“No, child,” Lalura said, turning to face her again. “But we need your warlock power, Violet. Because we believe that with enough combined magic of that kind, we might be able to work against the Entity’s curse just enough to – ”
Violet finished her sentence right along with her. “Bring some of them back.”
Just after they said this, the atmosphere above the field changed. It charged with familiar magic, and Violet watched as portal after portal opened up, and warlock after warlock stepped out into the valley.
Accompanying the warlocks were mages Violet recognized. Not all of them practiced the art of dark magic, but all of them possessed useful skills of their own. The Healer was there, Dannai Caige, otherwise known as “Danny.” Another healer and a queen to boot was also there, Diana Chroi the Goblin Queen. The herald of her coven, Imani Zareb, stepped out of a portal. Violet recognized Siobhan, the Phantom Queen – she was a warlock.
One after another, portal opened up and shut again, depositing mages into the field of painted, fallen monuments. Soon, the entire valley was brimming with magic users.
Jason Alberich, the king of the warlocks, was the last to arrive. He turned, waved his portal away, and like a wind-swept tower of black, he approached Lalura. “We should begin.”
Lalura nodded grimly. “Light a fire.”
Two hours later, every warlock in the magical world working together had managed to bring a mere five gargoyles back to tentative life. They were all children, as it seemed that with children, there was more life in them to rekindle to start with. However, gargoyles were built on magic in and of itself, formed of the very soil that had absorbed so much magic, life was literally born of it. It was this magic that the Entity had attacked, filled with evil, and destroyed from the inside out. It was this magic that the warlocks had to fight against in order to bring the children back.
It had taken everything they’d had to give, and more. They’d had to pool their power, enhance it with healing ability, and work some of the oldest spells known. It had barely worked.
And Violet had never felt worse in her life.
For some reason, the warlock magic inside her didn’t want to help bring someone back to life, even though it was warlock power and warlock power alone that could perform the resurrection spell. The force she was carrying didn’t want to waste itself on someone else’s well-being. It was a kind of magic that wanted vengeance, wanted to attack, wanted to cause harm. It was Lovelace’s magic, potent and despicable, deadly and uncaring.
She’d forced it out of herself anyway, using every ounce of willpower she’d possessed, and then some.
As she leaned against one of the fallen gargoyle’s painted hills and wiped her brow, she looked at the five little ones who clung nervously to Lalura, Dannai Caige, and others who were good with children, such as Lily Kane. And she knew it had been worth it. Her power had been the strongest of all the warlocks’ – even Alberich’s. Violet would never forget the look on his face when she’d begun displaying it.
And once she’d finally demanded that it fucking do what it was capable of doing, it had infused all five tiny lumps of painted dirt with the initial spark that rekindled their existences and made them into living, breathing beings.
Other mages had rushed forward to place medallions around their tiny necks, at the ends of which dangled crystal phylacteries, the stones that would absorb the life given by the spell and the nearby bonfire. Alberich and the other warlocks had taken over from there, filling those crystal phylacteries with life-light and transferring it into their bodies. Then Lalura, in her exactingly powerful manner, had done away with the phylacteries altogether, leaving the gargoyles’ brand new lives in their own little hands.
Now the deed was done, and there were other tasks at hand, such as taking care of the children, recovering from the trauma, and protecting the remaining kings and their nations from the terrifyingly tremendous clout of the Entity.
The bonfire that had been burning bright nearby had become nothing more than quickly-dwindling embers.
And the wind that blew hollow through the Painted Hills picked up ashes and blew them into the sky, where they mixed with the dust of fallen gargoyles.
Chapter Eighteen
“I think you crossed a line, Vi,” Violet whispered half-jokingly to herself, since there was no one around her to hear her. She was trying to make light of the situation, but her head was swimming and felt far too insubstantial on her shoulders. Her fingers and toes were tingling dangerously. And there was a seed of something left within her that was quickly unfurling, its slimy tendrils climbing up the walls of her consciousness.
She had assumed that with the hustle and bustle of the spell cleanup and the new children to care for, no one would notice her standing alone to the side, trying desperately to gather herself. But she was wrong.
Jason Alberich approached her, and she glanced up at him before quickly looking away again. Making eye contact with the Warlock King was uncomfortable, and for some reason, it was especially so now that she was completely devoid of warlock magic of her own. It pissed her off that he was about to disturb her privacy. She just wanted to be alone.
He stopped a few feet away, close enough to be heard clearly, but not so close that he was invading her space. “That was an impressive display,” he said.
She only nodded, just a little.
“I must admit, your magic felt familiar somehow,” he ventured slowly. “It also felt very old. Even older than you, I’d wager.”
Alarm gave her enough will to look up, and she did so, meeting his green gaze. “Is there something you’re trying to say, your majesty?” She tried to be polite, as he was one of the Thirteen, but a thread of acid laced her words nonetheless. She was mad, so mad, and she really didn’t feel well.
