she didn’t expect them to turn on her. So she was unprepared for all six of them to use dark magic on her at once. The type of dark magic that kills—the type you saw us use here today.” She glanced at the dead mages nearby. “She probably could have defended herself with the Holy Wand—if she’d been ready. Then her soulmate—Julian—was so torn up that he also attacked the Supreme Mages. They took care of him real quickly.”
Chills ran up and down my spine at how calmly she was telling us this.
“And the Holy Wand?” Ethan asked.
“It’s gone.” Torrence shrugged. “Selena stored it in the ether in the final second.”
Ethan’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, right—you’d have no way of knowing about that. You know that Selena and Julian were gifted with magic from the gods,” she said, and I nodded. “Selena received lightning and storm magic from Jupiter, the king of the gods. Julian received fighting magic from the god of war, Mars. One of Julian’s abilities was that he could pull any weapon he wanted from the ether—an invisible space between worlds. Selena was able to amplify that ability with the Holy Wand and cast a spell that allows a person to store a weapon they chose in the ether.” She reached into the air and pulled a sword out of nowhere. Her eyes glinted with excitement. “Cool, right?”
“Very cool.” I nodded, not wanting to say anything that might provoke her to use that sword on me. Or on Mira and Ethan.
Luckily, Torrence pushed the sword back into that same invisible place in the air, like the ether was an invisible locker that was always by her side.
“I tried to use it to attack Circe a few times,” she said. “It never worked. She let me keep it—probably because she didn’t think I could hurt her with it.”
“So the Holy Wand is locked in the ether, and the only person who can remove it—Selena—is dead,” Ethan said, as if trying to get it all straight. Torrence nodded, and he continued, “Is there any other way to retrieve the Wand?”
“Not that I know of,” Torrence said. “And good riddance to that. You should have seen Selena with that thing. No one should ever have that much power.”
Was it just me, or did she sound jealous?
“The Supreme Mages followed through on their sentence and threw you into Ember.” Ethan remained calm as he spoke—like he was also trying not to set Torrence off. Then he looked to Reed. “Why are you here?”
“I’m not dark, if that’s what you’re asking,” Reed said. “But I love her.”
Torrence flinched, but her expression remained stone cold.
“I couldn’t let her come here alone,” Reed continued. “So I attacked the Supreme Mages. But I’m the firstborn son of a highborn mage, so they wouldn’t dare kill me. Instead, they sentenced me to Ember. Just like I wanted them to."
“I told him not to do it,” Torrence said. “He didn’t listen.”
“Damn right I didn’t listen.”
From the fierce, determined way he looked at her, it was clear he loved her.
Before she’d gone dark, she’d earned this stoic, guarded mage’s heart.
Torrence had been through a trauma. But before that, she’d been good. I knew it.
No one is ever purely good or purely evil, Makena’s statement from back in the Ward echoed in my mind. When guided by someone who believes in them, even the darkest souls have the potential to see the light.
Reed loved Torrence. He believed in her.
And my intuition told me to believe in her, too.
“You saved us from those mages,” I finally said. “What do you want in return?”
“Easy,” Torrence said. “I want you to help us get back to Earth.”
Us. Not me.
She cared about Reed enough to want him to go back with her.
It wasn’t much, but it was a start.
“What do you want to do once you’re back there?” Ethan asked.
“The witch Lavinia took something from me that I needed.” Her eyes swirled with inky blackness again. “Once I’m back on Earth, I’m going to find her. And then, I want to kill her.”
Ethan studied Torrence, like he was seeing her in a different light. “As do I,” he finally said.
“Good.” She smiled. “We’re on the same side.”
“Apparently so.”
I nearly touched my pocket where I’d put the two portal tokens, but stopped myself. No need for Torrence or Reed to ask what I was hiding in there.
“We can help you,” Ethan said. “But you were sent here for a reason. And as