I APPROACHED THE BARRIER WALL, SHIMMERING SAPPHIRE under the starlight. My nose and throat stung with the sharp mint prickle of it, but I knew now that it couldn’t hurt me if I didn’t panic. For so many years, I’d done exactly that, running or drinking or doing whatever I could to avoid letting the sensations get too intense, all out of fear that I couldn’t take it.
I wasn’t afraid anymore.
My magical battery might be low in the aftermath of what Darek had done to me, but I could see the locant magic hanging in the air so easily, the threads of it braided together to form a kind of mesh across the road and far into the distance in the fields on either side, stretching high up into the air. It actually made me smile to know that my power had produced it, even if it had been controlled by Darek at the time. It meant I could do it if I tried.
I laid my palms on the barrier’s firm surface, and light pulsed through it, reacting to my touch. To Crowe and Hardy, I was pressing my hands against empty air, but they were silent as I worked, and their faith added to my confidence.
I felt the warm throb of power against my skin, and I whispered an incantation to call it back to me, to let me through. I was glad that even though I hadn’t ever practiced these things, I had studied them. Now I realized they came naturally once I stopped hiding from them. And being able to see the magic only made it better.
Feeling a bit of magic trickle from me, I pushed against the threads of the spell, feeling them start to fray. The net of locant magic began to wrap itself around me, and for a moment the burn of it in my lungs made my heart pound with anxiety. But I reminded myself that this power belonged to me. My fingers curled and dug in, boring holes through the barrier. With one last command, I tore through the thing, leaving a gaping hole, and then I ran my hand along the edges, widening it.
Smiling, I turned back to see Crowe and Hardy watching me warily.
“Is it done?” Hardy asked.
I looked back at the barrier wall, which now contained an archway the width of the road. “Yep.”
Crowe walked over to me, and Hardy laughed. “You might want to put out your hands to keep from busting that pretty face of yours against the barrier if she’s wrong,” Hardy suggested.
Crowe gave me an assessing once-over. “Nah,” he said, then strode confidently through the hole that only I could see. “She’s got this.”
The way he was looking at me made me feel like my bones were melting.
A few minutes later, I stood shivering in my driveway as Crowe primed his bike. I held his helmet in my arms, waiting. I had sworn I’d never ride with him again, but a little thrill ran through me when he kick-started the bike with a quick, downward thrust of his foot. The engine caught right away, the sound of it like rumbling thunder. When he gave it a little throttle and looked at me over his shoulder, the ram’s skull patch on his vest almost glowing on his back, I knew I was a goner.
I’d spent so many months trying to forget him, trying to hate him. I’d thrown myself into my thing with Darek, pretending I could feel the same way for him that I’d once felt for Crowe. Pretending it was enough, pretending that it felt right. But there was no avoiding this now, just like there was no avoiding what I could do. I needed to face it.
Whether I was a distraction to him, only a friend, or anything else, it didn’t matter. My heart knew the truth.
I wrapped my arms around his waist and held on tight as we raced back to the festival. The closer we got, the more real the challenge became. Jane had been right—I was a part of this, not just someone watching from the fringes. If I couldn’t figure out where Darek had hidden Alex, my mom, and the others, they would all be dead. I could tell by the tension in Crowe’s body that he was thinking about it, too. And when he rolled into the parking area at the festival and pulled off his helmet, the look on his face said he felt the same weight on his shoulders. “He gave himself a big head start,” he said, frowning as he looked up the path toward the festival. “You really think he’s here?”
“I think we should head for the spot near the Deathstalkers tent,” I said. “That’s where we were when I lost Alex’s signal.”
He nodded. “Hardy, go find Owen, Jane, and the rest of the Devils. See if Boone has turned up.”
Hardy swung his long leg over his bike and left his helmet on the seat. “Should I alert Terrence and the Kings? What about the Sixes?”
“No. Not yet. We’re missing the most people—their lives mean more to us than they do to any of the other clubs, and it’s my responsibility to get them out. Besides, the more people we have chasing after Darek, the greater the chance is that we’ll be found. We have to go in fast and quiet. Let’s keep our numbers small.”
