Page 67 of Road To Runes

He bared his teeth, scrunching his face as the skin sizzled under the touch of the wand.

"Stop it!" Penny screeched, her arm tightening around my waist.

"I can stop anytime." Pearl removed the wand from Edward's skin, but it still hovered near, too close for comfort. "Once you get out of my house."

"You can't make us choose like this," Priya snapped, her bracelets jingling as her hands shook.

"Nobody's choosing." I unhooked myself from Penny and took a step by myself further into the room. "Nobody but me, anyway. I'm choosing to stay."

"So is Asher, isn't that right?" Pearl pointed the wand at Asher. "We have unfinished business, after all."

My heart dropped into my empty stomach and I shot Asher a warning glare.

Of course Pearl wanted him to stay. She had kidnapped him years ago when he had stolen from her, and it was only because of him and Hecate that I had escaped back then. Apparently Pearl didn't only blame me for her losing her grip on her status and business. She had Asher in her crosshairs, too.

Asher met my gaze, all hardness melting from his expression.

"Don't you dare," I muttered.

"Yeah," he said, without breaking eye contact. "I'm staying."

My entire body shook, but I clenched all my muscles to stay upright. I was not falling back down.

Even after all the crap he had put me through, I couldn't handle him being in the hands of my grandmother. She would hurt him the same way she had hurt me, and the very thought was torture enough.

I couldn't let her do this.

Instinctively, I reached out with my power to search for something, anything, I could use to get them out of this. Edward's levitation power wouldn't do much good, and Priya's power to change the colour of items didn't pack much punch either. But Laura's...

I snatched the power out of her body so quickly that she gasped, and I picked up a cushion on the nearest chair.

"Beatrix." Pearl's tone warned me, but I ignored her.

My palms heated from clammy to the average temperature of Laura's forge in a matter of seconds, and with a poof, the cushion burst into flames. Before anyone could make a move to stop me, I hurled it at the velvet curtains. The fire leapt up the curtains so quickly that the flames licked the ceiling.

Lucille screamed and thrust Laura out of the way as she scrambled to get away from the fire. In the moment of chaos, Edward seized the wand off Pearl and pressed it to Louisa's hand. Louisa cried out and loosened her grip on his collar. Edward wrenched himself out of her grip and rolled over the sofa and into Penny's waiting arms.

Priya hoisted Laura to her feet and dragged her away from the flames that had begun eating away at the wallpaper. Crap. This place was more of a tinderbox than I realised. What I had meant to be a distraction had turned into a mini inferno.

"Everyone out!" Asher bellowed, racing to my side as I staggered against the doorframe.

Edward swept Penny into his arms and dashed for the door, with Priya and Laura close behind him. Lucille and Louisa pushed their way through, and Asher wrapped his arms around my waist, hauling me out of the way as Pearl hurried after them.

"You stupid girl." She spat the words at me as she passed us. "This is ourhome."

"Funny," I said, allowing myself a smug smile. "I always looked at this place as torture chamber."

Her eyes hardened, a rare crazed look dancing there. "You'll burn with this place."

"It's a better fate than being locked up here with you."

"Then you'll get your wish," Pearl said. She swept out of the door.

I would have breathed a sigh of relief, but smoke filled my next breath.

"What did she mean by that?" Asher whirled me into the hallway and slammed the door shut behind him. "Is there something you're not telling me?"

I chewed my lip as I watched Louisa and Pearl's backs disappear out the front door. Whatever Pearl had given me in that potion, I didn't know for sure what it had actually done to me. For all I knew, she could have lied, and with the house burning down, it was worth giving escape a try.

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