“Congratulations, Pyra the Conqueror,” I snapped, “but why go through all of this trouble now? If you have everything you dreamed of, why not just have Henry kill us from the start?”
“Because, human,” Pyra said, stopping in front of my face. Her tongue darted out, licking the tip of my nose. “I had to wait for my brother to regain as much of his power as he could, otherwise there’d be no point in stealing it.”
“The magic in the human realm is fading with each year. The fiends require a new, purer source of power, and she intends to unlock the gate to the realm of Ancients to get it,” Henry said like a proud father would. “She required the sacrifice of all her brothers’ lives and magic to form the necessary key.”
I tried to right myself, but the ogre swung me around, still upside down.
“What are you talking about?” poor Prue asked. “What realm?”
“That’s not what you said,” Nell interrupted, “you said…You promised that she was just going to use the power to help the fiends Downstairs, to encourage them not to escape into our world!”
“Perhaps you should have asked to read his actual contract, witch,” Pyra said. “Now get on with it. The full spell should be in that book, yes?”
“Did you send me that notebook?” Prue interrupted. Clearly she was adapting to the situation a lot quicker than I had. She hadn’t even blinked at the talking panther. “You tricked me into coming here—why?”
“I did no such thing. My brother played a trick on you, likely thinking he could convince the human he resides in to form a contract with him—one last attempt to save himself, I’m sure. And now I can use it to my own advantage,” Pyra said. “To strike pure fear in your own brother’s heart, should he disobey me. Come out, dear friend, for you truly deserve the credit. Take a bow for this magnificent performance.”
I saw the horn first as the hob leaned around one of the mirrors surrounding us. He had been tucked just out of sight, and now that he had shown himself, he was almost unrecognizable. His skin was clean, his claws filed, and his one horn polished. Nightlock wore gold silk robes that shimmered as he came toward the candlelight.
“You!” Alastor’s voice ripped out of my throat. “You dare betray—”
“My lord and master?” Nightlock said. All of a sudden his voice was clear and almost refined. “My only lord and master is Her Majesty, Pyra the Conqueror. She bade me to watch your movements in this realm and report back, oh yes. How easy you were to fool, how quickly you assumed I was feebleminded. And yet you did not suspect that I told Her Majesty to send the howlers to keep you in check, to keep you from running away long enough to escape the boy. I removed each obstacle to her journey here, including the changelings.”
No—what did that mean? What had happened to Toad?
Nell made a noise of distress, looking up from the grimoire again. I swung my loose foot at the ogre to dislodge myself, but it was like kicking a cement wall.
“You knew about Nightlock all along?” I turned back to Henry. Even Nell looked shocked by this turn of events.
“Of course,” Henry said. “He removed his glamour for me months ago, during our preparations. Nightlock was meant to watch the two of you when I could not. To keep you close to the house. Everything was meant to frighten you into behaving—into believing the only way to stay alive was to stay with me.”
“Imbecile!” Alastor wailed. “Filthy traitor! I’ll have your horn for this!”
“Oh no,” the hob said with a crooked little smile. “I think not.”
“You may return now, Nightlock,” Pyra said. “You have earned your place at the palace again.”
The ogres let him pass. The hob didn’t even look back as he stepped through the mirror and disappeared completely.
—
Okay, Al, what do we do?
I don’t know—I just need a moment to think, to gather…to gather my thoughts!
We didn’t have time for that. My head was pounding and it was hard to piece together thoughts when I felt so disoriented. The candlelight blurred. I blinked to clear my eyes.
Pyra lifted a paw, batting at my upside-down face. Toying with me.
“This spell,” Nell continued, “what really happens during it? Is it even true that Alastor will be transferred to another living creature?”
“Not quite,” Henry said. “It will remove Alastor’s powers and bind him to Prosper forever. Remember what I told you, Cornelia—that our lives depend on this now too.”
“But you said that all three of your brothers’ magic and lives were needed…” Nell began, the candlelight reflecting in her glasses.
“Clever witch,” Pyra said, turning back toward her. “Indeed it does. But since you’ve been so loyal, so very good to me, I will endeavor to make his suffering short. I take this claw and I gut him from here”—the panther pointed to my stomach, then my chin—“to here.”
“Try it!” Prue snapped. “I’ll turn you into a rug!”
“By the realms, that’s terrifying,” Pyra said, giving me—or rather Al—a wink. “Siblings who like each other. Can you imagine the horror of it all?”
The other ogre stomped forward, creating a wall between her and me. When Prue tried to dodge around his thick, hairy legs, the ogre caught her by the hair and held her. Prue yelped in pain.
I struggled against the ogre again. The fiend shook me out like a rug, but finally dropped me headfirst on the tile. I saw stars. A burst of black, black stars.
“Finish it, Cornelia,” Henry said. “Now.”
“My name,” she said between gritted teeth. “Is Nell. Prosper—catch!”
My brain caught up two seconds too late to keep from catching the heavy book she threw at me. The second it touched my hands, the second it sensed that a fiend had it in its grasp, Tabitha Bishop’s grimoire burst into flames and began to devour itself.
“NO!” Pyra shrieked, leaping toward it.
The book exploded into ash between my fingers.
“What did you do?” Henry roared at Nell. He raised a hand toward her, but Nell was faster. She threw him across the room, cracking against the opposite wall. Even Pyra was thrown back by the force of the windstorm that was building around Nell, whipping up the ash and smoke into a tornado around her.
“Those who trespass in our land,” Nell was chanting, “now be blocked by my hand.”
The ogres began to groan, stumbling around. They clutched at their heads and knocked into one another. Instead of the floor opening like it had for the howlers, however, the mirror reached out with silver hands and grabbed them. They were squeezed back through the frame, one at a time, disappearing back into the black.
“Stop!” Henry begged. “Stop this! We must finish the contract! We have to see it through, or we’ll lose everything! I staked your life on this contract, as well as mine!”
I scrambled back onto my feet. The air around Pyra wavered, smoke rising off her body. Then it wasn’t just smoke—there was fire racing out under her claws, heading straight for Nell. I shoved her to the ground, knocking her out of the way. I hit the tile hard enough to rattle my brain.