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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The magic hunter didn’t get a chance to comply.

A pillar of flames struck him square in the chest and shot him across the clearing into the scale-barked trunk of a sycamore tree. There was a loud snap, but it wasn’t the magic hunter’s spine. No, his stolen magic protected him from that.

The old sycamore tree broke with a groan, its skeletal canopy swaying like so many flailing arms. Alec, sprawled where he’d slumped to the ground, had only a moment to react.

The ivy keeping Daphne aloft winked out, and a volley of bluish-green blasts detonated against the falling sycamore tree. The restraints around the robin vanished, and Gertrude flapped away faster than an obese pigeon trying to out-fly a red-tailed hawk.

Daphne screamed as she dropped, but my own fire vines caught her and lowered her safely to the ground. She still neighed in terror—they resembled twisting ropes of fire, after all—and reared when her hooves touched down on solid earth. With a surge of her flanks, she leapt behind me.

Kindling, branches, and the fluff of ruptured seed balls piled against the sycamore stump like a haphazard haystack. It burst apart a heartbeat later, Alec stepping out of the debris like a magician from a cloud of smoke.

With a vicious yank, he tore his jacket off to reveal a black tank top and pale skin that rippled with fae-like markings like live tattoos. On his sternum below his collarbone was a mark I’d never seen before—a Celtic Solomon knot.

I’d delved into Celtic knotwork after encountering that bound tree on Alder Ranch, but only a little. That half-heart embedded in my family’s grimoire had occupied the majority of my time, after all. Arthur would know more about this knot, but from what I remembered, it fostered a connection of some sort.

Alec caught me staring and tapped the symbol. Savagery gleamed in his bright blue eyes. “I’ve waited for this moment for a long time, witch. You’ve gone too far, at last, and now I get to take what’s rightfully mine.”

His dagger appeared in his hand, and he dragged it across the bicep of his stump arm. He coated both sides of the blade in red. “By the law of the hunt: you keep what you kill.”

I didn’t smirk in the face of his ignorant arrogance. Even now, he couldn’t know I could break him like a toothpick. I didn’t want to break him like a toothpick, anyway. As much as I burned for vengeance for Daphne’s mistreatment, I knew hurting him would only sicken me later. I’d tried so hard to leave battle magic—and the bloodlust it created—behind, and I wouldn’t let the power I’d amassed by becoming Violet’s true heir give me another avenue to the same fate.

“Too far?” I quipped. “If coming to a friend’s aid by blasting you into a tree is your definition of going ‘too far,’ then frankly, Alec, you’re just a wimp. No wonder Ossian’s leaving you behind and taking Shane to Elfame instead. You just couldn’t cut it.”

A strangled roar ripped free of his throat. The fae-like markings dancing along his skin lifted, swirling around him like leaves caught in a dervish .

“Careful, Alec. I wouldn’t attack the fae king’s mate because you got a little bump to your head and your ego.”

“Attacking a Brother is a punishable offense!”

“I think I’m exempt from that one. Though, I wonder what punishment you’ll receive when I tell Ossian about your little declaration—that to deny you is to deny Cernunnos himself? Why, it sounds like you consider yourself equal to him. And if I, as his mate, am not equal enough to rule by his side as queen, then I can only imagine what he truly thinks of you. And how you’ve just degraded his name by associating it with yours.”

“You know nothing, witch,” he spat. “I think he will overlook any mistake on my part when he hears all about yours.”

That was probably true, but only to a certain extent. We were both expendable to Ossian, and unlike me, Alec didn’t seem to know that yet. And presently, I was much more valuable alive than dead. “I don’t know what you’re—”

“What did you do to Carissa? I couldn’t reach her, and when I returned, I found her passed out in the hall. That’s two Brothers you’ve assaulted!”

“I did no such thing. A snail from the kitchen apparently hitched a ride on my breakfast, and when she saw it, she freaked out. Flailed about and smacked her head against the wall. You can ask her all about it when she wakes up.”

