Page 33 of Rites of Passage

“What is it?” Nikolai said nervously.

“His core is broken.”

Surprise jolted the others.

Mae clenched her teeth. The spell she was searching for finally came to her, the words rising from the seemingly endless magical archives buried in the depths of her consciousness.

“Soul Conjure.”

The corpse trembled. A cracked, pale orb rose from the body, the light flickering agitatedly. It settled down when she clasped it gently in her hands.

Mae’s throat constricted. She could feel all that the dead man had been in his life as she held the last fragments of his soul, from the good he had done to the shameful secrets he had kept. But more than anything, she experienced his final, wretched moments in this world, when his will had become subservient to the entity that had taken control of him. Crimson magic bloomed on her fingers.

She lifted the ethereal orb and pressed her lips to it. “Be at peace.”

It flared for a moment before slowly vanishing. Tears blurred Mae’s vision, the sorcerer’s relief and gratitude carving a scar on her mind as his soul finally departed this world. She clenched her teeth.

I will never forgive them for what they did to him. To Agnes and so many others!

A heavy silence befell the room.

“Was that his soul?” Vlad said quietly.

Mae nodded jerkily, not trusting herself to speak yet. She put on a gown, gloves, and splash shield and lifted a scalpel from the instrument tray, her movements stilted.

Brimstone spoke.Calm yourself, my witch.

Mae met the fox’s wise gaze across the room. She inhaled and forced her body to relax. Hellreaver hummed softly against her chest. She traced the weapon with her fingers, grateful once more for the bond that linked the three of them.

She was conscious of Nikolai and Vlad’s stares as she made the first incision. She concentrated on the task at hand, her fingers moving with practiced ease as she dissected the sorcerer’s body. The low whir of the bone saw echoed across the tiled walls when she cut open his skull a short while later. It didn’t take long for her to expose his brain.

The hairs rose on the back of her neck.

The dead man’s pineal gland was enlarged, just like the one she’d discovered in Antonovich, theOniksmember she’d performed an autopsy on the night Grandview General was attacked. Except the sorcerer’s was all dark and deformed. Vlad and Nikolai came closer as she carefully extracted the lump of tissue from the man’s brain.

“Is that what you found inside Antonovich?” the incubus asked in a hard voice.

“Yes.” Mae held the black nodule up to the light and scrutinized it with narrowed eyes. “And also no. His wasn’t this color.”

The nodule glistened.

Mae squinted.Wait. Did something just move in there?

Brimstone bolted onto all fours next to Tarang. His hackles rose and his eyes flashed crimson.

Mae, get away from that thing!

She looked over at the familiar, puzzled. “What’s wrong?”

The air throbbed with a wave of corruption. Mae’s pulse spiked. Dark strands shot out from the gland and coiled around the forceps in her hand. She jerked and dropped the instrument.

“What the—?!”

The nodule bounced on the floor. The inky tendrils swarming it darted under her gown and latched onto her foot. Mae swore, ripped the covering from her body, and stamped on the black threads.

They flattened before coalescing into an amorphous, black mass that wrapped around her shoe. The shapeless lump writhed wickedly as it attempted to pierce the thick material.

“Shit!”

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