I jumped when gold eyes stared back at me.
I blinked, and they disappeared. I was still staring at the faded, flowered wallpaper, heart hammering in my chest, when a claw-like hand grabbed my arm, wrenching me around.
Ankha stood there, rage and hatred in her eyes.
“What did you do to me?” she demanded, shaking me viciously. “What did your foul, disgusting magic do to me, girl?”
I gasped, shocked at the face suddenly in mine, and everything that was wrong with it. Two faces seemed to stare back, morphing one into the other then back again, without losing the cold fury that shone from either set of eyes. My aunt’s blue irises danced with dark red fire, then shifted back to blue, then to a lighter blue, then back to those disturbing red flames.
Horror fell over me when it really sank in what I was seeing.
My alarm worsened as her irises continued to ripple and flash, from blue to red, then back to blue, growing more erratic as her bone structure seemed to change with the colors.
That apparition hadn’t gone away.
Instead of me, it had taken Ankha.
I grasped upward, reaching the gold-white sun over my head, and was shocked when I immediately accessed it. Magic flowed down to me like a spigot turned on full blast.
“What did you do to me?” my aunt screeched, shaking me. “What did you do?”
I slammed outward with my magic a second time.
I did it harder than I’d done to Caelum in the woods. I did it harder than maybe I’d ever done it, even when Ankha had taken over my mind. Sheer survival instinct mixed with revulsion and a deeper rage; the combination exploded a hard bolt of magical fire out of my chest and hands, straight into her.
Ankha slammed into the back of the nearest armchair. She spun off to one side and past it, and got flung jarringly into the wall. She screamed at the booming impact, a sound filled with hatred, pain, and furious disbelief.
She sounded like an animal trying to attack while being lit on fire.
Her eyes, wild now, stared at mine like I was some kind of demon. Without waiting, she aimed a hand at the gold mirror, and shattered the glass inside the heavy frame with a single spell, before I managed to take a step in that direction.
As soon as that bolt of magic left me, and despite my precious clarity of mind, I instantly felt drained. I’d needed that fucking mirror. I needed it. I needed to get out of there.
When it exploded into a billion shards, something in me snapped.
“Gods-damn it!” I snarled, clenching my fists.
“I should have drowned you!” my aunt screamed. “I should have throttled you both, theinstantyou were in my care! I would have happily gone to prison for it! Gladly!”
“Clearly not, you pathetic, groveling, lickspittle of acoward,”I snarled back. “No wonder they granted you custody. They knew you’d never risk yourself. They knew what a ridiculous little nothing of a toady you truly were… just a sad hanger-on of therealdark Magicals.”
Ankha stared at me.
That flickering, morphing presence still flashed behind her eyes, changing their colors as her jaw slowly hardened. The disbelief never left her expression.
“I still have the Stone,” she said coldly. “Do you really think you can take me on, even if Malcroix and that Bones pup managed to teach you a few tricks?” Her lip curled. “She won’t be in me permanently until I finish the blood-locking spell. I’ll have her back in you long before that happens.”
A flare of green-blue light rose from the Asian carpet.
I looked down to the rapidly brightening pentagram on the threadbare rug, and the skull in its center. The smoky, black, wraithlike shape began to shimmer around Ankha’s form.
A harsh, buzzing sound filled my ears.
I stumbled backwards, even though I knew it was the wrong direction, that there was nowhere left to run, not that way. Now that I couldn’t go for help, I’d need to get to my brother, but my aunt stood directly in my path.
In the center of the pentagram, the bloody skull began to vibrate, and that sick feeling roiled my stomach.
A corresponding smile grew on my aunt’s face.
