“You want her because of what she is. Because of the power she offers.”
“I am not you,” I spat.
And there was no time to think, no time to move, as I whirled around, pressed my hand to Tisaanah’s temple, and, in one violent burst, ripped Reshaye out of her mind.
Tisaanah screamed. Her knees buckled. The pain overtook me, too — overtook even the presence within my mind. The power it had taken to do that exhausted all of us.
There it was. An opening. Seconds. Not even.
I had no time to think. I dove for it.
My magic roared past his. Every flame in the Scar suddenly brightened, like the sun had emerged from behind a cloud.
I slid my hand over the blade still clutched in Tisaanah’s shaking hand, then pried it from her grasp and did the same to hers. Her head lolled, then weakly lifted to look at me. She was bleeding magic, bleeding life. But her eyes told me she knew what I was asking her to do.
Her eyes widened. “No.”
“Cut it out,” I choked out.
She shook her head. “No.”
I felt the presence within me collect itself. Start to rise, start to reach for power again.
We had no time to argue. I pressed my palm to hers, our blood smearing together.
“Do it, Tisaanah. Take my magic and do it.”
Her eyes glistened with tears, reflecting flecks of fire. My fingers closed around her hand, knuckles whitened.
“Now,” I choked out.
Just as I felt the fey king diving for the connection between us again.
Just as Tisaanah pressed her other hand to my cheek and whispered, “He got the parrot to match the coat.”
If I had control over my own body, I would have thrown back my head and laughed. Who the fuck even does that?
Tisaanah’s mouth formed, “I love you.”
The passageway opened between us.
And I gave her all of it. All of my magic.
Chapter Eighty-Five
Tisaanah
It happened so quickly.
I reached deeper into Max. Deep enough to see all of the connections between us, between him and the Fey, all of the threads of corrupted magic that were flooding up from the deeper levels beneath. It was there, far inside of him, like an open wound gushing infection.
This was it. This was how the Fey king was reaching him — how he was reaching Ara. I was still bleeding, too, where Reshaye had been carved out of the deepest recesses of my mind. A crippling wound. Maybe a deadly one.
But Max’s magic surged through me, strong enough to power me. Even though I could feel myself consuming it, consuming him, drawing upon the soul-deep connection between us.
I Wielded all of that power.
The presence, the one that lingered between all of us, lunged for me. Too slow — only barely. I yanked the passage closed just in time, even though I felt it grab me the same way I had once felt Esmaris’s dying grip on my hair.
And in the last seconds, I could have sworn I saw a face. A woman’s face, with pointed ears and tan skin, and deep violet eyes. She reached out only for a moment, before she, too, was gone.
Distantly, I felt Max’s agony. And yet, also, I felt his determination, a wordless encouragement.
Gods, live, Max. Live, live, live.
I begged it of him. Begged it, as I buried deeper into his mind, tangled up in his memories, in his emotions, in all of the infected threads where the Fey king had tied himself to him.
Please, live.
I drew up the last of my, his, our power.
And I severed all of those infected threads.
Max’s memories rained down over me like shattered glass.
Chapter Eighty-Six
Max
Pain.
The scent of blood. The thickness of magic in the air. The floor was shaking. I was in Sarlazai. I was in my family home. I was here, in the Scar.
Tisaanah.
I forced my eyes open, and my second eyelids closed. The world was numb and blurry. My mind was broken.
Tisaanah.
There was a shard. I had to force the pieces together. Even then there was so much missing.
I turned my head, and saw her face pressed against the ground, unfurling mist between us. A beautiful girl, with patches of colorless and tan skin, one silver eye and one green, staring right through me. One tear falling to the ground.
Panic.
Was she dead? She looked as if she could be. And that would be— that would be—
No. No, she was not dead. Her fingers were reaching for me, weakly. And mine, of their own accord, reached back.
But before they could touch, she was lifted off the ground. I managed to look up. There was a man there — or… not a man, not human. He had wings and pointed ears.
I struggled to find the piece of my mind that knew him.
“Can you move?” he was saying. “We need to leave. Now.”
Leave? To go where? I didn’t even know where we were. Behind the winged man, shadows poured from fissures in the wall. They took the shape of humans, though their forms were broken and unraveling.
“I cannot carry you both,” the winged man said, more urgently. “Get up.”
My eyes fell back to him. To Tisaanah in his arms.
“Go.”
Forming the word took all of my energy.
The man hesitated. Then looked over his shoulder, at the approaching shadows.
“Go,” I said again.
“I will come back,” he said. “Try to get to the surface.”
I wasn’t even entirely sure which surface he was talking about. Not that it mattered. I nodded all the same.
The man’s wings spread
