Page 114 of Magic Forsaken

I laughed in his face. “You think this is news to me? Blake, I can’t choose their actions any more than I can change yours. I can’t force them to accept me, and I can’t make them acknowledge where they might have been wrong. But that doesn’t mean I get a free pass. I have to choose what I’m willing to live with, and right now, I’m not willing to stand aside and let you continue the cycle of cruelty and oppression.”

I heard a cry from my right, and it wasn’t Yolande. One of the humans was screaming for help, and I saw Blake’s gaze dart to the side. He lifted the gem, curled his fingers around it, then took a step back as the air behind him began to shimmer with color.

“Retreat!” he called out, and I yanked my blade from the ground in preparation to defend myself. Whatever this new magic was, I’d never seen it before, but I knew there was no exit directly behind him. He was going to have to go through me, and there was no way I would allow him to leave so easily.

Around me, the sounds of battle redoubled, and I risked a glance to either side. Rath was a whirlwind of flashing cutlery, dodging blasts of air magic from a sneering man in black, while a limping wolf began to drag itself towards Blake. A third humanwas down, with a fork protruding from a bleeding wound in her side, while a fourth huddled on the ground, his form flickering back and forth from human to glowing, blue-skinned pixie.

Yolande was favoring her right front leg and her fur on one side was smoking, but she was still snarling at the heels of a pair of her attackers as they retreated. Three more lay on the ground, and I couldn’t tell whether any of those were alive.

And Callum? He was battered and bleeding, but the gryphon was on three legs, pouring blood from a head wound, while one of its wings hung broken and useless. It tried to break away and limp towards Blake, but Callum had a death grip on its second wing. As I watched, he hammered a kick into its hip, and it collapsed with a piercing squall of pain.

We might actually have a chance at winning. And if I could only keep Blake from leaving, there was still hope of preventing a war. Still hope that he would never be able to implement his vile plan to continue what the fae queen had begun.

I turned back to face him—prepared to do whatever was necessary to keep him there—and found him watching me with a peculiarly peaceful expression.

“I could still win, you know.” He held up the gem, still clutched between his fingers as the strange, shimmering circle in the air behind him continued to grow. “What I have here could end every life in this room with very little effort. But I fear it might end up taking mine as well, and that I cannot risk.”

He smiled, just as the doors behind me flew off their hinges.

The ground heaved, and I heard a sound like a thousand boulders landing on the roof…

I didn’t even need to turn around to know that Faris had finally arrived.

And Blake was trapped.

“Just stop all this,” I pleaded with him. “I know it’s not going to be easy to rebuild our lives after what we went through, butwhat we suffered doesn’t have to be the end. We don’t have to hurt anyone else just to feel less alone with our pain.”

His people were no longer retreating. The gryphon lay on the floor, unmoving. Three others had sunk into the floor up to their knees—trapped there by Faris’s earth magic.

Blake was alone, but for some reason, he was still smiling. “I think,” he said calmly, “that this chaos will do well enough for today. The dragon has been thoroughly discredited by allowing the security of the Symposium to be breached. The courts will never agree to trust one another, eveniftheir delegates survive, and enough human blood has been spilled that you will struggle to prevent the human authorities from finding out… particularly after I call to share my concerns.”

I didn’t know how he thought he was going to do that—not with a bear, a fae prince, a pissed off dragon, and a raging earth elemental standing between him and freedom.

He took a step backward, towards that strange floating circle that looked like a bruise hanging in the air.

“Stop him!” Faris roared, but it was too late.

Blake took another step back, then another, then stepped right into the circle of swirling color… and disappeared.

TWENTY-FIVE

Maybe I should have stayed.Maybe I should have helped pick up the pieces from the mess I’d created, but I didn’t. I looked around, heard the wail of sirens in the distance, saw the chaos that was about to unfold, and I walked away.

It was none of my business now. I’d done what I needed to do. Kept them all alive and un-kidnapped. I’d revealed Blake’s horrifying plan, helped Callum finish what he started, and fulfilled my vow to Kira to protect her brother.

Yes, the Idrian courts were about to be in chaos, and Blake was still out there plotting to start a war between Idrians and humans. Yes, I still needed to keep my promise to Talia to help her find her daughter.

But all of that was going to have to wait.

I had to focus on what my family needed, and what we needed most now was safety. We were wanted fugitives, and far too many people knew where to find us. Also, Blake’s horrifying vision for the future required Kes’s magic, and he already suspected I knew where she was.

We’d all voted to stay and fight, but that was before we understood the stakes. Now, I needed a better plan—to prevent us from being imprisoned or exiled, and to hide us from Blake.

If that was even possible when he had access toportal magic.

Life was about to get a lot more complicated, and yet, somehow, as I began that familiar trek back to the hostel, I felt lighter. There was so much relief in knowing that I no longer needed to lie, even if only by omission. I would never again need to wake up every day and worry about whether I would lose control of my magic and accidentally reveal our secrets.

Yes, there was uncertainty, too. I didn’t know who would be the first to come for us, or how much time we would have to prepare. And I most decidedly hadn’t been able to face a certain dragon after revealing the source of my magic.

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