied smirk.

She wanted his mouth. She wanted it on her lips, on her skin. She wanted—and she loathed him for it.

Her fingers pressed to his cheek and green light flashed. Her swift weave spun across his mouth and jaw, sealing them shut.

He flinched back with a muffled snarl, his hands flying to his face. She shoved both fists into his chest and unleashed a blast of power. He flew backward.

She lunged to her feet. Desire raged through her, a poison in her blood—heart racing, lungs heaving, perspiration beading her overheated skin—but fierce aggression boiled up from inside her. If her pair of long daggers hadn’t been missing from her belt, removed by Madrigal, she would have stabbed him.

As Madrigal grabbed at his face, she blasted him again. He pitched over backward, his head smacking into the granite floor.

“Do you remember that spell?” she asked as she began another cast. “You used it on Lyre once.”

A memory as clear as her asper—in Chrysalis’s lowest level, Lyre hanging by his arms from a chain as Madrigal silenced him with a weave. Now Madrigal was the one who’d been silenced. Without his voice, he could still pump her full of aphrodesia—but he’d lost the ability to command her.

As long as he didn’t get a chance to break the weave.

She flung her next cast—another copy of his magic. The pain spell he’d used on Lyre in the antechamber hit him and he crumpled with a strangled groan. As her fingers danced, forming a new weave, he thrust his hand out.

The shapeless power blasted her in the chest and she almost crumpled, her defensive weaves long gone. Madrigal shot to his feet, his eyes black and face twisted with rage.

She stretched her arms out, fingers curled into claws. She felt no fear, only icy rage for this daemon who thought he could control her, who looked at her and saw only a victim. The burn of his aphrodesia, the tremble of her limbs, and the parched hunger for his touch only made her more furious.

Green magic spilled across her fingers as she wove two spells simultaneously.

Teeth bared, Madrigal hurled an attack. She shielded and counterattacked, but he flicked her spell out of the air. More magic flowed from her fingertips, spells she’d learned from Lyre, from other weavers, from watching Ash. She cast again and again, and Madrigal faltered under the onslaught, defending against her with no time to attack—and whenever he did, she mimicked it.

Faster and faster—not powerful magic, but magic swifter than he could follow. He just couldn’t keep up.

With a garbled noise, he launched a wide band of power that forced her to shield, then he charged in right behind the attack. He drove her to the floor and his weight came down on top of her, crushing the air from her lungs. Grabbing her by the throat, fingers squeezing, he pulled her face toward his, his blazing black eyes calling to her.

She blindly grabbed for his neck. Her fingers closed around a gem on his spell chain and she activated it.

Power burst from the stone, then a dome shield similar to Lyre’s formed over the two of them. Madrigal’s mouth twisted into a laughing sneer as he shot a cold wave of magic into her flesh.

Her other hand pulled away from the hidden sheath in her sleeve, and she rammed a short blade into Madrigal’s side.

His eyes bulged. She blasted him off her and into the side of the barrier. Tearing her black scarf from around her neck, she jumped on his chest, shoved the scarf over his face to protect herself from his alluring eyes, and pressed the point of her knife to his unprotected throat. He went still.

She sucked in air, rage and triumph blazing through her. She had beaten him in magic, and now she’d beaten him without it.

Golden light blazed out of the archway from the antechamber where Lyre and Lyceus were fighting. Her head whipped around, her heart leaping into her throat. Crackling power rippled out of the room.

The antechamber exploded in a lethal deluge of shattered granite walls.

* * *

“Give up, Lyre,” his father ordered.

Stumbling to his feet, Lyre braced one hand on the wall. Every muscle hurt. Every bone hurt. He squinted, his lungs aching with each breath.

“No,” he said hoarsely.

“You never had a chance.” Lyceus raised his hand and six more spell circles appeared. “You can’t defeat me.”

Lyre pulled two long daggers from the sheaths on his thigh, the blades shimmering with weaves. “Quit hiding behind your magic and fight me.”

“Hiding?” Lyceus’s eyebrows rose mockingly. “I wouldn’t call this hiding. But if you insist.”

He flicked his fingers and the spell circles faded. Two new ones appeared, wreathing his wrist and his opposite arm. Blades of shining blue ice sprouted from his right fist and left elbow, leaving his other hand free for casting.

Gripping the hilts of his daggers, Lyre cautiously advanced. Lyceus was humoring him. Toying with him. He could have killed his son a dozen times over.

But he didn’t want to kill Lyre. Lyceus wanted to break him—to crush his spirit so he would surrender. So he would willingly reveal how he’d created the shadow weave. Aphrodesia wouldn’t be effective for an interrogation on complex weaving techniques.