“Copy that,” Hardy said, and jogged up the path to the RVs.
Crowe and I headed for the woods. “Who is Darek missing for his spell? He has Alex, so that’s venemon. Katrina is animalia.”
“If he took Gunnar the night he got into town, that’s arma,” Crowe said. “Flynn is inlusio. And your mom would be merata. That’s half of what he needs, and if he grabbed Boone tonight, he’s got terra, too.” He frowned. “But he left you at your house tonight after draining you. He didn’t even try to take you, even though your locant magic is strong as hell.”
“He must have someone else.”
“That, and he’s in love with you,” Crowe said drily. “But…” He cursed. “Owen is easily the most powerful locant here.”
My heart lurched. “You just saw him, though, didn’t you? And Darek was at my house grabbing my mom.…”
“He’s not working alone, Jem.” Crowe already had his phone against his ear. “I’m calling your dad now.” He gritted his teeth together as the phone rang and rang. “Voice mail,” he said, and jabbed at the screen.
Icy fear sat like a weight in my gut. “He might have both my parents.”
“We’ll get them back. He still needs animus, and I have a hard time believing he’d kill his uncle or one of the Deathstalkers to get it, and he also needs omnias and invictus.…”
The fear grew, pressing against my lungs and making it hard to breathe. “You just sent Hardy after Jane.”
Crowe’s only answer was to turn on his heel and set off at a dead sprint for the camper grounds. He had his phone at his ear again. “Goddamm it,” he yelled a few seconds later when no one picked up.
I was about ten steps behind him as we took a back trail around the main festival gathering area. The mixed scents of leather and cloves, of lavender and mint, of cigar smoke and pungent greenery all found me at once. The scent of magic. It glowed in the air around the tents, and I squinted, trying to pull apart the threads to see each specific kind. My eyes ached and stung with the effort, and I didn’t have time to focus because it was all I could do not to trip over my own feet on the uneven, dimly lit ground.
When we reached Jane’s Airstream trailer a few minutes later, Crowe banged on the flimsy door, then tore it open to find no one inside. I could detect a hint of fire and steel in the air, though. “She’s been here recently,” I said to Crowe, sniffing as I walked around the camper. “Hardy has, too. And…” I swallowed as I caught a thread of mint on the wind. “My father.”
“What the hell,” Crowe said, turning in place.
I did the same. “They can’t be more than a few minutes ahead of us. I just don’t understand—” I paused as another scent hit me—ashy and bitter. “Darek was here.” I scanned the festival grounds, the woods. “We’re directly south of the Deathstalker tent—it’s just on the other side of that patch of trees.” I pointed to the north, where the forest bumped out into the field and obscured the view of the tent. And just beyond it…“Look,” I whispered.
Crowe did, but then cleared his throat. “I can’t see a thing, Jem.”
I stared at the faint blue glow arcing over the woods about a mile away. “That’s where he has them.”
“Where?”
“The old logging mill. That has to be where they are—it’s the only thing that’s there, right? There’s a locant shield over it. I can see it over the trees.”
“Maybe we can catch Darek before he gets back there.” Magic ribboned out of Crowe’s body as he started forward, and I knew he was aching to use it against Darek.
“Let me go first,” I said, tugging at his arm. “You’re blocking my view.”
He moved to the side, and we ran along the path into the woods. He activated the light on his cell phone to guide our steps, and then reached out and slid his hand beneath my arm. “So you can focus on what’s out there,” he said quietly.
I relished the solid reassurance of his steely fingers wrapping around my elbow. We moved along the tree line as quietly as we could, strains of music from the festival reaching across the distance, reminding us that life was going on just a few hundred yards away. It seemed so fragile, especially as I remembered Jane’s prediction that someone would lose their life tomorrow. I glanced anxiously at Crowe as Darek’s challenge echoed in my head. “He wants you to come find him,” I said, slowing to a stop. “Crowe—”
“You know I have to,” he replied. “I’m strong enough to stop him.”
Just like his dad had stopped Henry. “Darek has had years to think about revenge. And your father—”
“My father knew he was going to die,” Crowe said in a hard voice. “He seemed resigned to it, even though he was probably hoping he could take Darek out before it happened. And I promise you, Jemmie, I am not resigned. If it’s me who’s supposed to go down, I’m going to drag him into hell with me.”
