“I paid a visit to my sister,” I said, with as little hesitation as I could manage. Ernesta was the only thing that I knew about Magnus’s life in any kind of depth.

“I see,” Lilith said.

“I didn’t stay with her long. I’ve never gotten on well with my sister. I spent time in The Cove after that.”

“Why The Cove?”

Good question… I couldn’t imagine any vampire in his right mind wanting to spend any amount of time in that insane place. I wasn’t sure where a vampire could physically live in that place in any case…

“I met a girl… a mermaid.” I was fully aware that I had just made my story even more bizarre, but I had already dug myself into a hole. I wasn’t about to stop digging. “I managed to find a dark cave to stay in, away from the sun.”

“Oh,” she said. A flicker of pain played across her face.

I was surprised by how easily she accepted the explanation. I wasn’t sure how a vampire could even have a relationship with one of those creatures, even if he could bring himself to look past her black teeth and slimy appearance. Lilith seemed to be too affected by the idea of Magnus being with another woman to think much into my story.

I supposed that was good. We needed to break her heart. I still didn’t know how Mona planned to do it, but I figured that making Lilith feel jealous and planting the seed that Magnus had been with other women since her could only help.

“I didn’t stay long in The Cove either,” I continued. “I soon realized we weren’t very… compatible.”

“And then what happened to you?”

“I met another witch. I was in a relationship with her up until Rhys came for me. After that… I remember nothing.”

She breathed out deeply, raising my hand against her lips and planting a kiss against it. “I’m glad that you managed to find someone else, Magnus,” she said. “I was living in guilt that I might have cut you too deep to heal.”

“Yes, I was very much in love with her,” I said.

She swallowed hard, but nodded. She even managed a smile. “Good. That makes me happy.”

I gazed into her eyes, surprised at how she was responding. It seemed that she really did care for Magnus. She wanted him to be happy.

She averted her eyes away from mine. “We need to part soon, Magnus. And I will probably never see you again. I hope you’ll move on again with your life, as you were able to before. I just… I wanted to see you again before I passed away.”

“Passed away?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“Yes,” she replied. “I told you already that I shouldn’t have lived this long. My time is coming soon. I’ve been granted this last burst of youth, but after this, I’ll no longer be able to fight death’s clutches.”

I found it interesting that she deliberately left out the fact that she was about to perform a blood ritual. Perhaps she didn’t want Magnus to know about the evil she was about to engage in.

“I promise that I will look for the witch I fell in love with and continue our relationship, if she’ll still have me.”

She smiled again, and then I sensed that she was about to lean in for another kiss. I was saved by a splash from the pool at the other side of the chamber.

Relief was the first emotion to rush through me, but then I was consumed by alarm. My first thought was that it was Mona. But I should have known that it wouldn’t be her. She never would have been so careless as to draw Lilith’s attention.

No, emerging from the pool was none other than Rhys Volkin.

Chapter 26: Mona

Leaving the river, I transported myself back to the graveyard. Approaching Lilith’s grave, I was shocked to see that nobody was surrounding it. I’d told everyone specifically to wait here.

What’s going on?

It was then that my attention was drawn to shouting in the distance. My eyes shot toward the borders of the graveyard. It was teeming with crowds of witches and warlocks. Bright curses lit up the sky, hurtling in all directions.

The graveyard was under siege.

And that could only mean one thing: Rhys had returned with reinforcements and the black witches had managed to penetrate The Sanctuary’s boundary.

Of course, the black witches were weaker outside of their own territory. They were completely outnumbered and wouldn’t be able to do much damage, but it would only take one of them to slip through the defenses…

“Mona!” I turned around to see Aiden approaching me, worry written on his face. His words confirmed my fears. “Rhys has returned with more witches. They managed to break through the boundary. The white witches are doing a decent job of heading them off, but we have lost sight of Rhys himself.”

“When was the last time you saw him?” I asked, my fists clenching.

“About five minutes ago. We’ve been looking for him ever since among the crowds, but none of us have spotted him since. We fear that he might be—”

I didn’t wait to hear the rest of his sentence. I leapt into Lilith’s open grave and dropped through the hole in the base of her casket. I submerged myself in the liquid and let it drag me downward. I was so panicked that I had not thought to put the breathing and invisibility spells over myself before leaping in, so I cast them now before I reached the base of the pool.

Please, Kiev. Please be all right.

Reaching the water, I pushed myself up slowly, careful to cause as few ripples as possible in case someone was watching the pool. I poked my head above the liquid and looked around the room, my pulse racing.