Page 40 of A Soul’s Curse (Fallen Souls #1)

To my surprise, he didn’t deny my statement. “I don’t know how you figured it out, but I guess it doesn’t make much of a difference now, does it?” He went to grab Ellie’s wrist, but I grabbed his to stop him.

“I know about your cousin,” I blurted out as he yanked his arm away from me. “I know a demon wronged him, but—”

Markus flicked his wrist, quickly tracing a symbol midair with his pointer finger.

It glowed a bright yellow, and then the magical energy burst into a ring of light that shot toward me and snapped shut like shackles around my wrists and ankles, locking me in place.

“You don’t get to bring my cousin into his and use him against me.

He did nothing wrong! Yet that demon brutally murdered him, and neither the police nor Syndicate did anything about it.

No one even knows what happened to that demon, and I refuse to let that happen to anyone else.

If it means ending the lives of those threats myself, then so be it. ”

Not even the Syndicate did anything about it?

That seemed suspicious to me, and also worked to my advantage.

It now made sense why Markus mentioned to Helen about wanting to take advantage of Ellie’s magic.

“What if you could get to the bottom of what really happened? You know my friend here can relive memories with her magic. Not all demons are bad. If you let her live, I promise you she’ll be more than happy to help you find out the truth. ”

Markus scoffed, then looked up at the clock above the door.

We were running out of time. “Let’s say for a second I actually believed you.

Even if I wanted to let her live, I can’t.

If Leon found out I defied Syndicate orders, I’ll be punished for it.

Probably with my life. No offense, but I’d rather she die than me. ”

“Fair enough,” I conceded. “But this doesn’t have to fall on you. I can dissolve that ruin myself, then you can perform the rest of spell to return her magic to her body. You can pretend you had no idea what I did.”

“I don’t know …” Markus peered over at the door as if expecting Leon to burst through it at any moment. Catching him even considering defying orders was a crime. Was there nothing else I could offer to convince him?

Lyric fluttered out of my hair, her iridescent wings leaving behind a glittery magic in their wake as she hovered between me and Markus. “If your cousin is still alive, I can probably find him by his magical scent, assuming you still have something of his.”

Markus’s eyes widened and his breath hitched. “Alive? No. He’s dead. He was burned alive and—”

“In the interest of time, I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume you never saw his body.

” Markus nodded at Lyric’s statement. If his cousin was burned to ash, there wouldn’t have been anything left to identify.

“This has all the telltale signs of a murder being swept under the rug because someone’s hiding something they don’t want to get out.

Your cousin may very well be dead, but there’s also a possibility that wasn’t his body.

Either way, you’ll never find out what really happened without our help. ”

That was all the motivation Markus needed.

My restraints vanished, and two of his fingers pressed down on the rune on Ellie’s wrist. He didn’t even wait for me to dissolve the rune myself.

It was gone in a flash of bright magic, and just as quickly he was working to trace a number of other symbols in the air, a trail of his glowing magic being left behind as he swiped his fingers.

He didn’t say any words, but I could feel the magic pulling into the hovering runes as heat radiated out of them.

If Ellie’s ghost was here, I didn’t see it or sense it, and I had a spike of panic when the thought occurred to me that maybe Markus wasn’t saving Ellie.

“He’s coming,” Lyric warned as she made her way back to nest in my hair.

Markus stopped moving, and the both of us stared in anticipation at Ellie. She was breathing, but still not moving.

Leon entered the room, a slow, easy smile pulling at his lips in quiet triumph as he expected coming back to a dead demon and a furious witch.

Unfortunately for Leon, I was the one with a smirk on my face as Ellie’s eyes suddenly shot open, her lungs gasping for air after being denied life for so long.

She clutched a hand to her chest, grasping at her t-shirt as she winced in the agonizing discomfort of her magic stitching itself back together.

I didn’t hesitate to send my magic through her to ease the pain.

Leon grunted behind me, his eyes blinking in wild confusion and anger seething through his teeth.

“It worked,” I said, trying hard to direct Leon’s attention to me so that Markus wouldn’t be the one to blame for this. “Good as new.”

“I can see that. What … happened?” Leon ground out, taking a step toward Markus.

“Oh, what happened?” I stepped in between them. Ellie gripped my arm. “I just made sure you kept your promise, returning Ellie’s magic to her body. Thank you, by the way. This was so kind of you.”

Leon was straining to keep his composure, clenching his fists and sniveling. Taking Ellie’s life before our deal was completed was a risk for him, but he knew I was hurting and desperate. Unfortunately, his plan backfired on him.

“Let’s go.” Leon grabbed my arm and ripped me away from Ellie, the runes on his knife glowing in his other hand as he clenched tightly in the other as he ripped me away from Ellie.

“What? But Ellie—”

“I never said she was leaving with you. You still have to uphold your end of the deal. The demon is staying right where she is until you bring me Caspian and his magic.”

“Theo!” Ellie’s voice faded before I could even blink as Leon dragged me through the Nether to dump me off at my sister’s doorstep.