Page 74 of Malicent (Seven Devils #1)

Ollie returns just as I lift Cage’s head. We move in tandem, prying open his mouth while Ollie uncorks the bottle and pours the antidote in. I clamp his jaw shut, covering his nose until his throat convulses with a swallow.

A beat of silence—

Then his silver eyes open. His magic bristles, and I see the wrath stirring beneath the surface as the drug clears his system. He begins to shift, trying to sit up.

“Hey, easy,” I whisper, steadying his neck. “Cage, you can be mad at me later. Please. I was not going to kill anyone, but we need you.”

“You drugged me,” he growls, rubbing the back of his head. “I’m livid, Millicent. ‘Mad’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. You’ll not run from your punishment this time.”

I smile faintly. “I’ll take whatever punishment you want.” I glance toward the door. “The golden box, it’s open.”

His expression shifts, alarm replacing the anger. “Fuck, we need to go. Now.”

He pushes to stand, but his balance wavers. I step beneath his arm to anchor him. “Come on,” I murmur. “Time to fix what I broke.”

“Misses,” Ollie pleads, wings fluttering in agitation.

“Not now, Ollie. Later.” Even as I press ahead to the urgent matter at hand, his agitation twists my stomach into a pit of knots.

“Misses, I must tell you something!” His voice pitches into a frantic screech, but we’re already through the door.

Cage’s stride quickens as the antidote works through his system.

“What is the damage?” he asks sharply as we descend the stairs.

“Mutated crows. A lot dead. Iris, Kalix, and Tyran are in the ballroom holding the line. I baited Vyraxis in to assist.”

“Good.”

His silence lingers for a moment until we reach a turn in the hall. He stumbles occasionally, but I manage to keep him steady. “Vyraxis says the crows keep coming, but Felix, Iris, and Kalix are safe.”

Ahead, another wave of crows swoops toward us. I raise my hand, summoning fire. Blue and black flames roar from my palm reducing them to charred ash. The heat licks my skin. Beads of sweat prickle the back of my neck.

“How long have you been fighting?” he asks, shadows slithering around him like living smoke. “How is your energy level?” Tendrils whip upward and lash out, catching crows midair. Their bodies burst against the walls in a network of sheared wings and torn limbs.

“I am starting to feel it,” I admit. “It’s manageable.”

“You’ve lied to me enough. Not now.” His voice is hard steel. “If you begin to falter, I will feed you. Are we clear?” he commands. His words are not soft and tender. No. He is a leader, a commander. This is the first mage of the king

I nod quickly. “Yes.” I hate how much I mean it, but I can’t afford to have my magic go out on me. If my magic depletes, it will then turn to my life force until I shut down and enter stasis.

We reach the artifact room. The air is dense with the sound of screeching crows. These ones remain unmutated and normal sized, for now at least.

Cage releases me and takes my hand instead. His shadows tear across the room, dragging the crows down in knots of black. Dead birds crunch and squelch under our feet, smearing blood across the floor.

“If you care for Felix, Iris, or Kalix,” he says, reaching for the golden box with the faded inscription bound box of Morpheus , “you will bring me back.”

I freeze, staring. “Bring you back?”

He drops my hand. In one palm, he summons a strange, ceremonial blade. Its curved edge and obsidian hilt are carved from black stone instead of steel. Etching of an unfamiliar language pulses faintly across its surface.

Without hesitation, he pulls the blade across his own hand. Blood wells and drips from his fingers. He presses his palm to the golden box.

The incantation he speaks is foreign and guttural. As the words leave his mouth, the room darkens. The air thins, each breath becoming harder to draw.

Images flash in my mind—red, black, a four-armed creature tearing through flesh. The whispers return, layered and overlapping, voices too numerous to separate.

The chill that enters the air causes frost to spread across the floor beneath Cage. My breath fogs, and a deep-rooted wrongness slithers into the space…and into him.

Every crow drops dead, their bodies hitting the floor in unison. Beyond the door, the sounds of slaughter and screaming vanish. I rush to the hall—blood, bodies, silence. And indeed, they’re all dead.

“You did it,” I murmur, turning toward the box, toward Cage. The moment I look at him, something primal in me recoils. Then I remember his warning.

“Cage?” I step inside cautiously, approaching him from behind. He still doesn’t respond. I raise a trembling hand and press it to his shoulder. It’s ice cold. The wrongness of it sends nausea spinning through me.

A deep, unfamiliar chuckle rolls from his throat.

“There’s my special girl.”

He rises. When he turns, I freeze.

His eyes are bottomless black. The smile on his lips is carved in sadism.

“Cage?” I whisper.

He looks me over like a predator admiring his prize.

“Millicent, our rare gem.”

His voice slithers through the air as his hand grips my jaw, tilting my head upward. I flinch, another surge of violent visions flashing behind my eyes. A desolate landscape, a sea of broken bodies, black eyes blinking from an endless abyss.

“Cage, snap out of it,” I growl, twisting against his hold. His grip claws into my neck, bruising me.

“Do not dare defy me,” he leans in close, sneering.

