Nocturna (A Forgery of Magic #1)(118)

“Then use the dragon! Make some!”

The fire stopped surging around them, and the dragon’s hulking footsteps shook the palace to its bones. The rock shield Finn had pulled up collapsed into smoking rubble.

“Prince! We have to!” she said. Alfie gave her a sober look before finally pulling the figurine out from beneath his shirt.

The beast reared its head back and blew another blue jet of fire so hot that it felt as if it’d caught the sun in its mouth. Alfie held the silver dragon high, and a gargantuan wave of water rose out of thin air around him to counter the flame. It was a wave that could swallow the palace whole.

Finn looked at him. There was blood pouring from his nose and the corners of his lips now. His face was ashen. His shadow was lightening at a terrible speed. She shouldn’t have asked him to use the dragon. What he was doing was too much.

And yet it wasn’t enough.

The dragon’s flames intensified, turning nearly white. Alfie’s wave rushed forward to encompass the creature, but in an explosion of mist, the fire evaporated the wave in a mere moment.

As the prince swayed on his feet, Ignacio’s voice boomed all around them. This is a family affair, muchacho. Perhaps you ought to sit this one out.

Finn heard the whirring of strings before she saw them. They soared through the air, wrapping around Alfie’s wrists and ankles. They lurched him backward, slamming him against the wall. His body hit the wall with such a force that she feared for his life. The strings held him against the wall suspended, his feet dangling over the tiled floor.

“Stop!” she shouted at Ignacio. “Stop it.”

The dragon only swung its tail back and forth, excited. More strings flew in from every direction until the prince was trapped in a spiderweb of sharp twine.

The dragon sat comfortably, wrapping its tail about itself. Ignacio’s voice sounded once again.

I could pull him apart, you know. It would take only a moment. Unless you’d like to convince me otherwise. . . .

Sweat trickled down her temples. Ignacio had taken her parents from her, had taken her life into his hands and broken it. She would rather die where she stood than beg Ignacio for his mercy, than bargain with him. She had no life anymore, only this anger to hold on to; it burned and sustained her all at once and she could not let it go.

But then the prince’s voice sounded in her head, just as it had before. When they’d faced the first infected man in the pub, she’d asked him if he was foolish enough to give his life to stop Sombra’s magic, and with fear trembling through his words, he’d said:

Is there nothing you would give yours for?

She’d had no answer to his question then, but now she did. If her anger for Ignacio was her life, she would give it for a moment, for the prince, for hope of ending this. With her jaw working, Finn raised her hands in surrender to the monster before her.

“Don’t hurt him,” she said. “Let’s keep this between you and me.” The dragon gave a content purr.

Good girl.

Slowly the dragon shrank and turned back into the man she’d once called Father. He sauntered across the ballroom.

From behind her, the prince groaned in pain.

“No,” Alfie said, his voice quiet but resolute. “Let me go.”

Anger sparked in Ignacio’s eyes. He raised a hand and all the strings wrapped around the prince’s extremities began to pull in opposite directions, jerking his legs and arms as he screamed in agony.

Finn held her hands up in surrender again; it was a motion she knew he loved to see her do. “Let him go and I stay. I’ll do whatever you want. We’ll do this your way.”

“Finn, don’t.” Alfie’s broken voice sounded from behind, but she couldn’t turn to look at him when his face might make her change her mind.

Ignacio cocked his head. “You do what I want and I’ll think of letting him go, how’s that?”

The prince started another protest but Finn had already nodded. If he had her he might lose interest in the prince. Maybe. What else could she do?

She stole a glance behind her and met Alfie’s gold-eyed gaze. The heartbreak on his face struck her like a blow. She looked away. “Tell me what you want.”

Ignacio smiled at that and she knew that what he asked would be much worse than what she imagined. “I want the prince to take the magic he’s trapped in that little toy of his and give it a new home—you.”

Her blood froze in her veins. Ignacio wanted the prince to infect her with the magic.

Alfie made a sound of protest behind her and then his voice was rough, strained with an anger unleashed. “You’ll have to kill me first, you monster!”

Finn’s heart sputtered in her chest. She knew Ignacio wanted her to fall into line. He wanted to remind her that the only friend and family she could have was him. Yet she hadn’t expected this. It was so typical of Ignacio to use those close to her to hurt her. Still, his words cracked across her face like a slap.

“I’m not dark-hearted enough for the magic, Ignacio,” she said, trying to keep her voice level. The magic had avoided taking her before. She certainly wasn’t the type to properly house it. It would just burn her to ash. To kill her so quickly hardly seemed his style. Maybe she could talk him out of it. “It’ll only kill me. Is that what you want?”

Ignacio shook his head at her with the look of a parent helping a child with her schoolwork. “You need only accept yourself as the killer that you are, Mija. Then you will be the finest home this dark magic could find. I wonder if perhaps you require the proper motivation to embrace your truth.” He pointed at the prince. “He will pass the magic into your body, and you will either turn to the darkness within yourself or you will cling to this foolish idea of who you wish you were and the magic will singe you into nothing. Either I’ll have you as my own or you perish. And if the boy refuses to do it, he dies.”