Connor shakes his head. “I can’t.”
Faustina points to the Looking Glass, which is still filled with blood. “I see this most of the time. But not all the time.” She touches the surface of the conjured mirror, and it turns into a swath of jungle. Long vines hang in the Looking Glass, blocking out anything else. “You know this spot?”
All the color drains from Connor’s face.
Faustina nods slowly. “So this is where it happened. I thought as much.” She hobbles to stand before Connor, and then raises her withered hand to his mouth. His lips glow with a violet light as Faustina casts a spell in a language I’ve never heard. From the other corners of the odd-shaped room, the remaining Elders join in her chanting. A violet light encircles Connor’s body, growing more intense by the second.
Once the brightness becomes almost blinding, Faustina barks out one word. “Speak!”
Connor sets wrings his hands at his waist. “I can’t. I’m weak.” With every word, the purple light around him dims. “Don’t ask me to do this.”
The magical brightness around Connor withers and fades. The other Elders cease their chanting. The chamber falls oddly silent.
“It is done.” Faustina shakes her head. “There is nothing more I can-a do.”
Connor looks up to me and Lincoln, his face streaming with tears. “You can handle this. You can help Maxon. He has Hildy now. I don’t have it in me.”
Lincoln steps closer to his father. “But you had it in you to make some bargain with a blood witch? Create a pact sealed with black magic?”
“I found Hildy!” barks Connor. “It took me years, but it’s all done now. Maxon will be fine!”
“No!” Lincoln’s voice bellows through the chamber. “Maxon’s not fine. He’s in Hell, Father.”
Connor’s face falls slack with shock. “That’s not true.”
“It happened at the Anointing,” I say, my voice breaking. “Aldred and Armageddon showed up. Aldred said he gave over the rights of Sakura to Armageddon. Magic filled the air and Armageddon took Maxon from my arms. There was nothing I could do.”
“No!” Connor rushes over to the crown. For a long moment, he stares as Lucifer’s crown hovers inside the pulsing orb of violet light.
“Father, what are you doing?”
“If you put that on-a your head,” Faustina says slowly. “It will kill you.”
“Will it loosen my tongue?” asks Connor.
“Sakura’s power is nothing compared to Lucifer,” explains Faustina. “Yes, it will work.”
Connor grabs the crown, his withered hands visibly trembling.
I share a worried look with Lincoln. This is where one of us could scream ‘stop.’ But we don’t. If Connor makes this choice to help us free Maxon, I’m taking him up on it.
“I should have done this years ago.” Connor grips the crown and sets it directly on his head. A sizzling noise fills the air along with the scent of burned flesh. A burst of purple light surrounds Connor as he screams in agony. His body visibly withers before us, turning into little more than a skeleton covered in skin. His eyes turn bulbous in their sockets.
“That’s enough.” Lincoln races toward Connor. “Father, stop!”
Faustina flicks her fingers in Lincoln’s direction, and he’s frozen mid-step. “No, you wait-a now,” she says in her thick, gravelly voice. “I tell you when he’s had enough.”
Connor crumples over with a long howl, collapsing onto his side. The crown tumbles from his head, rolling across the black marble floor. Blood spills from his mouth, nose and ears, pooling on the polished stone.
“Now, you can go,” says Faustina.
Lincoln is released from his freezing spell. He rushes to Connor’s side and kneels beside his father, as do I. Connor’s eyes are large grey orbs in a papery face. His thin, pink tongue runs over his wrinkled lips as he tries to speak. “Max…Maxon.”
“Oh, Father,” says Lincoln in a low voice. Tears roll down his cheeks and drip off his jawline. “Speak to us. Please.”
Connor’s voice comes out as barely a whisper. “Blood oath…With Aldred.” His skeletal chest heaves with every breath. “Blood witch…Sealed it.”
Lincoln gently takes his father’s withered hand within his own. “And then what happened?”
“A trade…Body and soul…Of my first born grandchild…I gave it for…” His breaths come ragged and short. “Octavia…must never know.”
Disbelief washes over Lincoln’s features. “You traded Maxon’s body and soul?”
Connor tries to speak, but he can’t seem to suck enough air into his lungs. “Octavia.”
I stare at Connor for a minute that lasts a thousand years. After all this, Connor’s last words won’t be about Maxon, but Octavia. Part of me feels touched that his final thoughts are of his beloved wife. Another part is freaking enraged that he cares more about her than anything else.
Connor’s eyes flutter closed. “Octavia.” His chest stops heaving.