me, excited by the scent of death clinging to me like a second skin. In my desperation, I even tried asking the demon if it knew what I was up against, but Zyrus was unable to help. It recognized the magic as Death Magic, but it didn’t know who had cast the spell or even why.
Shoving myself out of the chair in frustration, I paced over to the bookshelf on the far wall, but I didn’t pull anything down. What creature existed now that might be old enough to know what Death Magic was? What creature would be powerful enough to use it as well as have a vendetta against the Towers? The Dark Elves? Definitely, but that man didn’t look anything like a dark elf. His hair made him similar to the Winter Court, but that was the only similarity between them. The stranger’s features had been softer, more rounded than the Winter Court elves.
My mind kept going back to the first trip Gideon and I took to investigate the magical disturbance. The magic we had sensed there had been different. Extremely different. Something I had never encountered before. It wasn’t fey and it wasn’t shifter, despite the man’s ability to easily change forms.
Could Gideon be right in that this creature, this man, was one of the Lost Ones? They certainly had a bone to pick with the Towers, since it was believed that all of their kind had been wiped from the Earth centuries ago. There were a few species out there that were on the cusp of being categorized as Lost Ones, but the only groups who had truly earned the title were dragons and unicorns. Had I just seen one of those?
I shook my head. Couldn’t be. I wouldn’t have survived an encounter with either creature if it had been. Then again, I had barely survived the encounter as it was. Gideon had pulled my ass from the edge.
Fuck.
And what if it was one of the Lost Ones? What was I supposed to do? Kill him, officially destroying the last of his kind. That’s what I wanted to be known for! Gage, the man who slaughtered the last unicorn. Gage, the dragon slayer.
I roared with rage. Twisting around, I blasted energy through the room, shattering every glass vial, jar, and beaker in its path. Papers scattered, flying through the air.
What the fuck happened to just being a tattoo artist? When had my life gotten so damn complicated? I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands and tried to clear my thoughts, but they kept getting pulled along the timeline of my life. Was it when Simon came back, hunting me? Should I have not killed my mentor to survive, but let him kill me that night last summer? It would have gotten me out of the Towers’ hair, but it would have landed me solidly in Lilith’s hands, which couldn’t possibly be a good thing.
Was it when I faced down the Towers and saved my brother’s life? No witch or warlock likes to be shown up, and that was what I accomplished by outmaneuvering them. Or maybe things went off-balance when I solved the elves little reproduction problem?
Trixie blamed magic for all my problems and magic was involved in all those incidents. But what would have happened if I hadn’t used magic? My brother would be dead, Low Town would be a smoking crater in the earth, the elves would be going extinct because they couldn’t have babies . . . oh, and I’d be dead. Sure, magic had caused all those problems in the first place, but it had fixed it all as well. Where did you draw the line? How did you stop the cycle?
Flopping back in the chair, I stared at the mess I’d made across the room. Glass glittered in the pale light while scattered paper soaked up the liquids that were spreading across the table and onto the floor. I didn’t know the answer. It felt like I was left with only two choices. On the one hand, I could let the Towers kill me. That would stop them from bothering Trixie and our child. But, in my opinion, that was a really shitty choice.
On the other hand, I could use the magic and information that filled this room and many like it in this Tower to take down the witches and warlocks, dismantling the Towers and all their power. Removing the Towers meant removing the threat from Trixie