“I said be still!”

But Newt was laughing. The eerie sound lifted through him, silencing Kalla’s tirade and making his hunters uneasy. Grim, Kalla turned to her, tight in the grip of two hunters. He started, only now noticing her eyes. “What is wrong with your eyes?”

Her chuckle drifted into the sound of the wind. “I saw the bottom of the lines,” she said, and Gally shivered, remembering the burning agony of them, peeling his aura and then his soul from him. They’d once traveled the lines to flee this place, and it hadn’t turned anyone’s eyes black—just killed most of them.

“And do you know what I found there?” she added.

Kalla motioned for one of his hunters to bind her wrists. “No.”

She looked down, watching the cord tighten until her perfect, utterly unblemished skin reddened. “Me either,” she said, but it wasn’t comforting. “I can’t remember. But you . . .” She hesitated, her horrible black eyes shutting in a slow, languorous blink. “I know what you are.”

Kalla glanced at Gally, then back to her. “Easy now, Newt. I’m not going to hurt you. Even crazy, you’ll bring some profit.”

“Profit?” she scoffed, proud despite the hands that gripped her. “Do you really think that you can hold me? Sell me? I thought I was the one with the missing memories, not you. I am a demon! And you will treat me as such.”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” Kalla said, motioning for two more of his hunters to pull Gally to his feet.

“Wrong answer!” Newt shouted, shoving the hunters from her. “Adaperire!”

Pain tore through Gally’s wrists. He was free. He rolled, sending Kalla dancing back out of the way, the elf looking more irritated than anything else.

“Easy, Newt,” the hunter soothed, hand out and ticked, as he looked at his men as if wondering why she still had contact with the ley lines. Gally knew he was. “Be a good girl. We can end this right now and go home.”

“This is my home,” she snarled, hunched and dangerous. “And you have been warned. Abyssus abyssum invocate!”

Light exploded from her. Gally cowered, feeling it wash over him and delve deep, the pinpricks pulling back and vanishing in an instant. Howls of pain echoed in his ears, and the scream of ahorse going suddenly silent.

He fell to the ground, the wind of power stunning his ears. Sharp rock bit his palms, and he crawled to Newt. “Enough!” he shouted, eyes clamped shut as the scent of burnt pine choked him. “Don’t kill him! We need him to spread the curse! Newt, don’t kill them!”

“Then he lives,” she intoned with a dark, gray voice.

And then the magic was gone. He breathed in, choking out smoke. Eyes watering, he let go of her, shocked at the white ash he left on her black robe. Astounded, he sat up and away. Rocks the color of black blood shifted under his weight. A wide circle of destruction lay bare in the moonlight, the very trees cut in half where her power had ended, held in check with a circle.

A ragged gasp caught his attention. It was the hunters, fallen where they had stood, each and every one covered with a fine ash, turning them into wraiths.

Silent, Newt picked her careful way among the now bare rocks, her long feet looking sensitive and out of place on the parched red earth her curse had left. Face expressionless, she gathered her robes and crouched beside Kalla, whispering in his ear.

The elf spat at her, and she laughed, turning her back on him and carefully making her way back to Gally.

“Newt?” he questioned, hearing the first of the insects begin to chirp and rustle where the vegetation had been spared.

“It will do for now.” She gestured, and his shoulders straightened as his connection to the ley lines came flooding back. There was grass under him where he’d lain on the earth. She held out a hand, but he didn’t take it, using the warm, red earth to lever himself up instead.

“Where did you learn to do that?” he questioned, glancing back once as they left the charred circle behind and stepped onto the soothing moss once more.

“The truth?” She gave him a nervous, askance look. “I have no idea. But it was effective. Perhaps I should write it down. I do know how to write, don’t I? I’m really not sure anymore.”

“I’d think so. You hit your head kind of hard. Ah, how long have you been able to do that? And just when were you going to share with the rest of us?

And Newt smiled, face turned to the moon as she breathed deep. “Forever and always. Forever and always.”