Page 66

“I take your silence as acquiescence to the truth,” he says.

“You should have let us be.”

“Ah, that was not even a choice. I love power. I am drawn to it. You know this.”

For ten years after the death of our mother, Ágota and I had been safe from Lucifer while he was occupied teaching his students at the Scholomance. I had been naïve to believe we had fully escaped him, though Ágota had always known he would make an appearance again.

To my surprise, I sense the curse stirring, preparing to whisk me away to the past. The magic obviously has no regard for who might be close at hand when it seizes me.

“What is this?” Lucifer whispers, intrigued. “What is this sliver of magic coiling about you?”

“It is the only escape I truly have,” I reply with a sigh.

The mausoleum grows hazy as the magic grows insistent. I am dragged into my memories, the crypt fading into darkness.

Before I awaken in the past, I hear Lucifer say in disbelief, “This is witch magic!”

And then I open my eyes to see Ágota smiling down at me.

Chapter 16

Blinking sleep from my eyes, I groggily sit upright, pushing the covers down about my waist. The morning light streams through the high windows of my bedroom in Balázs’s castle, yet I am shrouded in shadows. The cause is Ágota standing on my bed, leaning over me with a wicked grin upon her lips. In her long fingers is a sealed letter.

“Is that for me?” My cheeks flush and my heart flutters with anticipation. “Is it from him?”

Flipping the letter about so I can see the raven emblem imprinted in the wax seal, she says, “Why yes! It is from your betrothed!”

“Give it to me at once!” I order, holding out my hand.

Ágota fans herself with it, regarding me with a naughty expression. “At once you say? What could this letter possibly say that needs to be read at once?”

I am freshly awakened and in no mood for her nonsense. “Ágota!”

“Yes?”

“The letter! Now!”

Waving it before me, careful to keep it beyond my reach, my sister says, “You mean this letter?”

I lunge for her, but she bounces across my bed eluding me. I scramble after her, struggling to free myself from the covers. Ágota jumps around me, brandishing the letter. Her laughter taunts me as I untangle my nightgown. I lunge for her, but she leaps away from me

toward the end of the bed, mocking my desperation.

“So slow!”

“Ágota, give it to me!” I command.

“Oh, what passionate declarations did he write this time? Shall I read it and see?”

“You would not dare! It is mine!”

“What was it he wrote last time? Oh, yes! I long to taste your sweet berry lips! I wonder which lips he meant!”

“Ágota!”

“He has become such a romantic! What did he call your eyes again? Golden fires of passion?”

“Give me the letter!” I manage to climb to my feet and face her. I hold out my hand imperiously.