“Get rid of those cantrips first,” Miles said. “Don’t touch them.”
Spirit magic blasted from his palms, knocking a cantrip out of the nearest assassin’s hands. The second ran at me, but I threw a fireball at him, causing him to drop the cantrip before it went off. I ran up to the assassin and kicked him in the kneecap before he could rise to his feet again.
“Why are you attacking people on Earth?” I demanded. “What did they ever do to you?”
He reached for his cantrip, and I kicked it away from him. Blood dripped from his mouth, and a chill raced through me as his body shuddered, eyes rolling back in his skull. His hand fell limp to the ground, and my gaze landed on the cantrip inches from his hand. That wasn’t an inferno cantrip. It was a copy of the one which had killed the jailor.
Don’t touch it, Devon had said. Until it wiped itself clean, it was contagious.
“Don’t touch the cantrips!” I called to the others. “They’re laced with a magical virus.”
The Spirit Agents had brought down three more assassins, all of whom lay on the pavement, inert, their faces flecked with blood.
I ran over to Miles. “Any of them still alive?”
“Doesn’t look that way,” he remarked. “Were they told to take their own lives rather than surrender?”
“That’s usually the instruction they’re given,” I said. “The Family doesn’t tolerate failure.”
“That family of yours is messed up,” Shelley remarked.
“You think I don’t know that?” I said. “But seriously—we need to get rid of those cantrips. Don’t touch them. They’re contagious as hell. The assassins were probably told to drop them here on purpose.”
All eyes went to one of the Spirit Agents, who held a cantrip in his hand. At once, he let it fall from his grip, but the damage was already done. The mage fell to his knees, his face blistering, his body spasming. Horror coursed through me as the others ran over to him, unable to help—and I spotted a lone figure standing near the node.
Tay.
Miles caught my eye, and I gave him a look telling him to stay back. The spirit mage who’d picked up the cantrip had fallen limp, no longer moving. Zade died the same way.
If Tay had come to fight alongside the assassins… but I didn’t think that was why she was here. Still, I kept an eye out for the traps as I walked over to the node and halted in front of her.
“You fell for the ruse,” she said.
“What?” I said, uncomprehending. “What are you talking about?”
“You know you’re being set up to take the fall, don’t you?” she said. “When I escaped, I hoped you’d come chasing after me instead of coming here with the others. The enemy knows you’re here. They’re counting on it.”
I took a step towards Tay. “Where else was I supposed to go? The House of Fire locked me up in your place. They blamed me for your escape.”
“I knew that as soon as you inevitably found the Family’s location, they’d come for you again,” she said, not acknowledging my comment about the House. “They would have taken the House of Fire much sooner if I hadn’t stopped them.”
So I’d had it right. She’d killed Zade in order to stall the Family’s plan, but in the end, it hadn’t been enough to keep them out of the Houses.
“Are you on their side or not?” I could see Miles signalling to me from beside the bodies of the assassins. We had to get them out of here before we drew too much attention, but something was wrong with Tay. Her eyes were wide, as though she was trying to signal something she couldn’t say aloud.
“Just believe me when I say there’s nothing I can do to help you,” she said. “Except warn you to stay out of Elysium. You have no idea what they’re doing over there.”
“Nothing you can do?” I echoed. “Why can’t you tell me?”
“Because—” An explosion drowned out her words. The fiery blast of an inferno cantrip ripped through the hotel’s entryway, engulfing the front of the building in flames.
Shit. The enemy was in there all along.
A second blast came from the direction of the hotel, echoing through the night. Tay cringed, backing away towards the node. Her words were muffled by the ringing aftermath of the blast. “Get rid of that cantrip. Kick it through the node, bury it if you have to, but don’t touch it.”
“Wait!” But she was gone, vanishing into the torrent of light.
Miles ran to my side. “Did she do that?”
“No, she was trying to warn me.” I backed up to the node. “The Family, they still have a hold over her somehow. We need to run before we’re blamed for that blast—and get those cantrips out of here. The bodies, too.”
“Guys, we have to get those bodies out of here!” Miles ran to help the others pick up the fallen assassins and haul them through the node.
When the last body of a fallen assassin disappeared through the node, I kicked one of the cantrips after him. “Don’t touch those things. We need to get them out of here, too.”
“On it.” Miles pulled on a pair of gloves, and picked up two of the cantrips, tossing them through the node to the other side. Panic had erupted around the hotel, and the sound of sirens interspersed with the panicking, fleeing guests. The possibility hit me that Liv and the Death King had been caught in the blast, too, but there was nothing any of us could do. Besides, the infernos weren’t the only threat. Who knew how many of those lethal cantrips were already loose in the city?
“Done.” Miles ran back to my side. “Let’s move.”
We stepped through the node and landed on the outskirts of Elysium, down the road from the Spirit Agents’ base.
