Page 61 of Soulbound

"Are you daft?" she demanded. "You don't know what's happening!" Neither of them did. "We're both barely trained."

Indecision flickered over his face. "This is my mother's work. I'll stake my life upon it."

Only Morgana would dare attack the majority of the Order at Ianthe's Ascension Ball. Perhaps as payback for their theft of the wand.

And that was enough to break any restraining hold she might have held upon him. Sebastian despised his mother more than anything.

Cleo grabbed fistfuls of her skirts and scurried after him. "Then I'm coming with you."

"You're safer out here—"

"Oh yes, so much safer," she drawled, "considering we don't know what is happening, where the attack is coming from, and just who precisely is crawling through these gardens. Or what."

Sebastian paused and glared down at her.

"We're safer together," she pointed out. "We're a bonded pair. My powers run to divination, but you could use my strength...." Cleo winced. It wasn't as though he needed more power. "I just.... I'm not leaving you. I'm not letting you walk in there alone. And that's final."

She hadn't liked it the other night at all, being sent off with Verity.

The clench of his jaw dared to refute her, but he gave a sudden brief nod. "Keep beside me at all times. I'll protect you."

"I do know how to ward," she retorted, scurrying after him once again.

"Aye." Sebastian pressed his back to the stone of the terrace, his voice dropping to a whisper. "But do you know how to kill?"

It made her flinch.

"I do," he said, in that same, deadly soft voice. "And if my mother is behind this, then neither of us can afford to hesitate."

Cleo swallowed. "Understood."

An errant streak of pure power blew out all the windows above them. Sebastian flung his arm over her head, pressing her into the stonework, even as Cleo crafted a ward around them.

"To me!" someone cried. "To me!"

"Over here!" yelled another voice, and this time she recognized Lucien.

"We have to help them," Cleo gasped.

Grabbing her by the hand, Sebastian hauled her through the greenery, her skirts snagging on the pruned rosebushes. The ballroom was a mess of shadow and flickering red light. Mage globes, clearly, and the red color meant that someone wasn't mucking about. Red was the color of war; of death.

"Stand firm!" Ianthe called, and Cleo caught a glimpse of the Prime gathering dozens of sorcerers to her side.

They stood back to back, but there were pockets of them scattered all through the ballroom, which was overrun with imps. The hell spawn must have been dragged straight out of the Shadow Dimensions, and the sheer number of them....

"My gods," Cleo whispered. "Who could conjure so many imps?"

"The demon," Sebastian replied grimly, flinging his hands wide.

A lash of power sent half a dozen imps tumbling across the polished timber floors.

One leered at them and leapt from the balcony above them, its claws flared wide. Cleo formed a ward about them and it hit with a splat, sliding down the amorphous bubble.

"Drop the ward," Sebastian bellowed, and she did, just as he sent another sheer wave of force slamming through a pack of imps.

Black blood stained their bronze skins. One hissed at them, its long tail lashing back and forth like a cat's. Together she and Sebastian moved through the room, alternating between attacking and shielding. Cleo was breathless by the time she reached a small pocket of frightened apprentices, but Sebastian only seemed buoyed by the fight.

His eyes gleamed a merciless silver, and sparks spat from his rings as he wielded his sorcery like a brute scalpel. Imps were nearly impossible to kill, but he was succeeding. Ripping them apart like rag dolls with sheer force, his head turning to and fro as if he sought something.