Phantom of the Library - Lidiya Foxglove Page 0,74

me. “We have to fi—”

Piers zapped the familiar before he could finish the sentence, and then stomped on him.

“You—fucking—asshole—” I was panting hard. “Kill me, Piers. I know. You got me. I feel like shit. I’m going to haunt your ass. I’ll curse you from the grave.”

“It’s over for you, cousin,” he said. “You can die happy knowing that you left me a mess to clean up. Worlds split apart, familiars betraying their masters…it might take me weeks to fix this. Chester, I command you…kill her.”

As Chester lifted his hands, with tears running down his eyes, to deliver a final blow, I felt a sudden surge of power course through me.

Hel, we’re with you…

You can do it, Hel! You’re the toughest girl I’ve ever met.

I know you have it in you.

Go get ‘em, girl, we’ve got more houses to flip!

I felt Jake, Jasper, Graham, Billie and even Gaston sending me their magical power. Jasper’s healing, steadying presence. Graham’s charm and sense of justice. Billie’s fiery spirit. Jake’s mixture of protectiveness and animal aggression. Gaston’s…well, whatever. I felt all of it and my weakness melted away as I was able to get back on my feet.

I blocked Chester’s spell and then I exchanged spell blasts with Chester and Piers together. My morale surged as I felt my dearest friends in the world supporting me, their presence so close that I could almost see them standing next to me. I knew they must be working magic to shoot their power straight into my heart and fill me with their love and strength, and now it was more of a fair fight. I knocked out Albert before he could even get in on it, and now it was six against two because I felt all my friends at my side, not two against one. Byron was doing something that had Lord Variel looking strained and hopefully that held.

I knocked Piers back into the table.

I was ready to do it. I was going to kill my own blood, but I’d be doing the world a favor. Perish… I opened my mouth.

“Kill me and you kill Chester,” Piers said, with a twisted smile.

“Don’t worry about me!” Chester said. “Just do it! Please!” His eyes screwed shut.

“Perish!” I gasped.

The spell fizzled.

“You can’t kill Chester. I knew it.” Piers lunged forward. “Perish, cousin…perish!”

“Protection!” I screamed—and another voice screamed with me, as something disrupted the air behind me.

My brother was here. “You should’ve called me,” he said.

“Harris! Oh, please! I can do this on my own!”

“Can you, though?”

“I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“And, let’s face it, you didn’t want to need help from your little brother either…”

Well, it was true. Of course Harris, being the only boy, and also the only one of us siblings who got to attend warlock school instead of wimpy witch school, was the most talented wizard in the family. Being the fifth girl of six meant I loved him to death but I also was often forgotten. It was going to be pretty annoying to watch him whip out his badass warlock skills and end this for me.

“You did something with a blood spell,” he said. “Tell me your plan, and tell me quickly.” His clear blue eyes shifted briefly to Lord Variel and Byron.

“You…little…half-breed…,” Lord Variel was growling out.

“They’re okay,” Harris said quickly.

“Um, I thought—if I sacrificed my Hapsburg blood, maybe it would break the covenants, because I thought surely one of our ancestors was responsible for the original oath. But it didn’t work. And I almost died. Please reserve judgmental comments for after the fight.”

“I think it’s a pretty clever use of magic,” Harris said. “But maybe you needed something like this.” He held up a ring with a seal of the Hapsburg crest, the sort you used for pressing into wax. “Or maybe you needed me. I’m not sure, so I hedged my bets.”

“Needed you?”

“Yes, a male heir.”

I didn’t have time to express my annoyance. Harris declared, “By the will of the Hapsburgs and the Holy Roman Empire—I, Harris von Hapsburg, wish to break the covenants of all the familiars, if I must spill my blood to do so!”

I felt it.

Just like I felt it when I tried to cast the spell myself.

But still, nothing.

I grabbed Harris’ hand. Maybe it needed both of us. Maybe I needed to give more. I tried to wrap every last drop of strength and feeling I had in me. “By the blood and the kings and queens, the princesses and princes, the blood