Page 52

Ursula shrieked in outrage, a high-pitched animal scream that made even the other members of her own coven recoil.

Lydia tried to steady herself, working to summon the power for some spell that might save her, save her friends, but the lingering effects of the battle hex had left her weakened.

Ursula turned her attention to Rebecca and Henry, eyes wild.

“Ingrid.”

A witch stepped forward. She was older than Ursula, mean looking and famine thin. She smiled down on the three huddled figures kneeling in the dirt before her.

Ursula’s face curled in contempt. “Leave the witch. I want her to watch. The other two you may do with as you please.”

Ingrid’s smile widened into a grin. She crouched before them, whispering something Lydia couldn’t quite make out, the stream of words sizzling on the air.

Rebecca was the first to scream. The sound tore out of her, increasing in pitch and intensity until it transformed into a frantic shriek.

Henry held out longer, the veins in his neck bulging as he struggled to stay silent, but he broke a moment later, and a river of tears flowed from his face as he howled in agony.

Lydia shouted to be heard over the screams. “What are you doing to them?”

Ursula did not reply, and Ingrid continued. It was as if her words were red-hot, searing Henry and Rebecca with every syllable, every unintelligible word like barbed wire. Their screams were deafening, filling the barn, sucking up every drop of oxygen.

“Stop it.” Lydia’s voice sounded childish in her own ears.

“Reverse the spell,” Ursula replied.

“You know I can’t!”

“Then your friends will die screaming.” She stood behind Ingrid, staring down with satisfaction as Rebecca and Henry howled and wept. Lydia began to scream as well, helpless and enraged.

Just out of reach, the Grimorium Bellum lay discarded in the dirt, humming insistently, as if all of Lydia’s pain and anguish was feeding it, calling the book to her aid. She could feel the invisible cord that bound them together tightening.

She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, there was a roiling shadow crouching over the book like a toad.

No, not over it. It was the book. The shadow and the book occupied the same space, and Lydia’s vision seemed to strobe as she saw one, then the other, then both.

It morphed and twisted, looking for one instant like many creatures all slithering in and around each other, then the next, unnervingly human—a feminine figure, black hair floating all around it as if suspended in water, the face featureless in the dark of the barn, but somehow familiar.

In that moment it seemed as if the creature reached out a hand to Lydia, its image pulsing like a great, black vein. A gift , a voice whispered inside her head.

A word seemed to form on Lydia’s lips. She could taste it, like honey in her mouth. It was no word of power she had ever spoken, but somehow, she knew the sound, and knew what would happen when she spoke it.

She blocked out the rising tide of screams all around her and focused only on that one word.

She felt it become whole, a solid thing on her tongue.

Her head throbbed, heat rushing up through the core of her as veins of night-black ink raced up her arms, her neck, into her eyes, filling her mouth like blood.

She breathed it in, felt the power rise in her, and—

A voice called out from the misty darkness beyond the barn, speaking in a language Lydia didn’t understand. It was a voice Lydia knew almost as well as her own.

Sybil’s voice.

Lydia opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Sybil had bound her tongue. The word of power withered in her mouth. The creature let loose a frustrated snarl, then slithered back inside the book and disappeared.

“Enough.”

Ingrid and Ursula looked up. The screaming stopped. Henry and Rebecca slumped to the ground.

“Grand Mistress.” Ursula bowed.

Sybil did not look at Ursula. She looked only at Lydia, and Lydia stared back in silence. The betrayal stuck in her throat like bile. Until this moment, she hadn’t truly believed.

Sybil approached and knelt before her, smiling sadly.

“Oh, my darling. I should have known you would never stop.”

“Grand Mistress.” Ursula’s eyes were downcast. “She’s…she’s bound herself to the Grimorium Bellum. ”

Sybil breathed a heavy sigh. “Of course she did. It’s exactly what I would have done.” She turned to Ursula. “Are you aware she nearly just killed you all?”

Ursula paled. Sybil turned back to Lydia, her eyes lingering over the black veins that wormed their way across her flesh and then disappeared a second later, like some ocean creature slipping beneath the water.

“I’m right, aren’t I? You were going to slaughter them all with a word. At great cost to yourself, I imagine.”

Lydia stared back, defiant. Sybil leaned in closer, lowering her voice so only Lydia could hear. “Whatever you might think of me right now, please know that I have always thought of you as a daughter.”

On any other day, Lydia would have wept. Now, with all her tears already spent, her tongue useless, she bared her teeth in a silent scream. Sybil stood and returned her attention to the Grimorium Bellum , nudging the book with her toe.

“One of you, get a sack.”

Henry was starting to come around. He rolled onto his side and groaned, hay and dirt sticking to his sweat-slicked face.

Ursula stepped forward. “Would you like me to dispose of these two, Mistress?”

Sybil looked down at the two prone bodies, considering them dispassionately. “No. We’ll bring them with us.”

Ursula frowned. “Grand Mistress, with respect—” Sybil turned her cold, blue stare on Ursula, the ice in her gaze so alien that, for a moment, Lydia hardly recognized her. Ursula lowered her eyes. “Yes, Grand Mistress.”

Rebecca and Henry were dragged to their feet.

Rebecca’s head still hung limply from her shoulders, but Henry was awake now, staring at Lydia with panic in his eyes.

He looked like he was about to speak, but then the metallic smell filled the barn once again, and Rebecca and Henry flickered out of sight, along with the witches who held them.

Ursula and Ingrid set about tending to their fallen sisters, leaving Sybil and Lydia alone together.

Lydia studied Sybil’s face, searching for some clue, some sign that the woman she had known for so many years had been a fabrication, but the warmth had returned to Sybil’s eyes, and she stared back with the same motherly affection Lydia had always known.

Somehow, that only made the betrayal more painful.

“Lydia, darling,” Sybil said after a moment. “Please listen to me. This doesn’t need to be horrible. Are you going to give me trouble?”

Lydia, still deprived of the use of her tongue, held Sybil squarely in her gaze and nodded.

Sybil pressed two fingers to the bridge of her nose. “Very well.” She stepped close to Lydia and, very gently, reached out and smoothed her dark curls with her fingertips.

“ Slaepna fae .”

Lydia tried to stay awake, but the darkness took her just the same.