Into the Fire

“Don’t be frightened, Leila.”

Leotie’s voice echoed all around me, although I couldn’t see her. All I could see was endless versions of myself in the mirrored walls of our prison. Then I screamed when Gretchen suddenly disappeared from those reflections.

“Don’t be frightened,” Leotie repeated. “The spell will dissipate after I’ve had time to get Gretchen safely away.”

“Why are you doing this?” I spat, cursing myself for ever trusting her.

“I have a sense about people. It’s never wrong, and it’s telling me that your husband is hiding something.”

My snort was bitter. “Vlad said the same thing about you.”

“You might not believe me now, but I’m doing this to help,” Leotie replied, those odd echoes fading a bit. “When Vlad said that he would wait to transfer the spell to Gretchen, I could tell he was lying. You confirmed that you would do anything for him, so I cannot trust you, either. That is why I’m taking Gretchen away until she is over her bloodlust.”

I didn’t say anything for a moment. I would never forgive her for tricking and trapping us this way, but I also understood why she did it down to my very soul.

“Vlad will come after you,” I finally said. He wouldn’t have any conflict of emotions over what Leotie had done. She had to have Vlad trapped, too, or he would have already burned her to death for doing this to me. When he eventually got out, he’d want vengeance for this betrayal.

Leotie’s light laughter trickled through the infinity mirrors. “I would lose my respect for him if he didn’t. But I was old long before he was born, Leila, and I’ve had centuries to relearn all the magic that was stripped from me. Your husband won’t find me unless I want him to.”

Her voice was so much closer during that last part, I expected her to appear in the countless reflections from the mirrors. She didn’t, yet somehow, her next words sounded as if they were whispered right into my ear.

“I left you the secret of this spell beneath my mattress. Take it with you tonight. It’s so ancient; the necromancers might not know it, and if you catch them in it, they’ll be as helpless as you are now. I also overheard that the man you’re seeking is in a cave. Black quartz absorbs magic, so that is the only kind of cave that necromancers would put a fellow sorcerer in. Farewell, Leila. I hope to see you again one day.”

“Leotie, wait!” I shouted.

She didn’t reply. I kept calling out to her, but only heard endless echoes of my own voice in response. Then, despite my previous failed attempts, I resumed my efforts to break the mirrors. Maybe Leotie had only been saying that we were all helpless so I wouldn’t get out earlier than she wanted me to.

What felt like several hours later, I sat down in defeat. I also closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to keep seeing countless versions of my own reflection. If I’d still been human, I would have had a puking migraine from all the repeating, blinding flashes of light from my whip as I kept lashing the mirrors in a futile attempt to break them. It hadn’t worked. I hadn’t even scratched their surface. Leotie hadn’t been lying about the effectiveness of this trap, that was for damn sure.

I was worked up from my efforts, but also so tired I thought I might pass out. It probably would be a good idea if I did try to sleep. That was at least something beneficial I could do while trapped in this unbreakable spell. But questions, fears, heightened electrical currents, and hunger wouldn’t allow me to relax, let alone to sleep. Yes, Leotie had said that the spell would dissipate once she and Gretchen were safely away, but she hadn’t said how long that would take.

What if the spell wouldn’t deactivate for days? Worse, what if there was a magical malfunction and it didn’t deactivate at all? Would that leave me, Vlad, Marty, and Maximus trapped in our mirrored prisons, until Gretchen was finally past her blood craze and Leotie returned her to us in a week or two?

I tried to push back my rising panic at the thought. Not only would I go insane with hunger by then, but if Mircea’s captors gave Vlad a new demand, he wouldn’t be able to carry it out even if it were something as simple as burning down a house. Then they’d kill me in retaliation, and none of us could do a thing to stop them. Even if they didn’t send new demands, we weren’t safe here. This was Cat and Bones’s house, not one of Vlad’s. At any time, someone else could come by. I wasn’t worried if it would be Cat or Bones, but what if one of their other friends showed up? Maybe someone with a grudge against Vlad? He certainly had no shortage of enemies—

A loud crashing sound snapped my head up in time to see the mirrors shattering, countless pieces of glass disappearing as soon as they hit the floor. In the next moment, I was staring at Vlad, Ian, Maximus, and Marty. We were all still in the family room, standing exactly where we had before, and we all had similar degrees of shock in our expressions.

Then Vlad reached me in two long strides, his fingers digging in almost painfully as he gripped me by the shoulders. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” I said, blinking because seeing things in single form suddenly seemed strange.

“That filthy little witch,” Ian breathed, looking around warily as if expecting mirrors to pop up and cage him in again. “Foxed us good and proper, didn’t she?”

Maximus began storming around the house. I didn’t know why until he yelled, “Gretchen’s gone!” in a frantic tone. ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">