My heart squeezed. Crowe’s words reminded me of Jane’s story about the girl who dragged the devil into the sea. I shuddered just as I had that night, and the faint scent of metal and ash tickled the back of my throat. “Wait.” I peered deeper into the woods and gasped when I saw a silvery wisp of Jane’s omnias magic in the air to our left. “That way.”
Without waiting for the light of Crowe’s cell phone, I took off in the direction of the magic, my hands out to help me avoid trees, frantically sniffing at the air to try to pick up what was ahead. Crowe was running parallel to me, and I could hear the rush of his breath with each step. Ribbons of orange invictus magic laced the air ahead of us. “Hardy’s up there,” I said, panting.
Crowe’s light illuminated hunched forms at the base of a tree in a clearing a few dozen yards away. On Crowe’s left side, thick blue reams of magic unfurled through the trees and slammed across the path in front of him. I wheeled around in time to see him crash face-first into them and fly backward. I shouted his name as the locant magic tried to block my path as well.
The moment I smelled it, I knew what had happened. Mint mixed with ash and copper. Locant and tollat and animus twined together. Darek had my dad under his control—using Killian’s power to do it. And if my dad was trying to block us, that meant I needed to reach the people on the other side of the barrier—Hardy and Old Lady Jane. With clawed fingers and a forceful incantation, I tore through the barrier and saw crimson and orange tangled around each other. In the center of those ropes of magic were two struggling figures. Hardy was grappling with Killian on the forest floor, the moonlight reflected in the sheen of sweat on their faces. Normally, it shouldn’t even be a fight; Hardy was ten times stronger than any normal person. But Killian had his influence wrapped around Hardy, so Hardy kept pulling his punches. He was moving like he was surrounded by thick gelatin. Still, he seemed to have caused Killian enough pain that the Deathstalker couldn’t concentrate enough to end the fight, and so the two were locked in combat. Another figure lay curled up at the base of a tree behind them, silvery wisps of magic rising up around her.
“Jane!” I raced to her side and gave her a quick once-over. She had a raised welt on her forehead but seemed otherwise unhurt. “Thank God,” I said. “What happened?”
“He grabbed me outta nowhere,” she said, staring at Hardy and Killian as they wrestled. “And your father—”
We turned at the sound of a shout to find Crowe on the ground again. My dad was just a blue glow between the trees as he scrambled up the path, heading in the direction of the logging mill, leaving only the scent of ash and mint behind. “Darek is influencing him using Killian’s magic,” I said, my throat constricting.
Crowe was on his feet again, stalking toward his best friend and his known enemy, the promise of violence etched on his face. Shimmering amber magic snaked from his fingers, found its target, and wrapped around Killian’s chest. His eyes bulged. “No,” he gasped out.
Hardy punched Killian in the stomach, then rose to his feet as the Deathstalker rolled off him and lay writhing on the ground, in the grip of whatever horrible curse Crowe had just thrown down. Hardy turned to us. My eyes went wide as I saw the streaks of black and red through the orange haze around him. “Crowe, it’s not Killian,” I shouted as Hardy lunged for Jane.
“I have to take her to Darek,” Hardy said. He grabbed the old woman around the waist.
I didn’t think. I reached for Jane’s grasping hands, my magic puffing around us, wispy and still weak. My fingers laced with hers, and silvery threads wrapped around our hands.
Jane’s eyes went wide and her mouth dropped open. Her horrified gaze met mine.
“I’m so sorry, Jemmie. I’m so sorry,” she whispered hoarsely. “It’s going to be you.”
Her prediction broke my concentration, and Hardy wrenched her away from me. Crowe tried to grab his friend’s arm, but Hardy lashed out with a side kick that sent Crowe crashing into a tree six feet behind him. I sank to the ground as Hardy took off at superhuman speed with Jane in his arms, leaving a vapor trail of ash and cloves and steel behind him.
Trembling, I crawled over to Crowe, who lay on his side with bits of leaves in his hair and dirt on his face. A haze of blue misted around me as I helped him sit up.
