Page 37 of Rites of Passage

“Er, is it over?” one of them asked nervously.

The medical witch hushed him.

“I hate to agree with Vlad, but that was really reckless, Mae.” Bryony approached her, face pale. “We should have gone with Nikolai’s idea and gotten rid of that thing with his magic.”

Mae’s heart sank.Was what I did truly that crazy?

The High Priestess’s face softened. “I know how powerful you are. We all do. But there are times when a queen’s subjects’ wish to protect their monarch is as strong as their queen’s desire to shield them from harm.”

Mae deflated at that. Brimstone shrank to his small fox form and nudged her hand with his head, a low whine escaping him. Hellreaver shifted back to the pentagram medallion before returning to her neck, his weight heavy.

“No,” Nikolai said in the tense silence. “Mae’s right. This is our only clue as to what the Dark Council could be up to. Destroying it would have been foolish.”

Relief loosened the tightness in Mae’s belly. She gave the sorcerer a guilty look. “I’m sorry. About shouting at you. I was worried.”

Nikolai blew out a sigh. “I know.” He raked his hair with a hand. “I was going to talk to you and Bryony about it today.”

“Are you struggling to access ley lines?” Vlad asked roughly.

Nikolai shook his head. “On the contrary. It’s getting easier. But it comes with a side effect Al and I didn’t anticipate. We’re pretty much defenseless immediately after tapping into one. It only lasts a minute or so, but that’s too long in the midst of a battle.”

Bryony observed Nikolai with an unreadable expression.

“There may be a solution to that problem,” she said curtly.

Nikolai blinked, startled.

Hope fluttered through Mae. “There is?”

“Possibly. We’ll know more at the Philadelphia covenstead.” Bryony paused. “The Council of the Moon will be in attendance.”

Mae’s breath caught. Nikolai grew deathly still.

His mother had belonged to the Council of the Moon before she’d caught the Sorcerer King’s eye and been forced to leave her coven to enter into a relationship with him.

The medical witch indicated the frozen block of ice nervously. “Not that I want to worry you folks or anything, but we still have this—thing to take care of.”

Everyone gathered around it.

“Wait.” Violet leaned in and squinted. “Did you freeze our magic?!”

Mae peered closely atIce Fortress. Runes shimmered inside it, the spells vibrant against their translucent background. She hadn’t noticed them before.

She straightened and scratched her cheek, a slightly crazed chuckle leaving her. “Well, would you look at that?”

Her attempt at lightening the mood didn’t work. Most of the coven sorcerers and witches were staring at her in open awe.

“You gotta teach me that spell,” Violet said, resolute.

Bryony eyed the mishappen form locked inside the ice block warily. “Whatisthat thing anyway?”

“From the way it behaved just now, I reckon it’s some kind of parasite. It must be what turned those people into ghouls.” Mae went to her duffel bag and extracted a metal canister from within it. “I bet we’ll find traces of it in here too.”

Vlad swore. “Is that Agnes’s blood?!”

Nikolai stormed toward her. “Get away from it!”

Mae yanked the vial out of their reach. “Relax. This thing only activates when it enters the human body.”

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