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My fingers twitched as he spoke, and I could almost feel the hunger rising. “Yes, I very much know that feeling.”

“It’s because you’re fighting your own magic. If you leave yourself open to its return, you won’t crave its loss. You won’t be missing a part of yourself.”

He held out his hand, and I reluctantly put mine in his. Immediately, the cold, deathly charge of my magic ignited in me, vibrating in my chest, down my shoulder, along my arm, through my hand, and into Sion. By Sion’s sharp intake of breath, I knew he was feeling it, too.

His gaze burned as he stared down at me. “I don’t know if the god of death was ever real,” he whispered. “But you’re the closest thing I’ve ever seen to him. You need to understand your own power.”

As I sent my magic into him, a ravenous void opened in my chest, the dark compulsion to spread my power like a blight onto the world of the living. I wanted to breathe plagues across the city. I wanted to stain throats with the bruise of decay, to wither the plants around me…

“Elowen,” he whispered, “you need to let it back in.”

My fingers tightened, stomach clenching. “I—I don't know how.”

He pulled his hand away, and I instantly felt the sharp loss of that charge between us. Gnawing emptiness opened between my ribs.

I turned, taking in the symbols of death around us, and the serpent carvings seemed to writhe on the rock walls. Revulsion rose in my gut, and the eye sockets in the skulls seemed to gape at me accusingly.

My legs shook. “Enough for now, Sion. We can come back to this again tomorrow.”

CHAPTER 11

Isat in the little cottage in Veilcross Haven, sipping tea while the morning light streamed in over a table full of freshly baked bread and fruit.

Leo sat at the table, carefully drawing a picture of a beautiful queen wearing a crown, raising her hands to the sky.

Godric sat in the corner, mending a pair of trousers. “So, how is the magic practicing going, Elowen?”

I sighed. It had been three days of practicing in the temple so far, without making any headway. “I can’t say I’ve made much progress yet, but I’m starting to get less creeped out by the death temple, so that’s something.”

Godric looked up from his mending. “Thatissomething. Well done.”

I nodded at his work. “I see they’re keeping you busy here.”

“Do you know what, Elowen? They’ve been very welcoming.”

“What have you been up to besides mending?”

He nodded at Leo. “He’s been baking up a storm. And Hugo and I have been helping to make the vampire pendants in the forges. We can’t help with the magic, but we can help with the metal, you know? Granted, the magic is the hard part.”

On his paper, Leo drew round faces at the queen’s feet, with large, toothy grins. “I’m making a picture of you, Elowen. You can take it with you.”

He smiled at me, turning the paper around to face me.

My eyebrows went up with surprise. “Are those skulls at my feet?”

“Yeah! Because you’re the Underworld Queen.” He beamed at me, then grabbed it back again. “Hang on, I forgot the blood.”

I cleared my throat. “Thank you, Leo. That’s…that’s lovely.”

I stoodin the temple once more with Sion, the cool air raising goosebumps on my skin.

A lock of Sion’s long hair fell before his face. The torchlight highlighted his sharp jawline, his cheekbones. “Eventually, you will work up to using a wand, but we’re not there yet. You still need to get over that feeling of hunger.”

I nodded. “And you’re sure I can do it?”

He took a step closer, towering over me. “Certain. This time, I want you to breathe deeply and imagine letting your magic slide back into your body.”

I craned my neck to look up at him, craving death, the mortal touch. A dark impulse thrummed through my body, the aching desire to see his beauty wither before me. I was a serpent squeezing the life out of a flower in full bloom.