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“Ha!”

“Because the person you discount most is about to wrap his hands around your throat.”

Yagrin grabs our aunt from behind in the choke. Her eyes are moons. He squeezes, rushing toushana into her. She drops the stone and claws at his wrists, trying to speak, but her speech comes out as a sputter. Her body begins to stiffen as the choke works. Beaulah Perl’s eyes darken with fear for the first time I’ve ever seen. I dash for the stone. It’s so large, I need both hands to lug it to the base of the Sphere’s opening and use it to stopper the hole. But the moment the black matter inside the Sphere crashes against it, the stone cracks and breaks into pieces.

No…no, please.

Felix, Yani, and several others appear. I glance at the Sphere; its thrashing matter looks exactly how I feel inside. Half-empty. Half of magic, gone. I call to my magic, and it answers in a quiet thrum. I try again, but it’s even weaker than it was before, the Sphere emptying—magic disappearing—taking its toll. Yagrin fights off another Dragun, holding Beaulah as a shield. The world frays at its edges.

I must do something. The totality of magic, both forbidden and proper, rides on this decision. Oh my goodness, that’s it.

A stone is too easily possessed.

Beaulah’s freed herself from Yagrin. She and the Draguns barrel toward me. I have seconds. I snatch up a broken shard of the red gemstone and unsheathe my dagger. I’m done trusting others with magic.

I press the tip of the blade into the chest wound that Abby just healed. It reopens. I hold the broken gem near the Sphere’s opening. The dark innards rise like a charmed snake, as if magnetically drawn toward the stone.

When its innards nearly touch the stone, I shove it into my chest.

And the Sphere’s magic follows.

A siphon of darkness streams through the air, from the Sphere into the gash in my skin. I burn all over as magic fills me. Slowly, at first—then my body convulses and my blood pumps harder. My body oscillates from warm to cold and then cold to hot. Blackness dents the edges of my vision as my body drinks in the Sphere’s magic with a rabid thirst. The Sphere’s level plummets. My body writhes. My bones shift. I hold still as the world bleeds of color.

When the final drop of matter falls from the glass, I shudder and collapse.

The last thing I feel is cold.

A bloodthirsty cold.

All over.