So it did—traveling straight into me.
I saw the lighting, the power, the magic, streak from Victor, up my black blade, and into my body, felt the cold burn of it in my veins, felt it gather around my own dark heart, squeezing, squeezing tight. Once again, every single part of me burned with hot, electrical pain. My legs flailed, my fingers twitched, and my teeth chattered together just like they had before. It hurt terribly—worse even than when Victor had been trying to electrocute me—but all I could do was stand there as the magic flooded into my own body.
The sharp, continuous jolts of power and pain seemed to go on forever, although they couldn’t have lasted much more than a minute. But finally, they eased up and then stopped altogether, and the white sparks went out, although I could still feel the cold chill of them in the humid night. My breath frosted in the air, as white as snow, and I felt the icy sting of power flowing through my veins, stronger than ever before. The midnight-black glow on my sword slowly lightened, then vanished altogether, until the weapon was once again its usual, dull, ash-gray color.
Victor stared at me with wide, gaping eyes. “You . . . you . . . took it all . . .” His voice failed him.
He staggered back and this time I let him, my sword sliding free of his chest. Victor wobbled on his feet for a second, then he hit the side of the bridge, fell down, and toppled over onto his side. Blood oozed down his chest and trickled onto the cobblestones, turning them a glossy, sickening scarlet. All the while, Victor kept staring at me, his golden eyes getting darker and darker, a glassy sheen slowly covering the accusation in his gaze.
And just like that, the cold light was snuffed out of his eyes and his head lolled to the side.
Dead—Victor Draconi was dead.
And I had taken all his magic for my own.
The greatest—and most terrifying—thing I’d ever stolen.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Despite the magic rippling through my body, I was exhausted. My feet slipped out from under me, and I landed on the cobblestones. I looked up, expecting to see lightning flashing overhead and for the impending storm to finally descend, but to my surprise, the rain clouds had disappeared, revealing the moon and stars. I was going to take that as a good omen.
My final battle with Victor had frozen everyone in place and startled them all into absolute silence, except for Devon, who hurried over and dropped down beside me, with Oscar buzzing around our shoulders.
“Lila! Are you okay?” Devon asked, gently cupping my face in his hand.
All I could do was nod. I didn’t even have the strength to speak right now.
Slowly, all the guards, Sinclairs and Draconis alike, crept forward. So did the Ito and Salazar guards who’d come up behind the Draconis on the opposite side of the bridge. A few whispers broke out as they realized that Victor was dead, but they quickly faded away and everyone was still and quiet again. The guards all kept staring from me to Victor and back again, shocked that I had actually done it, that I had actually killed him and ended the threat he represented to the Families and everyone in Cloudburst Falls—mortal, magick, and monster alike.
“No!” a loud, anguished voice cried out. “No! Dad! No!”
Blake sprinted forward, fell to his knees, and shook Victor’s shoulder, but of course, Victor didn’t wake up, and he never would again. Once Blake realized that his dad was really and truly dead, he scrambled to his feet and whipped around to me, hate filling his eyes.
“You! You killed him!” he snarled.
Blake raised his sword and charged at me, but once again, Deah was there to swing her blade into his and stop him from hurting me.
“That’s enough, Blake!” she snapped, pushing him away from me. “It’s over. Look around you. Don’t you see? It’s over!”
And it was.
Dead guards—Sinclairs and Draconis alike—littered the bridge like crumpled dolls. More Sinclairs were standing than Draconis now, but both sides had sustained heavy losses. Members of the Ito and Salazar Families had been killed as well, since they’d engaged the Draconi guards from behind.
Blake looked around. For a moment, I thought he would stand down, but his mouth tightened into an ugly slash, and more and more anger, hate, and disgust filled his eyes.
He glared at me. “You!” he screamed again. “This is all your fault!”
“Blake! Stop!” Deah yelled. “It’s over!”
She moved in front of her brother again, trying to stop him from attacking me, but he used his strength magic to barrel right past her. Deah hit the cobblestones hard, but she scrambled around, trying to get back up onto her feet in time to stop Blake from killing me.
But she didn’t have to because Felix was there.
Felix stepped up and slammed his sword into Blake’s, knocking him away from me. But Blake just wouldn’t give up.