he set it gently at the center of the spiral. “Bis!” I called, terrified, and with sorrowful eyes, he pulled the glowing ball to his chest, and . . . touched the glowing spiral.
“No!” I cried out as he collapsed to the floor. Then I ducked, gasping as I hid my eyes from the blinding burst of light and sound that raced the spiral and vanished.
Now it is done, I thought I heard smugly in my mind.
“No,” I whispered as I rose from my crouch and shook off Trent’s grip. The bottle spinning at the center slowed and went still. My globe was gone. The spiral held no power. Bis lay beside it, wings outstretched, one hand touching the defunct glyph. As I watched, Bis shivered and was still.
God. No.
“Bis!” I ran to him, darting around the grasping agents. Shocked, I fell to my knees and picked up his bird-light body. He was gone. His soul was gone. He was breathing, but when I opened my second sight, there was no aura. He was gone!
My eyes went to the bottle glowing faintly at the center. Not Bis. Not Bis!
I turned to Weast, my chest hot with anger as he stepped forward to take the bottle.
“Where’s the baku?” someone said, and I stood with Bis in my arms, driving Weast back with my look alone. What has Bis done? Why?
“Isn’t it in Kalamack?” someone else asked.
Bis was taking his last breath, and I held him tight. “I’m here,” I said, though there was nothing left to hear me. “I’m with you, here at the end. You’re not alone,” I said, having done the same thing with my dad. And yet he took another breath, his skin lightening to a pearly white.
“I’m not the baku,” I heard Trent say coldly. “Seriously. Did you not see what happened?”
Weast pushed Trent’s head up to look him in the eye. “I can’t tell,” he said.
Trent shoved him off. “I’m not the baku!” he shouted. “It was in the bubble, and Bis . . .” His words faltered, and my eyes welled up. “Rachel. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s in the bottle,” I whispered, voice low so it wouldn’t break. “It’s in there with Bis.”
Weast started for the spiral. I lurched into motion, scooping up the bottle and holding it close, pressing it between me and Bis. “This is mine,” I warned him, pulling on the ley line until my hair began to float. “You want a war with me, Weast? This is the way to do it. This is mine!”
“Ah,” Weast said, eyes on the bottle, and fury cascaded through me.
“This is mine!” I shouted, and the agents putting out the last of the fire looked at us. “I’ve had it with all of you! If you’re not going to listen to me, fine. But stay the hell out of my city!” I faced Trent, my vision suddenly swimming. “I . . . I have to go.” Shaking, I started for the door. Trent’s arm slipped around my waist, and I blinked fast, the tears coming whether I wanted them or not.
“Sir?” someone asked, and I stiffened when someone in anticharm gear stepped to block me.
“Let her go,” Weast said. “Don’t forget Landon. Someone call the dewar.”
I didn’t care, but the man before me moved with a relieved sigh. Above me, high on the steeple, I could hear gargoyles crying in the rising smoke, their laments echoing like thunder between the hills cradling Cincinnati. It was Bis’s family: his father, his mother, his siblings, and a stoic girl gargoyle who had once hoped to share her life with him before he had bonded to me. Somehow they knew that the breaker of the worlds had saved his sword and left us. Left us all.
“Rachel?” Trent whispered, and I shook my head, leaning on him as we walked through the open door and down the steps. Though he still breathed, Bis was dead. He had done it to save me. I couldn’t live with that.
But I had to.
CHAPTER
35
“Er, can I get you something else?” Mark said from behind the counter. “We’re technically closed for Thanksgiving, but I won’t tell if you don’t.”
Closed. That was how I felt in a word. I took a shuddering breath, not trusting myself to say anything as I sat at the back table in Junior’s, numb. One of my hands was on the table, wrapped around a long-cold untouched coffee. My other was cradled about Bis on my lap. He was still breathing,