“It’s a miracle Ice alone managed to keep you from being captured.” Lucan squeezes my shoulder.
I wrench away. “Are you listening to me? We need a plan to save him now! I’ve got an auto outside. I’m going to drive?—”
“I’ll go with you,” Lucan says like he’s soothing a child. “You need protection. Uncle Sterling has a veritable fortress near Birmingham. We can travel there and regroup, devise a plan.”
What the devil? A fortress won’t help the rest of magickind until we save Ice. But a glance tells me Lucan is low on energy. I thrust the observation aside. Wondering if he needs my body is more than I can bear now.
“You teleport to your uncle’s and ready him to have the rest of us invade his home. I hate to impose, but?—”
“No. He must, and he’ll have to understand. There’s safety in numbers.” Lucan turns to his brother. “Caden?”
The youngest wizard sends me a curious stare, then nods. “I’ll go with you.”
Tynan raises a hand to lift Bram from the ground. “The car out front?”
“Yes.” I race for the door, then stop. One more thing, in case Sterling MacTavish is still reluctant to believe Mathias and the Anarki are back. I extract MacKinnett’s mirror from my pack, flip it open and choose Sterling’s crest again.
“You again?” he grumbles. “I sent my nephews. They’ve just returned and told me they found you. I’ve agreed to open up my home, though this is nonsense, I’m sure and?—”
I turn the mirror to display the carnage Ice left in his wake—blood-soaked Anarki robes, bodies skewered and hacked up everywhere, the unmistakable aftermath of a massacre. The last sounds I hear from Sterling are a gasp and something that sounds suspiciously like retching.
“If you think this is still nonsense, someone should bury you deep in Bedlam.” I snap the mirror shut and shove it into my pack, my hands shaking with rage and grief. Then I turn to Duke. “Let’s go.”
Chapter
Twenty-Four
Ice
* * *
Hard, measured footsteps echo against the chilled concrete, alerting me that I’m no longer alone in this dungeon. It reeks of old blood, bodily waste, and something else—the metallic tang of dark magic that makes my skin crawl. Water drips steadily somewhere in the darkness, each drop echoing like a countdown to hell.
The stone and concrete surrounding me is slick with moisture and God knows what else, freezing against my bare chest where they stripped away my shirt. My broken wand lies in two pieces at my feet—useless. Whatever binds my hands prevents any movement, stripping away my ability to perform even the simplest magic that might allow me to escape. Or at least turn to face whoever approaches.
Not that Mathias will let me leave this dungeon alive. The pain of being hoisted off the ground and hung by my bound wrists until my shoulders dislocated from their sockets is a bitch. But not the worst of what the Anarki can or will do. Since Zain has failed at extracting the diary’s location from me, it’s only a matter of time before someone more brutal appears.
Right on schedule, footsteps draw closer.
“Mr. Rykard.”
Mathias himself. The evil wizard’s patience must be running thin to appear so quickly. The thought makes me smile.
“Mr. d’Arc,” I shoot back.
“I understand you killed eighty-one of my best. Impressive. But it quite puts me out, particularly after your friend Caden MacTavish destroyed my means to quickly convert strong humans to Anarki. I’m sure you can understand why I’m unhappy to lose so many new recruits.”
“A thousand pardons. When your ‘best’ tried to capture me, I quite naturally defended myself. I suspected that allowing them to take me would lead to my death. Am I wrong?”
“Not at all,” Mathias quips. “Unless…you reconsider your loyalties. It’s a disgrace to Deprived everywhere that the head of one of their most established families is openly supporting a Privileged cause. And why? Are you still hoping to curry favor with Bram so he’ll give you a modicum of power?”
“No. I’m mostly hoping to kill genocidal, scum-sucking shitholes like you.”
“Tsk. Tsk. Still angry about poor little Gailene?” Mathias’s voice drips with mock sympathy.
Every muscle in my body locks tight. Her name hits like a physical blow, bursting wide open mental wounds that have festered for two centuries. My sister’s face flashes in my mind—young, trusting, laughing as I taught her to cast her first spell. I grind my teeth so hard I taste blood, but I fall silent, refusing to give this bastard the satisfaction of seeing how deeply his words carve into my soul.
“I sense you are. As you said so sincerely, ‘a thousand apologies.’ My actual purpose for this visit, I’m sure you know, is not ancient history but the Doomsday Diary. Where is it? Which female currently possesses it?”
