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“He’ll recover,” Lucien said. “I think.”

As the gate opened fully, I noticed Lucien hesitate. He hadn’t immediately started on our way out of the mansion and onto freedom, but I knew why. He didn’t have to say anything, I knew what he was struggling with. Doing this meant saying goodbye to everything he’d ever known and marking himself as an enemy to his own father.

I placed my hand on his arm reassuringly.

“We’re going to rescue my brother, and then we’re going to go somewhere far away and live our own lives, the way we want to live them. Together.”

He grabbed my hand, kissed it, and then gently kissed my lips too.

“I told you already. I’m with you,” he said.

“Is there a reason why we’re stopped here, then?”

“Not really. Fuck this place.”

Lucien accelerated the range rover and peeled out past the gate.

The winding road leading out from the mansion was dark, and gloomy; a low mist hanging close to the ground. As we moved further away, I felt the need to look back; the mansion was still in darkness, no signs that anyone was aware that we had left. Though just moments before we took the last corner and lost sight of the Diaboli house, I could have sworn I saw one, single, light turned on.

Chapter

Thirty-Two

“Where to?” Lucien asked once the panic settled. We were on the road, on the highway in fact. So far, we hadn’t been followed, but the guy in the broom cupboard was going to wake up eventually.

“We need to get my brother first,” I said.

“Where is he?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll need to reach out to him and see if I can find him.”

“Reach out?”

“Through the Ether. Keep driving… let me see what I can do.”

In truth, I wasn’t sure what I could do. I didn’t know how Max had reached me the way he had. It looked like he had used my aunt Persephone’s amulet as a kind of focus. The more I thought about it, the closer I got to the conclusion that he needed it to concentrate his abilities.

That meant I already had the power within me to do what he had done, all I had to do was… think it. Want it. Will it into existence. So, with Max’s face firmly held in the center of my mind, I drew my power out and closed my eyes.

I studied the mental image of his face as I held onto it, allowing memories of him to play out along my mental periphery. Max, I thought. Can you hear me? I could feel my own power reaching out of me, searching, racing across vast distances at the speed of thought, looking for the energy I had conjured in my head.

Looking for the boy whose skinned knees I had to clean up. The boy who couldn’t keep his hands out of the pantry. The boy I knew was going to grow up to be a wild card and a heartbreaker… although, in truth, I may have been projecting that last thought.

Really, he had turned out a little meek, a little too scared of the world. That was why sending him away that night to fend for himself had been one of the worst things I could have done to him. But seeing him in the mansion earlier, an accomplished mage with a strong command over my aunt’s amulet.

I had to give it to him.

He hadn’t just survived out here in the wild—he had thrived.

“Bee?” I heard Max’s voice rise up into the space between my ears.

I couldn’t help but smile. “There you are,” I thought.

“I can hear you so clearly… did you make it out?”

“I did. I finally got away from that house.” I couldn’t believe I was even thinking the words.

“So, it’s over?”