Author: Kalayna Price

I shook my head, my hair pulling with the movement.

“I won’t. Even if I could.” I’d die first.

“Oh, you can,” he said. Dark light reflected in his pupils, and his mouth twisted into a cruel smile. Nothing sane looked out at me from those eyes. He leaned closer.

“You can. And you will.”

Coleman released my hair, shoving me back to the ground. Then he held up a hand and ripped a hole in space. A gray-cloaked shadow stepped through the opening. “Don’t let her interfere,” he told the cloaked figure.

“It’s her,” Roy whispered.

I looked up as the specter of a woman approached.

She held up a dull hand, and I could feel the static of magic crackling around her skin. I swallowed. The Shadow Girl.

“Teddy, what’s going on?” Casey jerked against her restraints. “Let me up. Let me go.”

Coleman ignored her. He pulled a curved blade from a bag beside the bed. No! I struggled to my feet. The Shadow Girl stepped forward. She pressed two fingers against my forehead, and pain laced through my body.

My muscles turned to jelly. I collapsed. The air rushed out of me. Drawing in more air was hard, requiring more strength than I possessed.

Coleman looked up. “It’s time. Open the gate.”

The Shadow Girl nodded. She lifted her hands, and magic leaked over my skin, wrapped around me. Sinister strings slithered across my throat, my chest, threatening to crush me. I couldn’t imagine anyone channeling so much magic, but it poured out of her, through her.

Darkness crawled over the ceiling above us. Then the darkness split like a rift. The night sky appeared. The moon, full and closer than I’d ever seen, hung directly over the room. The shadow of the eclipse bled over one side. The Blood Moon.

But it was more than that. I was looking at stars I’d never seen. At a sky close enough to reach. The sky of Faerie.

Coleman returned to the edge of the bed. He chanted, lifting the wickedly curved knife, and Casey screamed. I squeezed my eyes closed and pushed up to my hands and knees. The Shadow Girl surged forward. I rolled, trying to get out of reach. It didn’t work. Her hand still caught me, and pain ripped through my body.

I found myself panting into the carpet. Warm moisture dripped onto my hand. I blinked at it.

Water? No. Tears.

The Shadow Girl was crying silent tears. A ghost girl of blood is worth treasure in silver chains, and if she is a fool, by commands she’ll know my pains. Her verse wasn’t a threat. It was both warning and explanation.

She was a slave.

Casey screamed. Blood trickled down her ribs. I had to do something, and I had to do it now.

“Help me,” I whispered.

The Shadow Girl’s cloaked head dropped. Her hand lifted. Magic sparked around her fingers. The message was clear. She couldn’t help me. Whatever was left of her, of whom she’d been once, was buried, and she couldn’t disobey Coleman. Which meant, slave or not, as long as she was between me and Casey, she was my enemy.

I opened my senses. The dark magic in the air clawed at me, trying to worm into my mind. I ignored it. Let it do its worst. I could fight only so many battles. I would either win or die in this circle.

I was out of magic, cut off from the source, but I reached with my senses. There had to be something I could use trapped in the circle with me. I opened my shields. There was grave essence in the air. Bodies. Bodies hidden from sight by glamour, but I could feel them.

I let the power sweep into me. Let it fill me with the chill. My vision changed. The world decayed, magic became a physical substance swirling in the air around me, and the glamour vanished. The dead bodies that had been invisible snapped into focus. Rodger I knew, but the other two I’d seen only from a distance. Father’s guards.

I didn’t have time to focus on those already dead.

My gaze snapped to Coleman. Without the glamour, his body was Graham again. Lines of glyphs covered the stolen skin. He turned, a smile cutting his face.

“Yes, Alex Craft,” he said, his manic eyes glittering.

“Yes, grab your power. Merge realities. I will transcend all planes. They will be mine to rule.”

Chapter 28

Shit.

I tried to cut off the flow of grave essence, but the chill continued to pour into me. No!

“Cross the planes, Alex. Merge realities.”

Coleman’s command crashed through my mind, vibrated through my body.A cold wind raked through me, the grave drawing itself into my being. I couldn’t stop it, couldn’t control it. The power clawed into me, and I screamed, squeezing my eyes closed.

“Alex?”

Roy. My power reached to him. He was dead, a ghost, a familiar aspect, and I had too much grave essence. Way too much.

He backed up as if he could sense the reaching power, but it wrapped around him anyway. I siphoned chill into him, made him a repository for power I had no ability to stop drawing.

The Shadow Girl’s head snapped up, her attention torn between the now-visible ghost and me. Roy looked down at himself. He lifted his hand—a hand that wasn’t translucent—and a grin crawled over his face. He hurled himself at the Shadow Girl.They went down in a tumble of limbs.

