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Chapter 83

Nora

Nora had wondered, in her worse moments, what her life would look like without the heirship. But she had never taken much time to think about the moment of loss. The second where her magic would be drained out of her if another hand closed over the handle of the ax before hers…

But the moment her legs dropped out from under her, she knew that was what was happening. Her magic spinning out like a spool of thread on a line, reeled out by a force too strong for her.

It shouldn’t be happening. The final trial hadn’t begun yet. No one was in the woods.

Except for the Grims.

They had claimed to want a way into the woods to tap into the magic in the earth the way Leyla did. To draw from the bottomless well of magic. Nora had told herself this wouldn’t matter. They could have all the wealth they wanted; it wouldn’t take any away from the Holtzfalls.

She had never even thought that they might head for the ax. For their vast fortune tied to Honor Holtzfall’s relic. Waiting in the woods.

Enough magic to rule over an entire city.

Shots went off, striking person after person, Holtzfall after Holtzfall turning from flesh and blood into solid marble. Eons’ worth of Holtzfall magic ripped away, turned against them.

All the better to kill them with.

Nora pulled herself to her feet as Modesty staggered next to her. There were already Grims closing in. A man in the white shirt and black tails of a waiter fired a charm, the spell hitting Aunt Patience, turning her to stone in an instant. Her face froze in shock, arms raised to shield herself even as a scream ripped out of Modesty’s throat.

Nora found herself casting around for Lotte. For Aunt Grace. Instead, she found her grandmother. The rising sun glinted off the wolf mask of the figure closing in on her. For the first time, Nora thought her grandmother looked her age. The Grim pointed at Mercy Holtzfall like an accusation. And in the light of the rising sun, Nora could only watch as her grandmother, the most powerful woman in the city, turned to stone.

There was nowhere to run. The Grims encircled Modesty and Nora, the morning light bouncing off their metallic masks.

Nora stood up straight. If she was about to be turned to stone, she’d at least like to make an elegant statue. She wasn’t going to be frozen forever running like a coward.

And then she saw him, moving through the press of Grims like a general among his troops.

“Alaric.” Nora’s voice sounded preternaturally calm, even to her own ears. He looked the same as he had appeared in Lis’s memory.

He had never been a prisoner of the Grims.

That was clear now.

“Where’s Isengrim?” She cast her gaze around the garden. “Is your wolf too much of a lamb to come lead his troops himself?”

“Nora.” Alaric’s smile was patronizing. “You’re a bit too old to believe in the big bad wolf.”

The big bad wolf. A made-up figure to keep little children in line. To scare them away from the woods, where there roamed far worse things than wolves.

Isengrim wasn’t real either.

Of course he wasn’t. He was a figurehead so perfect there would be no choice but to follow him. A big bad wolf to scare the woodcutter’s descendants. It could be any man with a mask. He could be anyone. Impossible to arrest. Or kill. Or defeat. Because he was an idea.

Unlike the Holtzfalls, whose faces were splashed everywhere. Who could be rounded up and destroyed.

Alaric smiled again. The kind of smile he used to grant Nora when her mother was being demanding or when she was dragging her feet on the way to some Heiress lesson with her grandmother.

She wanted to rip it off his face.

“Following an idea instead of a person,” Nora scoffed. “That’s always ended well.”

“You won’t be around to find out.” He raised a weapon.

In a moment, she would be stone.

And in spite of herself, she winced.

But it didn’t strike her.

It struck an invisible shield, bouncing off and hitting one of the Grims, turning him to stone.

For a moment, it felt like an immortal being had reached out of the woods and slapped away the killing blow. That she had been saved like the worthy girls in stories from centuries ago.

And then Lotte stepped in front of her.

Her dress, which had been white silk once, was smeared with ash.

And blood.

The same blood coated a shielding charm in the shape of a golden hairpin, topped with a tiny pearl swan. Nora recognized it as belonging to Aunt Grace.

She shouldn’t be eligible , Clemency had whined at the unfairness of it all. We all had to wager our magic. She should too!

Nora had never been more grateful for anything in her life than she was that Lotte hadn’t been at breakfast the morning of the Veritaz.

Who even is she? Clemency had demanded.

She was a Holtzfall.

The only Holtzfall in all of Walstad with any magic.