“Only this,” he said. “I suggest you find someone to replenish your power in short order, miss Kellen.” He turned away a bit as portals began opening and closing behind their departing magic users. “Because Tuath fae are weak enough when it’s their own magic that’s been drained from them.” He glanced back over his shoulder as he walked away, opening a portal with one nonchalant hand. “Borrowed magic is another thing altogether. Especially when it’s borrowed from a man like Wolfram Lovelace.”
If Violet could have growled, she would have.
Of course he would recognize Lovelace’s magic. Wolfram Lovelace was the most infamous warlock to have ever lived, and Jason Alberich was the Warlock King. It was foolish to think he wouldn’t be well versed in the art and all of its various artists.
Plus, he was right. She was in trouble. When Lovelace’s magic had departed her body, it had left something behind. It was a taint, like an oil spill on water, leaving the tank stained after draining. It was dark and twisted.
It was wrath. And right now, it was all that kept her on her feet.
“Violet.”
Violet stiffened at the ancient, familiar voice. She turned to find Lalura Chantelle standing behind her, cane in hand, white hair billowing in the dust-filled breeze. The old woman’s powerful blue gaze was locked on her with devout intensity.
“You aren’t well, child. You’d best go with him now.”
“With who?” Violet demanded icily.
“With me.”
Violet glanced up and to her right at the shadow suddenly hovering over her. Keeran Pitch stood beside her, tall and wrapped in black like a second skin. Dark jeans that hugged corded muscles, black T-shirt, and black leather jacket. His hair that looked like a piece of the night itself, and his eyes like the stars within it.
She hadn’t heard him approach, hadn’t noticed his darkness until it was obscuring everything around it. She flooded with fight-or-flight adrenaline. Oh look, another king is telling me what to do, she thought acidically. “Mr. Pitch,” she hissed through clenched teeth.
The anger inside was getting worse. She could feel it like a lump in her mid-section, growing hot and heavy. It was taking up
too much space, pushing on her lungs to make it harder to breathe.
Keeran reacted fast by taking her arm and pulling her to the side. His touch on her arm had a strange effect on her. It worked like a dichotomy of comfort and chaos. She tried to pull away, but his hold was firm. She hated that. And she liked that. She wanted to fight him and she wanted him to win and she wanted to lash out and she wanted to rip him to shreds, but she also didn’t, and –
Just then, he stopped and spun her around to face him directly. They were far enough away from Lalura that he could at least pretend she couldn’t hear him when he asked, “You’re ready for a fight, aren’t you?”
Violet was surprised by the question. It hit the nail on its head. But he didn’t ask it in a taunting manner, not in a way that meant he was mocking her. He asked as if he were recognizing the emotions coursing through her, and even empathizing with them.
The logical thing to do at that point would have been to at least nod. Even more logical would have been an admittance: Yes. I do feel like fighting. What’s wrong with me? Please help me. The reasonable thing to do would have been to just acknowledge that she was quickly losing control.
But that was the thing about anger. It wasn’t at all reasonable.
“Fuck you,” she hissed.
“Okay,” he said – and just like that, he moved forward, wrapped an arm firmly around her waist, and jerked her against his body.
The world was plunged into fast-moving darkness, disrupting her senses. She cried out and reached up to push against him, but wound up curling her fingernails into the hard leather of his jacket in the hopes of finding some stability. It toppled and turned, and shadows flitted past one after another like the stills in a movie reel that was speeding up faster and faster.
Just when she thought she would die or throw up, the movement stopped and the ground was solid beneath her feet. She shoved against the Shadow King, stumbled back, and caught her balance a few feet away. There, she stopped and looked quickly around.
They were standing in the middle of a desert field. The ground was a reddish brown. In the distance, beneath the moonlight, she could make out immense arching structures, carved into the rock by the passage of time. They were in Utah, in Arches National Park. She recognized it at once, as would anyone who’d done any traveling or even looked at a travel brochure for the United States. She also recognized it because of the uncomfortable buzzing that immediately rose up from the ground and into her legs. There was too much iron here.
“Why would you bring me here?” she demanded as panic joined the anger inside her. She didn’t have the power to transport away. And he had to know that fae couldn’t stand iron. She was only lucky she still wore that ring on her finger.
She ran a shaky hand over her face as the Shadow King stood there and watched her, the wind blowing through his dark night hair.
“We need to talk,” he said, and he was about to say something else, but she cut him off.
“So you brought me to Iron Central? What kind of heartless SOB are you? Why would you do that? I already feel like shit!”
“I had a feeling you’d be a touch more inclined to hear me out.”
Okay. She hated him just then, but he had a point. She wanted to rip his beautiful, mysterious, mirrored eyes right out of his head with her own fingernails – but she hadn’t yet. And the one reason she hadn’t was because she needed him in order to get the hell out of there.
“So just fucking talk already!” she yelled as the anger began to bubble over.
“What you’re feeling is the residual effects of Wolfram Lovelace’s power, Violet. He was not a happy man. He was an angry man. And that fury infused every last bit of him, including his spells. Believe me, I know.”
“So what? I already figured that out! You’re not helping!”
“So, it will wear off. But by the time it does on its own, you’ll be so empty, so drained, it will be too late.”
“Too late for what?”
