“The bangles just make it easier to drain, especially from strong, unwilling targets. Like Kai,” he said, his magic flaring in anger when he said Kai’s name. “But we have a purer source, one more powerful than even Kai. Our leader.”
“Leader? I thought you were the one in charge of this one-way circus to hell.”
A smirk slid across his lips, sweet and sour. “There’s so much you don’t know, Sera.”
Magic smashed into her back. She fell, her face smacking the crumbled dirt ground.
“But you will soon see,” Finn said as his boots came to a crunching halt beside her.
Laughter, panicked and unchecked, burst from her mouth, and her vision went fuzzy.
“What’s so funny?” Finn growled.
She just kept laughing, even as darkness fell over her eyes.
“What is it?!” Finn demanded, kicking her in the ribs.
Sera hiccuped in pain. “So much…you don’t know too…spies in your…evil organization.”
Then she passed out.
* * *
Consciousness, dull and throbbing, crept at the periphery of Sera’s mind. She tried to ignore the unwanted visitor, but like a persistent rash, it just wouldn’t go away. Something dripped nearby, slow and steady and sharp enough to cut straight through her eardrums. She tried to turn away from the sound, but her neck only creaked out in agony. When she tried her arms, they didn’t move either. Instead, they sang out with as much jingling metal as a snowy sleigh ride.
She forced her eyes open, tearing the thick crust that had glued her lashes to her cheekbones. She was in what looked like an old abandoned tunnel, its rocky walls splattered with faded graffiti. Bright magic lights hovered overhead like a dozen tiny suns. As consciousness flared up, so did the pain in her head. She heaved forward as far as the chains holding her arms allowed and threw up.
“Oh, why did you have to go and do that, Sera?” Finn was leaning against the opposite wall, his arms folded over his chest in relaxed superiority. “Who’s going to clean it up?”
She glared at him through hardened lashes. “Release these chains and give me a mop, and I’ll show you what I can do.”
His laugh could have chiseled stone. “Now, now. Don’t be getting any ideas. You’re our guest here.”
“Right.” She shook her wrists, and iron rattled. “Guest,” she bit out the word, crisp as a piece of fire-blackened meat. In other words, basically what she was going to turn him into when she got free.
There’s too much iron in those walls, her dragon reminded her. You can’t use magic as long as you’re blocking it out.
How about you? You said the iron didn’t bother you. Could you shield me from it so I can use magic?
That’s actually a good idea.
Try not to sound so surprised, Sera told her.
Her dragon snickered. Ok, I’ll work on it. You distract Mr. Brooding and Crazy.
“Why am I here?” Sera asked Finn. “In this old…tunnel, is it?”
“We’re beneath an old abandoned subway station.” His words were smooth and confident, as though he wasn’t the least bit worried that she could do anything with that information.
He was probably right. It’s not like she could send a message to Kai. She didn’t feel her phone in her pocket. Maybe the portal had crunched it into tiny bits—or maybe Finn’s lackeys had. Phones could be tracked. Demolished phones—not so much. So it looked like she was on her own.
“What’s wrong, Finn? Couldn’t you afford a real building for your secret lair?” she taunted. Sarcasm was the next best weapon to magic. And right now, it was pretty much the only one that she had.
His eyes flared with fury and magic, but he choked them back. “There’s iron in the rocks. It bounces magic, blocking out tracking spells. We wouldn’t want to be interrupted.” His smile returned, sick and languid as it washed over her.
Sera had the sudden and irresistible urge to shower.
“It doesn’t have to be this way, Sera,” Finn said, pushing off the wall. He took a cup from the table, then strode up to her like a king in his own castle. “Water?”
A dry film caked her tongue, screaming for his offering. “How long have I been here?”
She didn’t expect an answer, so she was surprised when Finn replied, “It’s been nearly a day. The magic Alden hit you with was pretty potent. We weren’t sure we’d be able to knock you out otherwise. Your resistance to magic is troublesome.”
“I’ve been called that once or twice before.” Often by uptight members of the magical elite. “But I prefer charming.”
“Yes.” His tongue flicked out, sliding across the entire length of his upper lip.
Yuck.
He held the cup in front of her mouth. Since she didn’t think he’d go through all the trouble of chaining her to the room only to poison her the second she regained consciousness, she took a drink. If she was wrong about the poison—if she choked on her own vomit—she vowed to throw up all over his shoes as she died.
“Who’s Alden?” Sera asked when she’d emptied the whole cup without dying a painful and horrible death.
Surprise flashed across his face. “You don’t know of the great Alden, the world’s greatest mage?”
“Sorry, no.”
“He was born millennia ago, at the height of magic.”
“Like Gaelyn?” she asked.