Page 47 of Wizard of Most Wicked Ways

Silas woke up to evening light streaming through a window and cursed both souls in his body.

It hadn’t worked. He’d jumped into the harbor, and somehow, he was stillhere, still chained to mortality with thisthinginside him.

His lungs hurt. His bones hurt. His head ... too much pressure in his skull, his ears, his sinuses. He wanted to claw it out. He’d tried so many times to claw it out.

“He’s waking,” said a soft male voice.

“Charlie?” asked a woman. At the sound of her, theotherleapt and clawed and barked. Silas seized, balling his hands into fists, biting his tongue, desperate to keep the second spirit down.No one will control me!You Will Not Control Me!

“Give him some space,” the male voice warned.

Garnering some control, Silas shifted his gaze to the two beside him. The man looked like a doctor, and from the pulsing of theother, he knew the woman was Charlie’s wife.

Blast.He’d thought the other’s name.

The room went dark for a moment, until Silas clawed his way back to consciousness. Now he was upright on the bed, wrestling withanother man, who tried to restrain him. Shouting nonsense. Charlie had been trying to tell them. Charlie had been trying towin.

Silas laughed from deep in his belly.You won’t win, you fool. I will end you. I will erase you until there is nothing left of you but the memory in that trollop’s mind!

He called upon all of it: the kinesis, the necromancy, his luck and condensing and breaking spells. When his body became supple again, when his stomach stopped heaving and he remembered where he was, he picked himself up from the blood and the bodies and staggered outside. Flared luck to avoid being seen. Forgot what he was doing, then flared it again to find a place to hide. He found it amidst the trash in an alleyway. He breathed hard, barely noticing the scent of refuse and the buzz of flies. He focused only on caging theother, on shoving him so far down even God wouldn’t be able to find him.

But that was the trick, wasn’t it?Every timeSilas tried to take his revenge,every timehe tried to flee the country, andevery timehe tried to end it all, this blasted spirit pushed back, ruining everything. RuiningSilas.

Silas slammed his head against the brick wall behind him three times before coughing and digging his nails into his thighs. He was skipping steps. Yes, that had been the problem all along, hadn’t it? If Silas was to succeed, he had to overcome theotherfirst. Completely. Fight the battle within himself before fighting the war with his offenders. He needed his focus wholly on that.

He would destroy theother, regardless of how long it took.

And then he’d come forthem.

Chapter 17

July 7, 1851, Providence, Rhode Island

Owein woke to a white ceiling. His eyelids felt heavy and dry, his skin itchy, his bones sore. His body pressed into the stiff, narrow mattress as though his weight had doubled. His head enthusiastically repeated every heavy thump of his heart, and the cut across his chest echoed it.

“He’s awake!” Fallon’s head butted into his vision. He realized she held his hand. “Owein, are you all right?”

“Of course he’s not all right!” Hulda shouted, and Owein winced. “How could he possibly be all right after ...” She chewed on her words, though from the sounds she made, it seemed the words fought to escape. She pressed both hands to Ellis, strapped to her chest, and lowered her voice. Tears fogged her glasses. “You stupid,insolentboy. What were you thinking?”

Owein lifted a heavy arm and ran it down his face. “I saw an opportunity to help, and it worked.”

“And nearly killed you in the process!” Hulda spat.

Fallon shot back, “We were going to die one way or another. He hedged his bets and won.”

Hulda whipped to the Druid woman. “I amdyingto hear what your part is in all this.”

Squaring her shoulders, Fallon said, “I’m the one who showed—”

“Not. Now,” she ground out, bouncing lightly on one foot to keep Ellis soothed.

Owein pushed himself halfway to sitting, which was when he noticed a third person in the room with them, sitting in a chair across the room. The room, he recognized: one of the chambers on the second floor of BIKER headquarters, where employees could sleep the night when they passed through or otherwise needed accommodations. The person, he didn’t recognize. She was young—younger than Hulda, older than Fallon—and had brown hair loosely pinned to stay out of her face. Caucasian, slender, but what really caught his attention was her blue uniform.

“Queen’s League?” His voice sounded like he felt.

Hulda’s tension rushed out of her, and Owein saw for the first time the sorrow clinging to her every inch. “Miss Watson is one of the wizards assigned to Providence. She’s the one who found you.”

Miss Watson waved, but the gesture carried little enthusiasm. Her smile looked forced. “Jonelle is fine.” She spoke with a British accent. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Mr. Mansel. Excited to have you join our ranks.”

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