Page 80 of Ignited Spirits
Sighing, Cain shoves his knife into the councilman once more, his lips tipping up at the pained howls Giles lets out. Turning around, Cain walks back over to me. “You can look through his memories now, Levi.”
Pursing his lips as he regards the councilman, Levi asks, “Are you sure you don’t want Cain to try for a few more minutes or hours, little raven?”
I huff a laugh. “I’m sure. I really just want to get out of here.”
Levi’s expression softens, and he dips his chin in acknowledgement before letting his magic flow out of him.
A weakened and bloody Giles barely struggles as Levi’s power heads right toward him. When it collides with the councilman, he goes still and silent for a long moment before the screaming starts.
As I watch Giles writhe, I feel absolutely no pity for him. There’s probably something wrong with me that I don’t have a problem with Cain or Levi hurting him, but oh well.
“Fuck!” Levi shouts when he comes out of the trance of his magic.
I’m going to take a wild guess that I won’t like whatever he found.
CHAPTER 27
LEVI
“Ishould’ve put it together,” I mutter to myself before shoving a hand through my hair.
She’s my mother, after all. I should know her better than anyone else, and I should’ve realized how exactly she was pulling this off.
Izzy crosses the room to me cautiously, like she’s unsure whether I would welcome her presence. I’m not the one who has any reason to be upset with her. It’s the other way around.
I was her teacher for a year and didn’t realize what was happening to her until the last time with the younger Giles boy. But I should’ve known. It was clear Izzy was hurting from the first moment I laid eyes on her, but I was unsure why. I should’ve done more digging.
She hesitantly reaches out a hand to me. When I don’t move to avoid it, she rests her hand on my chest and stares up at me. I get lost in her gray eyes that can look like a roiling storm or a peaceful day, depending on her mood. “Put what together, screech owl?”
I let myself look at her for a long moment before sighing. “We already knew she’s using acuraartifact to assist the mage spellto drain mages. I should’ve put it together that she was using a blade from the Styx to do it.”
Izzy glances down at the knife secured to her gray dress borrowed from Seph. “Like the one Hades gave me?”
She looks at the blade with such trepidation that I feel a small smile tugging at my mouth. It’s like she thinks it’s a poisonous snake one wrong move away from attacking anyone and everyone.
Fortunately, she actually has to use the knife to cause any damage.
“Yes. It’s one of only three in existence.” The other two belong to Hades and me. Last I knew, Lua’s blade was locked in one of the many vaults my brother has hidden aroundInfernus.“I don’t know how she managed to get it, but she did. LuaMateris able to drain magic from people by stealing a part of their soul. A spell the mage council developed allows her to funnel the person’s power to herself as long as she retains the bit of their soul.”
Her eyebrows raise. “So, Lua is just casually carrying around thousands of souls with her? How does that even work? Doesn’t it get heavy?”
I huff a laugh. “She assimilates them into her own soul because her innate magic is stronger. All of the pieces she’s stollen have become one with her soul, so there’s no need to store them anywhere. Those souls don’t have any weight to them, because they aren’t physical objects on this plane.”
“Oh, that makes more sense.” Izzy nods to herself. “It lines up with all the souls of the lower mages being damaged. I wonder if I reduced her power at all when I healed the ghosts of the kids she drained.”
“It’s possible, but each mage only gives her a very small amount of magic. It’s doubtful that it made any difference to her.”
I don’t want to think about how many mages my mother has killed to double her power. How many children. How many innocents.
Izzy tilts her head as she thinks of something else. “How could she drain the Earth? Does a planet have a soul?”
“Planets don’t have souls, as far as I’m aware. I think she’s looking for rock from the Earth’s core to act as a proxy for its soul. It makes sense in a way because anything from the core is made of the innate magic of the planet.” I flick my gaze back to the councilman, who’s currently an unconscious, bloody mess. “Giles doesn’t have any information about that part of her plan.”
When I riffled through the disgrace of a councilman’s head, I saw many, many disturbing memories. He chronically abused the power afforded to him by his position, and much like his sons, he enjoyed taking what women weren’t willing to give.
If I thought imprisonment in Tartarus wasn’t worse than killing the spineless weasel, I would end his pathetic life here and now.
Izzy’s shoulders slump and she scrubs a hand over her face. “Of course he doesn’t. That would make everything way too easy. Does he at least know where to find the spell used to drain the mages with the blade?”
