when she is just feet away. He rises unsteadily and stumbles toward me. I run to him, wrap one of his arms around my shoulders and guide him as far away from the action as he can make it. We end up leaning against the stone wall of the outside of Cardine’s house. He slides down it and sits on the ground.
The skin of his face is spattered with streaks of dirt and blood. His knuckles and hands are stained red. He is doubled over in pain, gripping his abdomen with one arm. I ask him for reassurance that he is okay before standing in front of him to offer what little protection I can.
I turn my attention back to the field. Cardine is repeating her protection spell in an attempt to stop Alexander, while Zoë deals with Ben.
Alexander fights back against Cardine using her own magic against her. A whirling cloud of dust and debris materializes and swirls violently through the air around him, as he stands motionless within it. The cloud grows wider and darker, spreading along the edge of the forest. A surging blast of arctic wind bursts with enormous force from where Alexander stands, throwing Charlie and me painfully into the rock wall. I collapse and watch Charlie's body slump next to me. He is unconscious. Blood drips from a gash on the side of his head. I scream his name, but he doesn't awaken. I carefully arrange his head on my lap and bend the top half of my body over him to protect his terrifyingly fragile state. I am paralyzed with fear and can feel myself slowly slipping away from reality. There is nothing I can do to fight it. The evil that surrounds us is too great a force.
I force myself to lift one eye to see how my friends are faring. Zoë hovers over Ben, who lies writhing in the grass, screaming in pain. He begs for her mercy, but she offers none.
Cardine stands motionless as Alexander slowly approaches her. “Where is she?” she yells at him as loud as she can. He offers no response.
“She hides behind you like a coward—sends you to do her dirty work and shrouds herself in darkness.”
“I don’t know how you broke out of the spell she put you under,” he mutters in a raspy, threatening voice, “but I can assure you, the job will be competed this time.”
“Now, Zoë!” Cardine exclaims as she encases herself in an orb of brilliant blue light.
“Demos das tebras que se alimentan de carne humana, vir para el,” Zoë authoritatively orders.
She holds her hand above Ben, effectively pinning him to ground. He falls motionless and silent. The ground beneath us vibrates. Leaves on the trees rustle in an incredibly familiar pattern. I squeeze Charlie tight, bracing myself for what I know is about to burst out of the trees.
A heartbeat later, the ferocious glasma bursts from the woodland, snarling and roaring as it searches for its meal. It slows its pace but doesn’t stop at the edge of the trees. It heads straight for Ben. As if under Zoë’s influence, it follows her commands, moving slowly toward him. The glasma dips its head in close and audibly breaths in Ben’s scent. Immobilized by Zoë’s spell, Ben has no choice but to lie completely still and voiceless under the complete mercy of the glasma.
With a terrifying roar, the creature scoops him up in his enormous grip and runs back into the tree cover. The snap of breaking bones and the gurgle of tearing flesh signal the end of Ben’s life.
I bury my face against the side of Charlie’s head. “Please wake up,” I whisper as tears stream down my face.
Another blindingly bright flash of light fills the air, burning through my closed eyelids. I lift my head and squint in Cardine's direction. Her protective blue light has vanished and Alexander has taken control of her. She kneels in front of him, bent over backwards, her wild silvery hair blowing riotously behind her. Her mouth hangs open as she stares blindly up at the sky. The wind that swirls around her is so loud that my screams are completely drowned out.
Zoë fights to walk through the airstream. Her efforts are futile and she falls to the ground. The incredibly strong wind slides her body backward along the grass. She grips handfuls of it to steady herself. I call out to her but she doesn't respond to me.
Cardine attempts to fight back, pushing