“Tell me,” she said eventually.
I drew in a deep, shuddering breath and pulled away from her embrace. “My father said he’d killed her. I had no reason to believe he lied but —”
“You came here to check anyway.” Ilianna smiled, but there was a fierce light in her eyes. “We didn’t break the collar, but we did beat the bastard at his own game.”
I frowned. “Meaning what?”
“It was you who gave us the idea, actually.” She rose, dusted off her knees, then offered me a hand.
I accepted it, and climbed wearily to my feet. Azriel touched my elbow, not holding me up, but there in case I needed him.
“Or rather,” Ilianna continued, “our discussion about creating personal wards and using the wearer’s life force or aura to power the devices.”
“I’m not seeing the connection.”
Ilianna smiled. “Neither did we, not at first. But once we realized the cord hadn’t tapped into Mirri’s aural shield, it was then a matter of where else could it be getting its energy from.”
“The source was its creator,” Azriel commented.
Ilianna glanced past me and nodded. “Yes. And as Risa had pointed out, I’d learned enough of the magic to subvert her father’s wards to our own use, so it was simply a matter of unpicking the appropriate threads in the collar and rerouting those.”
She made it all sound so easy when it was obvious from the haggard appearance and tired stance of all three women that it had been anything but.
“So when my father tried to kill her —”
“The energy rebounded back to him.”
“Which would explain the fierceness of the explosion,” Azriel commented. “It wasn’t just Amaya.”
“Explosion? What explosion?” Ilianna said.
“The explosion that killed my father and destroyed our home.”
“If losing our home is the price we have to pay to rid the world of that bastard, then good riddance, warehouse.” Her voice was grim. “And the key?”
My gaze went to Kiandra. Even though her expression gave little away, I had no doubt she knew what had happened.
“The key is lost,” she said, immediately confirming my thoughts. “The second gate is open.”
“Yes.”
“Oh, fuck,” Ilianna said.
“Yeah,” I said. “That, and a whole lot more.”
“The sorceress?” Kiandra asked.
“Gone.” I hesitated. “Maybe.”
She nodded, her expression stoic. But I had a strange feeling that nothing I’d said had surprised her. That the loss of the second key and the opening of its gate were events she’d long known would happen.
“There is still hope left,” she said softly. “At least there is as long as you and the last key remain in play.”
“If the safety of the world depends on my actions,” I said bitterly, “then heaven help the fucking world.”
She blinked; then her gaze refocused. I suddenly realized she’d been seeing into the future.
“To use a worn-out cliché, the fate of the world hangs in the balance. You must not give up, Risa, no matter what it costs or however much you might want to.”
I wouldn’t.
I couldn’t.
Hell on Earth might be one step closer, but there was no way I was about to bring my child into a world overrun by hell’s spawn.
Somehow, I’d find a way to stop the Raziq and secure the third key.
We’ll find, not you’ll find, Azriel corrected, voice stern. Whatever we do from now on, we do it together.
I twined my fingers through his but felt no safer for the comfort of his touch.
Because I knew, just as he knew, just as Kiandra undoubtedly knew, that even together we might not be strong enough to win the last, and perhaps the most important, battle of all.
The battle for life.