He clutched at his middle. “I think he broke one of my ribs,” he said with a wheeze. Amber and gold spread from his fingertips and across his torso as he healed himself. While he did, I sat with the realization of what Jane had told me.
It was going to be me. I was going to die.
A suffocating mixture of defiance, disbelief, and grief welled up inside me. Was this what Michael had felt like on that final day?
“Jemmie, you okay?” Crowe asked as he got to his feet and slowly approached Killian.
“Fine,” I murmured. If I told him, he wouldn’t let me go with him to the mill. And I had to. I was part of this. It was going to be me. “Killian was trying to stop Hardy from taking Jane.”
Crowe’s magic pulled away from Killian’s wracked body, and the Deathstalker president went limp, his eyelids fluttering. Crowe prodded him with his toe. “Does that mean I have to heal him?”
“If you want help getting all our people back alive,” I said. “Hardy and my dad were under the influence of Killian’s magic, but I smelled Darek’s power as well. Tollat magic. I never knew what it smelled like before.” I laughed bitterly at how stupid I’d been. “I bet that asshole didn’t even smoke—it was his magic that smelled like ash and stale cigarettes. I was sensing his power the whole time and didn’t even realize it.”
“That’s because he’s the only one who has tollat—you had nothing to compare it to,” Crowe said grimly, spitting blood on the ground. He knelt at Killian’s side and pressed his palm to the man’s chest.
Killian took a deep, shuddering breath, his face twisted into a grimace of pain. When Crowe lifted his hand, Killian abruptly rolled to his side and retched into the rotting leaves beneath him.
“Come on,” said Crowe impatiently. “You’re gonna be okay.”
“Fuck you,” whispered Killian, struggling to get to his hands and knees.
I bent over and hooked my hands under his armpits, then helped pull him to his feet. “Darek had you under his control earlier.”
“Sort of,” said Killian, wiping his mouth. “I was fighting as hard as I could. I was trying to warn you.…”
“But Darek had sent you to convince me that Crowe was the bad guy.”
Killian nodded, giving Crowe a bitter look. “It wasn’t that much of a stretch.”
Crowe’s lip curled. “That’s rich, considering you’ve been harboring a killer for years.”
“He’s family,” snapped Killian. “My brother made me promise to keep him safe. I had no idea he had tollat magic. He kept it from everyone.”
“You must have known something. You never let on that Henry had a son,” Crowe said.
“Should I have, knowing you assholes would hunt him down? He was a kid!”
“He might have been siphoning your magic and using it against you for years,” I said quietly. “Both Henry and Darek could have manipulated you into protecting him.”
As Killian stared at me, I could almost hear his heart breaking. “But Darek is my nephew,” he whispered.
“Darek is a psychopath,” Crowe said. “And he murdered my father.”
Killian blinked at him in genuine surprise. “I never would have condoned that.”
Crowe looked away. If he had thought Killian was lying, he would have called him on it, but it was too painful for him to acknowledge that he believed a man he’d been so invested in hating. “Help us stop Darek now,” Crowe finally said, “and you’ve got yourself a truce.”
Killian ran his hand over his hair. His glasses were nowhere to be seen, probably a casualty of the fight. “He’s got them at the logging mill,” he said bleakly. “All of them.”
“All of them?” I asked. “What about animus—who else besides you has that kind of power?”
“He said he has someone already,” Killian said. “Which means if we don’t get there fast, he’s going to complete the spell.”
“And then he’s going to tear everyone I love apart,” growled Crowe. His power pulsed around him as he started to run along the path Hardy had taken. I followed, with Killian just behind me, panting heavily.
I’m part of this, I told myself firmly. There’s no turning back now. It’s going to happen no matter what. And I was willing to risk anything to save Alex and my parents, so it didn’t really matter whether I was ready to die or not.
I reminded myself of that over and over again as I ran, even though the rest of my mind was screaming to stop, to run, to go far away and hide from the truth that had been in Jane’s horrified eyes.
It was going to be me. Somewhere beyond these woods lay my fate, but that fate wasn’t in question anymore.
I was going to die. But maybe, just maybe, I could help save everyone else first.