People like the Family.
I didn’t want to think what they might achieve if another war broke out, without the Houses or even the Order to keep them in check.
“How do you know the war won’t end with people like you being prosecuted?” I said.
“Because we support the winning team,” she said. “The spirit mages will rise again, and our soldiers will aid their army on the path to victory.”
My heart lurched. “I didn’t think warfare was your thing.”
“Oh, it isn’t,” she said. “However, war breeds chaos like maggots festering in a corpse, and you and Adair were created for such a scenario. The pair of you will help us take over the Parallel once we’ve cleared the way for you. After we’ve burned the city of Elysium to the ground.”
“And you think I’m going to stand back and let you do it?” I called my fire magic, and twin flames sprang to my hands.
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll try to fight back,” she said. “That’ll make it all the more entertaining.”
She made a brief gesture with one hand, and my body froze, my heart stuttering in my chest. While Adair’s power gave him influence over anyone who looked him in the eyes, Lex’s magical ability involved full-body manipulation. She could stop my heartbeat with a snap of her fingers if she wanted to—or worse, force me to watch as she hurt my friends.
There was a good reason I’d told Miles to leave.
Her hand moved down, and I felt my heartbeat slow. Shit. She wasn’t actually going to kill me this time, was she?
“I could leave you like this all day,” she purred.
Sweat beaded on my forehead. I was acutely conscious of the cantrips inside the pendant around my neck, cantrips I couldn’t reach. Not while I was frozen like this. Her wide smile told me she knew perfectly well I had no way out.
“If you do,” I bit out, “I’ll hardly be able to help your son escape, will I? Did you know it’s the King of the Dead who has him captive now?”
“Him?” Her grip on me lessened slightly. “How inconvenient.”
“I’m the Death King’s Fire Element,” I added. “He’ll send people looking for me if I don’t come back soon. Sure you can take on an army of liches? Your abilities have no effect on the dead, do they?”
A scowl twisted her lips. “The Death King has my son, does he? Interesting. I suppose I’ll have to pay him a visit.”
Her words struck a horrifying chord inside me, but as I managed to move my hand, inch by inch, I gave a final lurch and grabbed the pendant around my neck.
My fingers found a cantrip and fumbled a button, which blasted a paralysing wave at her. Then I ran like hell.
She didn’t stop me. Not even as I ran through the collapsed gates, sprinted across the open wasteland and north, away from the house’s ruins and towards the pillar of light indicating a node. Closer, closer—
I ran into the node, turned on the transporter spell, and then I was gone.
13
Pain squeezed my entire body as I emerged from the Death King’s private node. Night had fallen without my noticing, and it felt like several decades had passed since the fight at the Withered Oak. Though I knew even she couldn’t move faster than a transporter spell, I half expected to find Lex had already sent someone to break Adair out of prison while I was gone.
Instead, when I picked myself up off the ground, I found myself face to face with Miles. Judging by his transparent state, he must have astral projected up to the castle. “Bria, I thought you were coming back to Elysium. What the hell happened back there?”
“Sorry.” My voice sounded leaden, hollow. “I have to warn the Death King… my family survived. They’re using their old base after all, and now they know Adair is here.”
Part of me wanted to march straight into the jail and demand for him to tell me what Lex was playing at, but that wouldn’t do anything but convince him that I’d let her words get to me. She knew how to get under my skin almost as effectively as Adair himself did. They had that much in common.
His arms folded across his chest. “You’re shitting me.”
“Nope.” I ran a weary hand through my hair. “She didn’t kill me. That’s not her plan. She wants to do worse.”
His expression stiffened. “That’s not reassuring, Bria.”
“I thought you knew what you were getting into.” Quiet, Bria. I knew I was being unfair, but well, I had warned him, and seeing Lex again had reminded me of the fragile nature of the new life I’d built.
One card would fall, and the entire house would collapse.
Miles’s brow furrowed. “I can’t help you if you won’t tell me what’s going on, Bria.”
I looked away. “This isn’t something I want anyone else wrapped up in.”
“I thought you wanted to join me,” he said. “And the Spirit Agents.”
I shook my head. “Not against the Family. It isn’t the same… they’re not even human.”
“Some say spirit mages aren’t either.” He floated closer to me until we were inches apart, and tension simmered between us. “Whatever you’ve been called, I’ve heard it all before, I guarantee it.”
My eyes stung and I blinked hard. “It’s not about what I’ve been called, it’s what I was made to be. I wasn’t born like this by happenstance. Lex and Roth saw themselves as gods who moulded me into the image of who they wanted me to be.”
“But you’re not that person.” The intensity in his voice surprised me. “You do whatever you like. That’s one of the things I admire the most about you.”
Unexpected heat seared my face. “It makes no sense to me.”
“Did I say it had to make sense?” he said. “I’ve heard every possible kind of story from spirit mages who went
