he’d mined the darkest parts of himself, unearthing wounds so deep, so long-buried, there was no way he was coming out of that unscathed.
I wanted to bring him back from it anyway. To hope that I was wrong, that he’d survive it. That he’d survive the dream potion, the realm, all of it.
But he didn’t survive. A part of him died. A part of him keeps dying, over and over. And now, all that’s left is Stevie’s hope combined the most desperate, deplorable measure I know. Worse than death. Worse than punishment. A mental torture for which there is no cure.
A torture from which—for all but the strongest who endure it—there will never be a full return.
Warmed by my hands, Nightmare’s Lullaby churns inside the glass.
Everything inside me is screaming in protest, my very blood burning with agony, my hands trembling.
But Stevie’s right. When it comes to protecting the ones we love, the lines will always blur, no matter how firmly we think we stand on one side or the other.
Love is the first principle. The truest. As such, it trumps all others.
Ani is my family. My Arcana brother. And I have to fight for him, even if it means risking his sanity and his life in the process.
Closing my eyes, I call upon the energy of the reversed Moon, and speak the words into the darkness.
Black rider, void of light
I call upon the Mare of Night
Unleash the darkness in his mind
For evil sown is reaped in kind
I unstopper the bottle, urging the black smoke from the glass, holding it before his lips. It slides between them effortlessly, emptying the bottle until the glass is clear once again.
In my mind’s eye I see the black smoke defiling Ani’s mouth, his lungs, his blood, his very consciousness. My stomach churns, my mouth filling with the taste of salt and shame, but I press on, calling on even more magick, pushing the darkness deep inside him.
Then, kneeling at his side, I take his hands and close my eyes, bending all of my will toward altering his consciousness, planting seeds of terror that bloom into monsters, into demons, into every last human fear come to life. I feed him mental images of the devastation in his hometown, the smell of burning flesh, the conjured screams of a thousand children melting beneath his witchfire.
I feed him death, and he drinks it, slow and deep.
When I’ve exhausted the last of my dark imagination, when I’ve pushed him to the very edge of what the mind can take, I finally open my eyes. Ani’s body seizes, then contorts, arching off the bed at such impossible angles it looks like the movie version of an exorcism. His eyes fly open, black as the night sky, endless, hopeless.
“What’s happening?” Baz asks. “Is it working?”
“The poison has taken hold,” I say. “His mind is trying to reconcile his known reality with the imagery I’ve just implanted. It’s fracturing him, body and soul.”
“It’s the only way,” Stevie whispers, but at this point I’m not sure which one of us she’s trying to convince more.
Silently, we watch him writhe. We watch him suffer.
And then the screaming begins.
Choked whispers at first, quickly escalating into moans of pain, then screams of abject terror drudged up from the very basement of a man’s worst nightmares.
Still, the Arcana brothers and I stand at his side, tears hot on my cheeks, praying for the sunrise.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“You will be,” comes the haunted reply.
Then, in a blur so fast my mind can’t even process what’s happening, Ani launches himself out of the bed, taking me down hard. In a nanosecond he’s got me pinned to the floor, impossibly strong, his black eyes wild.
The others jump in, trying to pull him away, but Ani’s too powerful. One swipe of his hand, and a searing-hot magickal force throws them across the room.
“That was a terrible idea, Cass.” He grabs my head, slamming it into the floor, his knees crushing my chest. “No wonder your bother offed himself. Goddess, my head fucking hurts. How’s yours?”
He slams my skull into the hardwood again, my vision blurring, my ears ringing. Dimly, I’m aware of Stevie crawling toward me, but Ani’s one step ahead of us, shoving her back with another magickal blast.
Outside the window, Stevie’s owl batters the glass with his wings, screeching and howling, clawing at the glass, just as the other professors are doing outside the bedroom door. Someone rams a shoulder into the wood,