The neighbors and emergency personnel were closing in. They couldn’t get their hands on these bodies, or on us either.
I shut my eyes, envisioned the lot of us one by one, then portaled us to the only place the humans wouldn’t be able to follow.
With a crash of bright magic, we were in the courtyard of my ancestor’s cursed castle.
I put my hands on Lucus’s shoulders. His body moved with quiet sobs as I kissed the crown of his head, his black horns shimmering into view at the sides of my face. His wings materialized and curled around his body like he was physically wounded.
And I knew that, truly, he was.
“Let me take Oliver.” I kept my voice quiet.
Lucus shifted his wing to the side and handed Sebastian’s son up to me.
“Oliver. We’re here for you.” I tucked his head against me and held him close, my cracked heart falling to pieces over and over again. He shuddered, his tears going quiet, which actually worried me more.
Kaippa moved Sebastian’s body under one of the trees in the center of the cobblestone courtyard. He then took Corliss’s body and set her beside him.
I couldn’t believe they were dead. All of them.
Watching Lucus’s bloodstained fingers touch Aurelio’s boot and hearing his whispered words, I just stood there. Not talking. Just holding Oliver and trying to remember to breathe.
By the time Hekla was strong enough to walk over to me, the sunrise was painting the sky in watery shades of red. I didn’t know how long I’d been standing there, how long Lucus had been kneeling at the feet of his dead brothers. Little Oliver was asleep against my chest, his breathing erratic like he was having a nightmare.
“I wish it had been me instead of Sebastian,” I said. “Oliver doesn’t deserve any of this.”
Hekla took the boy from me, her throat moving in a swallow and blood crusted at the sides of her mouth. “I know, Coren. I know. Where can I lay him down?”
Lucus stood slowly. His wings dragged the ground like he couldn’t bear to lift them. “I will show you.” Without another word, he led us into the castle.
The magicked sconces flickered to life, their yellow hue too bright for the pall that hung on our shoulders. We turned a few corners and passed the casting chamber and several more closed doors before reaching a small room with two large, curtained beds. Hekla laid Oliver down on the one closest to the door and tucked his sleeping form under the thick, royal blue duvet. The rims of the boy’s eyelids were red from crying, and the morning sun through the high window showed the dried tears on his little cheeks.
I remembered a recipe for a spell that would keep him asleep for a few hours, so I excused myself to visit the casting chamber. In the dim light of the chamber, I removed a handful of dried sage, lavender, and a bit of valerian root. Their scents in my nose, I walked on numb feet back to Oliver’s temporary room.
Lucus and Hekla watched in silence as I crushed the herbs between my palms and recited the spell three times.
“To rest, to escape, to peace.”
I went around the bed to the side Oliver had rolled to and spread the crushed herbs around him in a rough circle. The Yew Bow, still in place on my back, hummed, and the spell came to life with a locking, secure type of sensation between my eyebrows.
“Rest, little guy. I hope life looks better by the time you’re awake again.” Maybe by then we’d have a plan on how to deal with this demon.
14 Coren
On our way back to the courtyard, I took Lucus’s hand. He let me curl my fingers around his, but he didn’t seem able to look at me yet, to let me see his pain. And that was just fine. We all knew that we had little to no time for mourning, that we had to chase down the demon and finish this thing before the Mage Duke showed up and we had two enemies instead of one to fight, but for now, Lucus could pause, retreat, and come to grips with this incredible loss as best he could.
It was an impossible thing, of course.
I had never come to grips, so to speak, with my mother’s death. I could forget the pain for a time here and there when I was busy or happy. But it never left, and I never fully comprehended the fact that she was gone. She still seemed so alive in my memory. Her smile. The light on her face through the kitchen window. Her laugh. No, Lucus wouldn’t get over this. But he could maybe, hopefully, find some strength to live on, to fight on.
Among the sunrise-gilded trees in the castle’s courtyard, Kaippa stood over the bodies of Sebastian, Corliss, Baccio, and Aurelio. The wounds were horrible. The dragon’s clawed wing had ripped Corliss’s chest open, the creature’s flames had blackened Baccio’s and Aurelio’s otherwise smooth skin, and Sebastian’s left side was crushed like he had no bones left there at all. I wanted to ask why the beast’s flames were so much more deadly than basic fire. I longed for an explanation of why Sebastian and Corliss hadn’t been faster or at least as fast as the demon dragon. But I didn’t want to bother Lucus with questions. I knew what I needed to know. The demon had demolished our semi-immortal force with no more than erratic attacks and defenses. Everything about the demon—its speed, claws, and fire—was far more deadly than we could’ve guessed.
How could we possibly defeat it now with only Lucus, Kaippa, Hekla, and me?
Lucus released my hand and knelt by his brothers’ heads. A lock of hair had fallen over Aurelio’s
