Page 158 of Anchor

Hill opened his eyes, and yet another strange sensation came over me, one that said everything was already as good as done, and the best we could do was play the roles we were meant to play all along.

Zachary had been in the process of demanding answers from him, I thought, when Hill raised a finger in the air and said, “Enough.”

The Devil stopped laughing, too. Taland and Seth were no longer talking, and Aurelia and Zachary had their lips sealed, though their wands remained raised and aimed at Hill.

“Enough, enough, by the goddess,enough,” he continued, and he turned to the Devil.

I didn’t expect anything good from this man, obviously, but for a second there, he had me fooled. For a second there, I thought he was smart enough to demand we work together to get out of this place and talk outside. For a second there, I was silly enough to imagine he might care—not about me, goddess forbid, but about Zachary and Aurelia, who were his own family. His own.

Except Hill didn’t care about trivial things likefamily.

“You did me dirty, Ale,” he told the Devil, shaking his head at him, his hands on his hips as he sighed. “You really did me dirty this time, and I’ll have no choice but to make you pay.”

The Devil wasn’t worried in the least. “As is your right. You may absolutely try, my friend.”

It struck me that theyreallywere friends. It struck me that they knew each other well enough for one to guess exactly what the other was up to, for the other to call him by a nickname. They really did know each other, these two. The IDD director, and the biggest criminal in the Tomb.

Somehow, this little fact didn’t surprise me.

“I’ll do more thantry,” Hill said. “After all, you exposed me in front of these children, and now I have to watch them die—I’ll do more thantryfor that.”

“You disgusting piece of shit,” Zachary spit. Aurelia had already begun to chant, and blue flames were gathering at the tip of her wand. He joined her, too, but the thing was, Hill had begun to chant, too, as soon as he was done threatening the Devil, and unfortunately for the siblings, he was faster. More powerful.Muchmore powerful.

I’d only ever witnessed Hill using his magic once in Madeline’s office that night when hepicked mefor a mission that didn’t even exist, a mission he made up. He’d created a screen in the air and had showed us images on it, and back then I hadn’t even seen him moving his lips.

This time I did, and the spell he chose couldn’t have been longer than ten words because he raised his hands and white flames burst out of him with incredible force, and they slammed onto Aurelia with such speed that nobody even saw her being picked up and thrown against the floor the very next second.

The Devil laughed. Zachary screamed.

Our time was already up.

Zachary was running for Hill, and the Devil’s men stayed back, went closer to the edge of the room. Taland shot forward, too, even though I’d been sure he had no raven feather on him. But Seth must have given him one because the brothers were calling up their spells, and Blackfire magic was gathering in their hands as they ran for Hill. Together with Zachary’s Bluefire, it slammed onto the man and pushed him back a couple feet. They actually pushed him back—but it wouldn’t be enough.

We hadn’t made a concrete plan, Taland and I, but we both knew how the other thought, and that’s why I’d let him and Seth go first. That’s why I forced myself to stay behind, so that I could run to Aurelia, who was just now coming to, blinking her eyes slowly, blood dripping down her nose. I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to sit up—there really was no time to be gentle.

Her eyes opened wide, and she focused on me.

“Do you need a healing spell?!” I asked, and for a split second, she looked absolutely shocked.

Then she shook her head and grabbed me by the collar of my jacket. “Don’tlet them have that bracelet,” she told me. “Protect it with your life.”

“Nobody can have this bracelet. It’smine.” No matter that I stole it from the Vault—it was mine, and none of these crazy people were going to have it.Shecouldn’t have it, either, and I thought I’d specify that now, just in case she got ideas in her head.

Nobodywas going to use my bracelet, only me and Taland—even if a dead army came back and the world was at its end—wewere going to use it, nobody else. Just us. They all could rot in hell. This bracelet belonged to me, and my magic belonged toit.

And the more I thought that, the clearer I felt the metal against my wrist, the way it warmed up, prepared itself to obey me.Mine, mine, mine, mi?—

“Are you listening to me?!”

Aurelia had been talking, but I hadn’t heard a single word—I hadn’t heard anything at all, just my bracelet.

I shook my head, and the sounds of the room came back to me all at once.

“We need to make it out of this alive, and if we’re gonna do that, we have to work together,” I said, regardless of what she’d said. If we were all attacking one another, none of us would survive.

Aurelia nodded, a little concerned just now—for me. Or maybeabout me?

“The enemy of my enemy,” she said.

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