“We need to check on the others,” I try, clinging to logic. I hope a mention of the people he loves might ground him. He doesn’t even blink. He’s fixated on me.

“Who are you, and what do you want?” I demand.

“I am Cage. And you know who and what I want.” His lips curl into a cruel smile. “You slip away like sand through my fingers, but not this time. You can’t escape me, Millicent. I am inevitable.”

Rage coils in me. “Don’t make me fight you.”

That intrigues him. His aura is completely different, it’s colder, fouler. Whatever part of him remains is buried beneath this malevolence. I know this threat isn’t directed at me. It’s meant for the others.

I cup his face, drawing us close, our foreheads touching. “Let me in.”

“Not a chance,” he whispers. “You play too many games.”

“I thought you liked games.” I slide my hands slowly down his arm toward the obsidian blade in his grip.

“Not the kind you play,” he snaps, irritation cutting through the stillness in his voice.

I move. One sharp pull, and I drive the blade into my own stomach.

Agony erupts through me. The cursed metal sears as it sinks deep, rot bleeding through my insides. I scream, my knees buckling beneath me.

“What have you done!” Cage roars, his voice thunderous enough to rattle the room.

He catches me before I collapse, and he rips the blade free. His eyes flicker, black splitting with flashes of silver. The presence inside him begins to shudder and reel.

The cursed energy that clings to the blade now tries to enter my system. The Nightmother stirs.

Stay out, she hisses at the invisible force.

“Millie.” Cage lowers me to the floor, panic rising in his voice. Panic that sounds so familiar, from a time when we were younger, when I often hurt myself from running around.

He presses a hand to my wound, trying to hold me together. He lifts his wrist, pressing it to my lips. My teeth elongate, and I sink them in, drinking deeply.

The Nightmother coils around it, consuming the force trying to infect me.

My magic surges. My skin tugs and seals, the wound rapidly closing.

Then nausea hits me. I heave forward, retching a torrent of red and black again and again.

Each heave pulls more of the disease from me, until I’m gasping, clawing for breath.

Cage pulls me into his arms, his palm stroking circles over my back. “Get it all out,” he whispers.

I cling to him, the tremors in my stomach finally settling. The retching fades, and my head lulls against his shoulder. I curl into his embrace, my limbs too heavy to lift.

Victory may have been unpleasant, but it is still mine.

Cage shifted after the blade. I guessed some type of possessive force is lingering on the blade or it’s used in parts of a ritual for infestation.

A vessel can only be overtaken if its current inhabitant is weaker than the invader. And the Nightmother is always stronger.

“We need to check on the others,” I croak. My throat is scorched, acid and magic clawing at it from the inside.

“We will,” he murmurs. “Just…let me be with you a little longer.”

I don’t fight it, not this time. The night’s events weigh heavily on me, but for now, I let myself rest in the quiet of him.

He buries his face between my shoulder blades and exhales an exhausted sigh. “You are different from how I remember you, aren’t you, Millicent?”

I don’t answer. We both know the answer already.

“I sit here holding a figment of my imagination.” The laugh that escapes him begins to morph into something cruel. “You know the consequence for this, don’t you?” Any panic, any softness in his tone has hardened. “You will be burned,” he says with finality, releasing me.

Eventually, he stands and offers his hand. I take it, and he never lets go. I walk hand and hand with death, just as I always have.

I will not burn.

I will not die.

I have tried to. Too many times.

Things bigger than him, bigger than they can imagine keep my corpse from rotting and my heart from stopping.

The castle is silent except for the wet squelch of boots in blood. Carcasses lie draped over golden trim like meat on a banquet table. Crimson stains run down marble walls like veins.

We reach the ballroom. Felix and Kalix are moving through the dead, checking for any signs of life. Healers are already at work, guiding the refugees to the mess hall. Iris remains by the throne, staring blankly over the room.

Cage releases my hand. He walks to Kalix, the two speaking in low, grave murmurs. No one greets him. No one rejoices. Grief chokes out every other emotion.

I approach Iris slowly. “Iris, are you all right?”

She turns to me with a radiant, chilling smile. “I am perfect. I am perfection!” Her laughter is edged with mania. Magic arcs like static over her skin. I stop asking questions, finding it prudent to avoid pushing the conversation further. She’s too far gone, swept up in whatever current she rides.

I begin to walk the room, mimicking the others, trying to keep my hands busy, my mind steady.

That’s when Ollie returns, panicked, trembling.

“Me Misses, please, we must speak at once!”

The urgency in his voice cuts through the haze like a blade.

“What is it, Ollie?”

“Arcadia, not good, not good!”

Ice floods my veins. My skin dampens instantly, my hands shaking. “What about Arcadia?”

Ollie lands on my shoulder, his body vibrating with fear.

Images begin to flash in my mind, his memories bleeding into mine. What he’s seen. What he’s felt.

My heart clenches and then—stops. A scream tears from my mouth, silent and shrill, the kind that scrapes your soul raw. My body collapses inward, buckling to my knees as agony detonates through me. I see her again and again—Arcadia. And the pain only grows.

Everything I love dies.

I am not followed by death.

I am death.