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The first time she’d bested Axel in a spar, and her sister had cheered in admiration for her cunning instead of getting angry at being bested shattered. A vision of burning buildings, the sharp stench of flesh in those flames assaulting her, took its place.

No!

She tried to hold on helplessly to a vision of Louisa singing karaoke on a bar’s table top.

Rowan herself had been taking part in a brawl that had broken out on the dance floor, singing along with her best friend.

But it slipped from her fingers, replaced by a memory of someone being held face down in the water of a pristine marble fountain.

A slice of air magic shredding the skin of the assaulter.

Rowan’s fear hit a plateau at the sight of the spell work.

This was her bread and butter.

Curses, at the base of their being, were just bundles of magic.

Though there were no scrolls on how to cleanse curses, there were plenty concentrating on what they were.

The laughter was back again, wrapping around her, dropping bundles of energy as Rowan pushed the darkness away from her arms, legs, and soul.

The divine energy the ghost was leaving at her disposal was the hint she had needed.

She could now see what she couldn’t believe had always lived within her.

Her own brand of divine magic, eager to be used.

It was much smaller than the pools of her demonic and elven inheritance, but it certainly wasn’t anything to scoff at.

At their core, curses were nothing more than parasitic dark magic, and now that she knew she had the opposing force under her control, she could neutralize it.

Recalling Alessandro’s instructions of returning to basics, and the notes from the Elder’s grimoire, she pulled the energy from the ley line overhead, filtering it through every single gate at once.

She pushed out a spell of healing, interweaving her divinity as she overtook the particles of darkness.

They receded as Rowan claimed every single atom as hers.

The world became visible, and she focused her attention on imbuing the memories it tried to take from her with power. They worked as a restraint when the curse energy bucked in rebellion and tried to spill out to find purchase on any of the onlookers around her.

The moment the last bit became neutralized, heat surged through the weapon. The power woven through the grain of the wood was overwhelming. It needed a wielder. It wasn’t an everyday object. Created with a purpose, it needed somewhere to point its power, or it would fall into darkness again.

“ Mine .” The words held power and the splinters and nicks on the staff began repairing themselves, leaving nothing behind but words of an unfamiliar language.

It was over.

Her eyes sought him out. Alessandro stood with his arms crossed over his chest so tightly that he was digging his claws into his forearms, trying to keep from reaching out to her.

She gave the barest hint of a smile before the ghost touched down beside her. The being had its attention turned to Lucifer, a small smile on the beautiful, haunting face before it burst into millions of fragments of light.

Rowan’s hands shook and her eyes burned as she took in what she had just accomplished.

Behind her, a sound of pain made her back straighten. Shock was clear in Alessandro’s golden eyes as they locked on the source.

Lucifer let out a soft curse and Rowan slowly turned to take in the rebuilt body of Antoni Barros. Bruised, unconscious and lightly bleeding, but totally whole once more.

The murmurs of the audience they’d had to the first ever successful cleansing made Rowan’s eyes snap back up. She slid Whisper into the scabbard on her back, and after checking where Kin, Louisa and Axel were, she sent her mate a silent nod before phasing out.

Chapter 33

The first time Lucifer overrode one of Rowan’s spells, Rowan had been so discombobulated that she threw up.

It had happened during the only training session he’d agreed to give her.

Until then, Rowan had been perfectly unaware of the reason Lucifer was so feared in the depths of the endless hells that other underworld denizens gave his territory a wide berth.

In Lucifer’s mind, there were only two modes of combat.

On or off. It didn’t matter that it was supposed to be just training.

It didn’t matter that Rowan was only ten years old and barely had control of her magic.

Lucifer saw the threat of a dagger finding its way to the white plumage of his wings and he reversed the spell.

It had only missed because Lilith had been on the sidelines of the open field behind their imposing black castle. She knew her husband. Had warned Rowan and Lucifer both that a spar was a bad idea. But Rowan insisted it was the only birthday gift she was interested in.

Lilith phased Rowan out of harm’s way and into her arms before she began a mad dash toward the safety of the castle.

Over the mother of all succubi’s shoulders, Rowan had watched as her godfather, who had always been happy to play dolls and tea party with her anytime she asked, combusted into a cloud of darkness that billowed out over his lands. Darkness that contained screams and smelled sharply of blood.