“She won’t wake!”

“Well, stone is not known for being very soft or flexible, so it makes sense when you hit that it hits back pretty hard. Maybe instead of harassing me and my friends, you should go heal her. Or do your pretty little markings not work that way?”

Alec bared his teeth at me, his hatred and jealousy so intense I actually stumbled back a step.

Struck a nerve with that one.

“ How do they work, anyway?” I asked. I was genuinely curious, but he’d only make a damnable mistake if I continued to rile him, so I kept my voice taunting. “You’re not a witch or mage, you’re definitely not a warlock, and practitioners can only perform little magics with the aid of natural magic sources.” I tapped my chin. “Those markings are fae-like in nature . . .. Did Ossian give them to you in exchange for being his lackey?”

“I earned these,” he snarled. “And I would’ve had more had you not put that barrier around that tree!”

Alec struck.

The fae-like markings turned to bluish-green fog and rolled towards me like a storm front. It was so thick I couldn’t see what it was doing to the grass, but one didn’t attack with a fog unless it would 1) asphyxiate you, 2) burn you, or 3) play tricks on your mind. Or, if you were as spiteful as Alec, it was probably all three.

I lunged to the side, away from the hut and my friends. The fog barreled after me like a cresting wave building in anticipation of pummeling me against the shore. Lashing it half-heartedly with my vines only sent sparks arcing into the air. It was rather solid for fog. Perhaps it needed something more direct. Like a stab.

Alec sprang forward with scream, suddenly appearing with his slashing dagger. Years of sparring against my knife-wielding father had me readily redirecting Alec’s strike and landing a flame-wreathed punch to his exposed ribs. Fiery ropes tore after him, but the magic hunter flipped out of the way and cut through the air with the glowing edge of his dagger.

It wasn’t an attack meant to cut, but to summon his fog. It condensed into a storm of serrated leaves that pelted against me like hail. Even as my flames consumed them, I was knocked this way and that from the sheer force.

Or rather, I let myself get knocked around.

My eyes were slits against the assault, more out of instinct than anything else, and as I watched through the whirling leaves, the fae-like markings on Alec’s skin grew dim. One even winked out entirely.

He felt it too, looking down in shock at the top of his left pec where the mark had once been. Then he touched the one just below his collarbone—the Celtic knot.

What was that he’d said at the elm tree? If we don’t replenish, we lose—

They lose their magic! Those markings were finite magic caches, and if not recharged, they would be lost for good. No wonder they were giving Wystan sanctuary. No wonder they were magic hunters —always in the pursuit of more to make up for what they expended.

Just as I was about to dispel this annoying leafy flock, Alec tackled me. He plunged his dagger down, skewering the leather of the foraging bag strap to the frozen dirt. His hand, protected by its own shield of magic, gripped my throat as he pinned my arms to the ground beneath his knees.

“Get off me!”

“I won’t kill you, witch.” He lowered his head until our noses almost touched. “I’ll only take what you owe me.”

I could dislodge him at any time, but I had to know. I had to know how Alec stole magic, how to enable my friends to defend themselves against him and his kind.

His grip on my throat changed, and the Celtic knot on his sternum turned white.

I felt it then, a pull. A drain.

He was doing to me exactly what Ossian’s first kiss had done. What his kisses continued to do to my grandmother.

Alec was taking my magic.

The Celtic knot formed the necessary connection between us and stole it away.

Or tried to.

Inside, the magic oak tree turned molten gold. Green electricity raced up from its roots, red from its heart. Its leaves burst from its branches, spreading out and interlocking into the shape of a familiar net. Except I had control of this one.

Alec’s grip tightened, his eyebrows knitting together in confusion, his jaw clenching in determination. His bright blue eyes, which would’ve been beautiful if they weren’t reflecting such a rotten soul, looked up from the Celtic knot on his chest to my face.

They widened when he saw the tight, patronizing smile on my lips.

“Big mistake,” I whispered.