I didn’t have time to watch. I needed something else to do with the power surging through me. I reached out, searching. Shades rose from the three bodies on the ground.

Still the power burned.

“Freeze, Coleman,” a voice shouted as a door banged open.

Falin? I turned. In my grave-sight, he shone, his silver soul glowing below his skin. He limped as he entered, but his gun was drawn. He’s alive. Relief surged over me, made me feel lighter, as though a space inside me that had crumpled had opened again. That new space was quickly overwhelmed by waves of power with nowhere to go.

A bang crashed through the air, and I ducked, throwing my hands over my ears. The bullet, having no magical properties, passed through the circle. Coleman jerked.

Blood blossomed across Coleman’s chest as he fell.

He hit the ground. Falin dragged himself toward the edge of the circle. The Shadow Girl broke away from Roy. She ran toward the edge of the circle as if anticipating it would collapse. It didn’t. She stopped, turned, and we all stared at the corner of the bed.

Was it over? Was that it?

Coleman’s laugh crawled over the carpet. He pushed himself off the floor. Blood no longer spurted from the hole in his chest.

How … ? His heart wasn’t beating. He’s dead.

Being dead didn’t stop him.

He glared at Falin.“The Winter Queen’s lover and assassin? She always did oppose me.”A dark smirk spread over his face. “I’ll bring your mistress to heel once I’m King.”

The Winter Queen’s lover? I glanced at Falin, but he didn’t look at me. Wouldn’t look at me. His face was hard, not denying Coleman’s claim.

I squeezed my eyes shut. The cold tore into me as if I were an open wound filled with ice. I embraced it, wishing the chill would numb me. It didn’t. It just built. And built. More power than I could contain.

I needed release.

Falin leveled his gun. Three more shots sounded.

Coleman stumbled, but he only laughed.

“Go ahead and destroy this body, assassin. In a few minutes, I will have a body of energy, of power.” Coleman turned to me. “Alex, merge this world with the Aetheric.”

Power hemorrhaged from my body. I screamed, and the sound ignited into sharp sparks of color. Swirls of spells became tangible. A blue thread of raw magic appeared, then a green, then a purple. Oh crap. The Aetheric plane.

Coleman reached a hand toward a raw string of magic and drew it inside his body. “Magnificent.” The black wisps of magic swirled closer to him, seeping below his skin.

He’s high on power.

But he wasn’t done. Casey still struggled under him.

Her soul, a pale blue glow, already had several dark spots expanding over it. I had to do something. I had to stop him. The moon overhead was more red than not.

Time was running out.

Magic poured through me, still seeking an outlet.

Coleman’s body is dead. I reached out, guiding the power. In my grave-sight, the body was already decaying, but my power slid over the spells on his skin, not touching. Dammit.

“Alex, I think now might be the time to do something,” Roy whispered.

“I’d never have guessed.” I climbed to my feet.

The Shadow Girl turned to me again. She rushed forward, her hand lifting. Magic gathered around her fingers.

Inside Coleman’s circle the Aetheric was part of reality, and I drew power, gathering blue swirls from the air. I’d never held both grave magic and Aetheric energy inside my body at once. The raw energy burned, its heat fighting the chill of the grave for dominance. It felt like blistering steam replacing my blood. My skin glowed, and the Shadow Girl hesitated. Without any elegance, just a hell of a lot of pissed-off will, I released the power.

It burst from my body and crashed into the Shadow Girl. It caught her in the torso, lifting her off her feet.

She flew backward, and I sagged from the rush of power moving through me. She landed a yard from the bed.

Her hood fell back, revealing lank red curls, sunken and bruised green eyes.

Rianna.

No. It can’t be.

My old roommate stared at me.Tears wet her cheeks, but she held up her hand. Power gathered around her fingers. Roy jumped forward. Whatever spell she’d prepared fizzled, sliding off the ghost. I tensed as his fist hit her in the jaw. She’s not my best friend right now, I reminded myself.

She was Coleman’s Shadow Girl.

I looked away. I’d expended a hell of a lot of power with that blast, but the grave essence kept pouring into me. I have to stop it. The only way to stop it was to stop Coleman.

Falin banged on the barrier, his cell phone gripped in his hand. “Alex, how do I get inside?”

“You don’t.” If the circle failed, I didn’t know what would happen.Would realities continue to merge throughout the city? The country? The world?

Grave essence seeped into my body. It had to go somewhere. I reached out, searching for a vessel, something I could siphon off the power into. I couldn’t touch Coleman. I’d already raised the shades in the bodies. I could feel Casey’s soul struggling against the spell, but I forced the power away from her. I needed something else, some other source.