the same instant, though, horror suffocated her hope as she processed the sadistic bite in Spirit’s tone. She must be under the Dragon Prince’s spell.
“Stop! I’m not—” But before Fairy could finish, she was yanked out of her seat and put in a headlock. A knife pressed against her throat, although there was no visible arm to hold it. Fairy tried to cry out, but the pressure on her neck had disabled her voice box.
“Freeze, Sora!” Wolf shouted, as he and Broomstick jumped up from their chairs.
The arm around Fairy’s neck materialized. If she’d been able to, she would have gasped. Spirit had been invisible.
“Daemon? Broomstick?” Spirit said, confused.
“What are you doing here?” Wolf asked.
“I’m here to kill the empress.” Her voice was fire, not like the same kind of flame it usually was. This was hot in a zealous kind of way, like a forest fire on a rampage.
Fairy tried to jab her with her elbow, but Spirit just tightened her grip.
“Prince Gin hypnotized you,” Wolf said. “You’ll do whatever he says.”
“Shut up,” Spirit said, jerking Fairy against her body. “I’m my own person. I do what I want, and what I want is to help Prince Gin usher Kichona into an age of glory. And then, if we succeed, Kichona will become a paradise, and we will be immortal.”
Broomstick took a cautious step closer, at the same time giving Fairy a warning look not to struggle, because their friend was unpredictable. “That’s just a myth, Spirit,” he said gently. “It’s not real.”
“It is real. We just haven’t achieved it yet because there hasn’t been a warrior worthy of turning Kichona into the vast empire Zomuri wanted. But now we have Prince Gin, and he’ll do it. He’s already pushed magic beyond what taigas have known for centuries. He’ll push our kingdom beyond what we know too. He’ll make the Evermore real.”
“Sora . . .” Wolf said, taking a step closer.
“Shall I slit the empress’s artery and kill her right away, or slice her in a hundred different, shallow places and let her bleed slowly to death before your eyes?”
“Spirit,” Fairy said. Or, she tried to say it, but her roommate’s chokehold was tight, and she could barely get out a whisper.
“I don’t want to hear from you,” Spirit said. The tip of her knife pierced Fairy’s skin.
“You’re hurting her!” Broomstick said. “That’s—”
But Wolf had unhooked his bo. He lunged at Spirit, trying to reach her around Fairy.
Spirit dodged. She threw Fairy into the air, and somehow, Fairy remained floating there, where no one could reach her. A strip of her dress tore itself off and gagged her.
Broomstick gawked.
“Try to get her down!” Wolf instructed him.
Meanwhile, Spirit drew her sword and advanced on Wolf with rapid slashes.
He spun his bo up, down, left, and right, to block the blows. “You’re not yourself, Sora. Think hard. Remember Kaede City? Do you remember what happened to the taigas there?”
“I remember wanting to join Prince Gin.” She faltered. “And . . . you prevented me!” In anger, she rushed at Wolf.
He thrust the end of his bo into Spirit’s stomach. It forced the air out of her, and she doubled over.
Spirit recovered and swung her sword at the bo. Wolf shifted its angle at the last second and caught the blade in a nick in the wood. He twirled the bo, which wrenched the sword from Spirit’s hand.
“I don’t even know why I’m fighting you,” she said, her voice full of frigid disdain. “It’s the empress that matters.”
She unsheathed a knife from her sleeve and aimed it up to the tent’s ceiling. She pulled back her arm to throw.
Fairy saw her entire life in a split second. The faint memory of being a tenderfoot, waking up each morning in the nursery, where it always smelled of warm milk and tea biscuits. The night they became Level 1 apprentices, when Luna’s moonbeams lit up the grassy amphitheater, and the triplicate whorls on Fairy’s and Broomstick’s backs glowed at the same moment, bonding them as geminas. The first day of chemistry class when she was thirteen, when she discovered her love for botanicals and potions. All the nights she stayed up late with Spirit, laughing over a prank they’d pulled or rehashing Fairy’s latest boy-conquering escapades.
It had been a good life. And it would be a noble ending.
Fairy closed her eyes and waited for the knife.
Chapter Forty-Nine
No!” Daemon jumped at Sora. The air around him crackled, as if charged with electricity. He tackled her,