“Too late to be yourself again. Too late to replenish what you’ve lost. You can’t let it rule you, Violet. His anger will drive you like life blood, it’s so strong. And it will drive you right into your own grave.”
Chapter Nineteen
Every bone in his supernatural body was at odds with his logical mind. His body, his instincts, were telling him to just take his queen, show her what she had been missing, and give her back her power ten-fold.
But his mind reminded him that would be a disastrous mistake. You didn’t take advantage of the ones you cared about. That was enough of a reason. But also, there was no karma like a woman’s.
She wasn’t in any kind of position to fight him on this at the moment, and yet she stood there like a quaking tower of stubbornness and railed against him. She had no idea how close to being utterly lost she was. She was stalwart as hell, gorgeous like a nightmare, and she was driving him over the cliff side with every passing second.
She’s a queen. What did you expect?
His inner voice reasoned with him, and because he was a man and not a boy, he listened. Somehow, with some kind of willpower he’d had no idea he possessed, he pressed on. But he could tell she was close to tears. Her eyes were luminous with them in their unshed state. She no doubt felt like utter shit. And that hurt. It hurt him to see her suffer.
The iron in the ground beneath her feet couldn’t be helping. It was probably tingling quite uncomfortably right about now.
Shit, he thought. I’m an asshole.
But he had his reasons for bringing her here. It had gotten her attention. Now if she would just hear him out and do as he said! Things had come to a head, and he’d picked the absolute worst time to put his cards on the table, but he was out of time now. That was just it. It was now or never.
She needs to know who and what she is. She needs to know she’s my queen.
She stared at him hard, her features perfect, her eyes burning. Her white teeth were clenched in discomfort and rage, and her hands were curled at her sides. “Tell me something, Pitch. How is it you think you know so much about what I’m feeling right now?”
The reason for that was one of the few truths he wasn’t quite ready to tell her just then. Those secrets, the secrets D’Angelo had sensed in him, swam just beneath the very dark surfaces of Keeran’s consciousness. There would be need to address them. But not now. Not here. There were enough other difficult truths to work through first.
“I know dark magic,” he admitted, deciding that was close enough. “And I know what it does to the body. You have to trust me on this, Violet.”
“WHY?” she suddenly yelled, screaming the word at the tops of her lungs. She’d lost control. This was it. A new wind started up, stronger than the one that had already been breezing through the arched rock formations around them. Keeran’s gaze narrowed.
“WHY DO YOU EVEN CARE?” she demanded.
The wind howled now, and several loose pebbles on a nearby formation skittered across the rock before tumbling to the earth below.
Keeran gave them a wary glance, then turned that wary gaze on Violet. She was doing something. She was supposed to be completely out of magic, and yet she was doing something without even knowing it. Something magical.
Something bad.
“Violet, calm down.”
“No! Don’t you DARE tell me to calm down! I hate it when people say that! As if it solves everything! As if you can just fucking erase emotion on request! When people are upset it’s for a fucking REASON! You can’t erase the REASON, damn it! YOU calm down! And why should I, anyway? You kept me from my sister and now you won’t tell me anything! You’re one of the thirteen fucking kings and you have all your goddamned secrets and now one of you is dead and all the gargoyles are dead and nobody will tell me what the hell is going on! WHY DO YOU CARE SO MUCH ABOUT WHAT I DO?!”
Keeran slowly turned as something cracked loudly behind him. It was a horrid sound, full of portent and impossibility. The largest arch in the park, pro
minent against the night-time sky, was trembling.
It’s cracked. She’s going to tear this place apart.
Even with the iron in the ground and her body an empty vessel to magic, she was a force to be reckoned with. What could he possibly do? Think, Keeran, damn it! THINK!
“Take it out on me,” he suddenly said, turning back around to face her. “If you want to tear me apart, then do it. Come and get me, Violet. I’m the one you’re mad at, so give me your best shot!”
He was prepared for her to scream at him, perhaps rail some more, let loose with some more blustering wind, but he should have known better. He should have remembered that he’d been instantly impressed with everything about her – from her magic to her bravery to her mind to her body to her very aura – from the very first moment he laid eyes on her in the Underground. He’d felt that way for a reason.
But he didn’t remember. And he paid for it when he was suddenly blasted with a hot, hard shot of magic so fierce, it knocked him off his feet and sent him flying backward to slam full-force into the already-compromised red stone arch.
It made another cracking sound, this one more final.
Keeran was stunned for a moment, but a few seconds at most, before he was up again and using the shadows around the arch to facilitate his magic. He gave the shadows substance and strength and used that strength to hold the arch in place. Then he turned back to his wayward bride.
“How was that, your majesty? Still want more?” she asked, “‘Cuz I’ve got it for you!”
Keeran held up his hands, but had no time to mutter a sound before she was letting loose with yet another powerful blast. This time, he knew what to expect, and he headed the damn thing off by transporting from one location to another in the blink of a shadow-filled second.
He vanished from where he was standing just as the powered-up air slammed into it, scooted past, and hit the tortured arch a second time. He rematerialized a few feet behind his un-knowing queen just in time to see and hear the arch rock back and forth like a falling dinosaur.