Lyceus wanted Lyre to surrender and tell him everything. Then, promises or not, Lyceus would kill him.

Daggers in hand, Lyre threw himself at his father. Catching a steel edge on his ice weapon, Lyceus whipped his second crystalline blade around and almost gored Lyre. Shielding wouldn’t protect him against his father’s magic.

Lyre jerked back, feigned left, then struck low. His dagger arched toward Lyceus’s thigh—then a spell circle appeared and his blade sank into it and stuck in place. He tried to tear it free and lost his grip on the hilt.

Lyceus’s ice blade raked across Lyre’s chest. As he staggered backward, his father lunged at him, and Lyre frantically countered with his remaining dagger. Lyceus slashed again. The first ice blade missed but the second sliced across Lyre’s thigh. His leg buckled and he almost fell.

“This is pointless.” Lyceus flicked his fingers.

Another spell circle appeared, manifesting around Lyre’s chest and locking his body in place. His right arm, hand clutching his dagger, was trapped in the spell too.

Lyceus stepped closer, scanned his son thoughtfully, then rammed an ice blade into Lyre’s stomach. The crystalline weapon slid into his flesh and every muscle in his body went rigid from the blinding pain.

Pushing the blade deeper, Lyceus studied Lyre’s contorted face. “It will take several agonizing hours for you to bleed out. Perhaps you’ll reconsider your refusal in that time.”

Gasping, Lyre grabbed the ice blade with his free hand. The frigid crystal burned his skin, but he gripped it tighter as his senses focused on the magic within. Bizarre, unfamiliar, but all magic had rules. All magic had structure—structure that could be broken.

Lyceus pulled the blade out of his body.

As the ice slid through Lyre’s grasp, his fingers bit into the blade. Just before it left his hand, he flooded power deep into its core and golden magic rippled up the crystal.

The ice burst apart.

Shards sprayed Lyre and Lyceus, tearing their clothes and cutting their exposed skin. Lyceus flinched as a razor-sharp piece sliced across his cheek, and the binding circle around Lyre vanished. Blood splattered on the floor.

Stepping back, Lyceus turned his hand over to inspect the damage—dozens of thin cuts that leaked blood. Superficial wounds. Not even enough to slow him down.

“Mildly impressive, Lyre, but irritating.”

Lyre sank to his knees, the dagger falling from his hand and clattering on the granite. He pressed an arm against his middle as he stared at his splattered blood—with a few droplets of Lyceus’s blood mixed in.

“Finally,” he whispered hoarsely.

Lyceus paused, confused and maybe curious. He made no move when Lyre reached into his pocket, then extended the small vial. The liquid silver within shone with golden light and the faintest shimmer of red.

“Blood magic?” Lyceus asked. “Not even that can pierce my defense.”

Lyre looked up at his father, cold hate giving him courage. “That’s just it. This … doesn’t have to.”

With a spark of magic, he shattered the vial. The quicksilver splashed across the floor, mixing with the blood already smeared on the granite.

Lyre’s blood. And his father’s blood.

The quicksilver glowed incandescent and threads snaked out from the liquid. The spell raced across the floor, seeking its targets. It touched Lyre and Lyceus at the same time, and in beautiful, perfect symmetry, the magic coiled over father and son in a web of interconnected lines, embedding into their flesh.

“What—” Lyceus gasped. His face hardened. “Binding us with blood?”

Lyre pressed his arm to his bleeding stomach. The magic in the spell pulsed, power building through the weaves.

“If I harm you now, I’ll inflict the same damage on myself. Do you think that will save you?” Lyceus sneered, his face crisscrossed with the golden lines of the spell. “This weave will protect you only for as long as it takes me to purge it.”

“The purpose of the weave isn’t to protect me.” Lyre smiled coldly. “It’s to kill you.”

As the crackling energy gained intensity, Lyre stretched his weave-marked hand toward the glowing floor. Horrified comprehension flashed in Lyceus’s eyes.

Lyre pressed his palm into the quicksilver puddle—and the spell surged across his fingers. The tangle of golden lines wrapped in and over his hand turned crimson. A few steps away, the same red glow appeared on Lyceus’s hand.

The ruby tinge leeched through the golden weave like a spreading infection, climbing their arms. In perfect unison, the blood curse flowed into their veins, father and son bound to the same fate.

As the mirrored weave darkened to throbbing crimson, as arctic claws closed around their chests, as death’s chilling touch found their hearts, Lyre met his father’s eyes with grim triumph.

The weave pulsed red one final time—and the two lives held in the blood curse’s embrace extinguished.