But I don’t have time to worry about that right now, not when it feels like the entire universe is about to lose its shit all over this place. My knees are turning liquid as the ground goes from trembling to full-on shaking, and I throw my arms out to help get my balance.
“Jaxon?” I call, but there’s no answer. Still, I turn to look behind me, convinced he somehow managed to make it in here after all, because I don’t know anyone else who can make the earth shake like this.
But the walkway behind me is empty.
There’s no one here but me.
The five-minute-warning bell sounds, and I know that I don’t have any more time to waste. It’s now or never. I turn back around and look down at the circle—only to gasp, because the items are no longer on the ground. Instead, they’re hovering about three feet in the air now. Not only that, but they’re also glowing and vibrating so violently that I can feel it in the air all around me.
The ground shakes more violently, and I wait for something to happen, wait for Hudson to suddenly be standing in front of me. But I can still feel him in my mind, can hear him bitching at me even now, telling me to stop this madness before it’s too late.
Obviously he hasn’t gotten with the program, because I knew two minutes ago that it was already too late.
The Bloodletter told me I’d know what to do when the time was right, but I’m still waiting for the knowledge to hit me. All I know right now is that I better get some mystical, magical inspiration soon or this whole stadium is going to shake apart—and take Hudson and me with it.
The items are spinning around me now, circling me like some supernatural Hula-Hoop that needs no interference from me to stay aloft. Again, I rack my brain, trying to figure out what to do and again, I come up with nothing.
At least not until the spinning finally stops and the bloodstone ends up right in front of me, glowing more and more brightly with each second that passes. Ruby red light explodes off it in all directions, razor-sharp shards that slice the world around me into scarlet ribbons that are as beautiful as they are terrifying.
The stone is so close now that I can reach out and touch it, just wrap my hand around it and hold it tight. Keep it safe.
And just that easily, I realize the Bloodletter was right. I know exactly what it is I need to do.
Reaching out, I grab on to the stone, wrapping my hand completely around it. But it’s so much sharper than it looks, and the second my fingers touch it, it slices a giant gash right down the center of my palm.
I cry out, pain and fear mingling inside me as I look at the blood dripping from my palm. I must have been wrong. I didn’t have a clue what to do and now I’ve messed up everything. Too bad I have no idea how to fix it.
Figuring the best thing to do right now is to give the bloodstone back to its circle, I start to open my hand. But before I can drop it, the other three items begin to spin around me, whizzing by faster and faster until they blur together.
“Grace!” Hudson cries out, and he’s reaching for me even though he’s still inside my mind. “Hold on, Grace! Don’t let go.”
I try, I really do. but I have no idea what I’m supposed to hold on to in a world that’s spun wildly out of control. The ground rolls beneath my feet, wind rips through my hair and tangles in my clothes while lightning sizzles along my every nerve ending.
I’m caught in a maelstrom of my own making, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do to make it stop.
And through it all, I hold the bloodstone in my hand, its strangely sharp edges digging into my palm. Drops of my own blood are streaming into the tumult now, and that might be the freakiest thing about this whole experience.
I want to let the stone go, need to let it go, but the voice deep inside me—the Unkillable Beast or something even older, I don’t know—keeps telling me to hold on to the stone just a little bit longer. So I do, even as it feels like the world is going mad around me.
And then, just as suddenly as it started, the bloodstone cracks in half and everything stops. The wind, the quake, the electricity, and the spinning magical items, all gone in the blink of an eye.
I feel it then, another wrenching deep inside me. This one is different from what I felt with Jaxon, though. This one feels less like my entire soul is being ripped to shreds and more like something is finally sliding back into place.
I stand frozen for several seconds, unable to move or breathe or even think. But then I realize that it’s over, that it’s really over, and I close my eyes. Let the bloodstone fall to the ground at my feet. And breathe, just breathe.
Until it hits me that what I’m feeling is emptiness…because Hudson is gone.
111
Talk About a
Power Trip
There’s no more sarcastic voice in my head, no watchful presence, nothing but my own thoughts and memories rattling around up there.
He’s really gone.
I whirl around, shout, “Hudson—” Then freeze, because there he is, standing right in front of me.
Same Armani trousers and burgundy silk dress shirt.
Same Brit boy hair.
Same brilliant blue eyes.
Only the smile is different—his usual sardonic smirk replaced by a tiny, uncertain twist of his lips.
Oh, and his smell. His smell is new, too. But can I just say, holy hell? How could this guy have lived in my head for all those months and I not have a clue that he smells like this?
Like ginger and sandalwood and warm, inviting amber…and confidence. He smells like confidence.
“Hi, Grace.” He gives me the little two-fingered wave he used to do all the time in my head that always exasperated me. Somehow, in person, it’s just as bad.
“Hudson. You’re…” I trail off, not sure what to say to him now that he’s right in front of me.
Now that he’s real.
“Listen to me, Grace. There’s no more time.” He glances behind him, toward the stadium, where the screams have finally died down. We can hear the king over the loudspeaker, trying to get everyone calm and settled. Telling them the Trial will start in two minutes…if Grace Foster bothers to show up.
“I have to go,” I tell him, the urgency he’d had all along suddenly beating in my blood.
“I know,” he answers. “That’s why you need to listen to me. I left my powers inside you so that—”
“You left your powers inside me? Why? How do I get them out?”
“I’ll accept them back from you eventually. I’m just loaning them to you for a while. You’re a conduit, remember? You channel magic, and I’ve given you mine to channel for now.”