Her image of the soft man turned upside down, she hurled her lunch.

It was the first time she knew true fear.

Now, sixteen years later, the feeling of his magic curling around hers and tugging her in the middle of a phase sent her heart rate skyrocketing.

Instead of the grassy Eastern Elven Kingdom grounds, Rowan landed on an abandoned, moonlit, white-sand beach.

It was abnormal. Even with the sound of the lapping waves hitting the sand, she could tell not all was as it seemed. She tuned in her senses, concentrating on figuring out why everything felt so off.

Then she saw it. A colossal oddity of a weeping willow intertwined with the branches and leaves of an oak tree. She shot into the sky, her breath catching. It was the same as it had been in her vision.

It was a tiny island. Behind the beach, ten acres jam-packed with thousands of species of flora flourished. Each limited to one specimen of each.

There wasn’t a sign of a single animal. Not even an insect.

The magic of the island was just as strange. Sluggish and stale against her skin, it felt nothing like the effervescent magic she was used to. They were still on the world she called home. She could feel the familiar ley lines that attracted so many mystics to this realm set over her head.

Her eyebrows furrowed as she realized she hadn’t felt them on the sand.

She glanced down at the beach, only to realize the island was moving. The difference was so small she would have missed it if she hadn’t been concentrating on taking in every nuance of the place.

Her jaw clenched, and she touched back down next to her godfather, whose eyes locked on what she’d mistakenly assumed was a mound of sand. As the moonlight shifted like a spotlight, the white plumage of the stained wings became clear.

Rowan blinked between the wings to her godfather. “Those aren’t yours, are they?”

His wings popped into existence behind him.

Unsure of what was happening, Rowan waited for him to talk, but he remained silent.

“What are we doing here, Uncle Luz?” She broke after only a few minutes of unbearable silence. She could see the place affected him. Tension lined his shoulders, and his hands and jaw were clenched.

“Uzziel.”

It was the name he’d called when he’d seen the spectre. Rowan eyed her godfather uneasily. Had his voice broken uttering it?

“You knew who that was?”

“Bring forth the staff.”

She’d never known him to be so short. Concerned by the sound of his heartbeat pounding in his chest, Rowan held her hand out, conjured the wooden weapon, and handed it over.

She still couldn’t believe the lack of curses on the thing. As if it had never been part of ending hundreds of lives.

He held it horizontally as he ran a finger over the marks. “These etchings are the names of all the archangels that existed when our creator gifted her the staff.” He said as he brought it up to her eye level, pointing at one full of curves and sharp points. “This one is hers, right next to mine.”

Rowan’s eyes slid to the wings. “Those are hers, aren’t they?”

“Yes. This island was her cage once. In escaping it, she used this staff to mutilate herself.”

Rowan’s own wings quivered. They were so sensitive she couldn’t imagine the pain Uzziel must have endured.

“I thought that was her end. But when you cleansed the witch, I realized she’d found her way into you.”

Rowan’s fingers settled over her heart where she felt a hole from where the foreign magic had existed for so long that it felt strange now that it was missing. When had the archangel settled there?

“What happened to her?”

He told her everything.

From her contrasting friendships with Michael and himself. To the similarities between Rowan and the angel. To the guilt he’d carried for centuries for not coming to her aid when she most needed him. He was only alive because of her interference. A choice that cost her freedom.

“How did the staff do this?” She whispered, crouched over the cuts of the wings that were building a morbid fascination within her.

“The staff can take any shape.” He held the weapon for her to hold. “But only for its true wielder. You claimed it. It’s now yours.”

Rowan furrowed her eyebrows as she took it. She didn’t have the first idea of what to do. Using the methods she used for her magic, she tried to imagine it changing shapes. She then tried filtering a bit of the reluctant magic into it, but it stayed in its initial shape.

“Blood?” She asked, turning to Lucifer, who’d remained silent.

His smile was sad. “No. Rowan, all you have to do is ask.”

Rowan lowered the weapon so she could wipe the tears that trailed down his face.

“I’m sorry you lost her.”

It was like breaking a dam.