It all mixes together as I finally stand tall, ignoring the bruises and the small, broken pieces of me that litter the ground around us.
Cole’s smug smile falters as he looks at me, but I don’t know why. Probably because he’s not used to anyone standing up to him, least of all the little human girl he’s been messing with since the day she got here.
The little human girl who has turned out to be so much more than any of us ever expected.
Something akin to fear flashes across his face. But then the witches rush to his aid, wands raised as the three of them hit me with spell after spell.
But I’m in my gargoyle form—imbued with a vampire’s power—and every spell they throw at me just rolls right off. Delphina hits me with an icy blast so powerful that it should chip a few more parts of me away—or at least rock me back on my heels. But it does neither, and as I take a step forward, I realize that the foot I’m looking down at doesn’t belong to me. Or at least not normal-size me.
Because with every single spell they send my way, I’m growing larger.
With every chunk of ice Delphina spits at me, I’m becoming taller and stronger, my stone becoming more and more impenetrable.
This is Hudson’s power? I wonder as I take a second step forward.
This is what he can do?
But something inside me—my gargoyle or Hudson’s power or some weird amalgamation of both—whispers no. Whispers that what’s happening right now is something else entirely. Something no one has ever seen before—but it doesn’t give me a clue about what it is.
Delphina hits me with one more blast of ice, right before Violet and Cam and Simone stand together, faces frightened and wands raised. I don’t know what they have planned, and I don’t care. All I want is to get to the goal and end this game once and for all.
But together they cast a spell that has long red ribbons flying through the air at me, wrapping themselves around me, binding my free arm to my side and the arm cradling the ball to my chest.
I don’t know how they could possibly imagine for one second that these flimsy bindings would hold me, magical or not. I rip them away with barely a thought and keep walking, as the ribbons disintegrate into a million pieces of confetti that flutter and float around me.
And that’s when it happens, when Cole and Quinn launch themselves at me. They are back in their werewolf forms, growling and snarling and clawing as they try to grab on to any part of me that might actually hurt. Any part of me that they imagine might bring me down.
But I don’t have time for them. I don’t have time for any of this pettiness anymore, and I wave a hand to shoo them away. They fall to the ground, whimpering and nearly formless, and I realize that simple wave of my hand has broken nearly every bone in their bodies to slivers.
They’re crying when they change back to human form to help mend their bones, but I don’t pay any more attention to them. As long as they don’t bother me, I won’t bother them.
I turn to the others, prepared to cut off another attack if necessary, but they’re not coming near me. They’re just watching me in horrified astonishment…which works for me.
But Delphina makes one last pass at me, diving out of the sky as fast as she can, talons aimed straight for my heart. With nothing more than a thought, with a wave of my hand, she disappears.
And the crowd roars even louder. Not because I’ve killed her, although I easily could have. But because she’s re-formed in the infirmary tent on the sidelines. So strange to imagine I could have dealt a mortal blow with a mere thought.
I’m only a few steps away from the goal now, and with each step I take, I shrink a little more, until I’m back down to my normal size.
I pause before I cross, though, and hold the ball up to the audience, in the same way Nuri did. I challenge each and every one of them to hold it as long as I have—which by now must be at least ten minutes, including the time it was trapped, incendiary and vibrating, under my broken body.
Then I shift back to my human form, so that as I step across the bloodred goal line, it’s Grace—just Grace—who is walking the ball across it.
Grace, just Grace, who has somehow managed to beat Cole, beat the Circle, beat the king, and beat the odds.
It’s a good feeling.
As I cross the goal, the arena erupts in cheers and stomping, and I can’t help taunting the king. I offer him the comet. I didn’t think the noise could become more deafening, but it does. Somehow it does. Nuri dips her head in respect, and I wink at her. Then drop the comet onto the ground.
But that last blast of Hudson’s power has decimated me, and the moment the words ring out across the stadium that I’m the winner, I stop. I just stop.
And then fall to my knees as wave after wave of exhaustion rolls right over me.
121
And the Crowd
Goes Wild
It’s over. It’s finally over. That’s all I can think as the world around me goes wild.
I want to get back up, want to check on Jaxon and Hudson and Macy and Flint and Eden and Mekhi and Gwen—all casualties in the battles that have gotten me here, to this moment—but I’m too tired to so much as turn my head. Too tired to do anything but lie here and try to absorb everything that’s just happened.
The crowd is screaming and stomping so loudly that it feels like the arena itself is going to crack wide open. Students are cheering, faculty are clapping, and even most of the Circle are looking at me like they might have underestimated me.
It’s a little strange considering how, less than an hour ago, it felt like everyone in this place was against me. Suspicious, angry, convinced that I didn’t belong here…and now they’re cheering for me like I’m actually one of their own.
And the only thing that’s changed is I actually won the Circle’s little Trial.
I’m still me, still Grace. Half-human, half-gargoyle girl. Only now they seem to think I belong.
Interesting, considering I’ve never wanted to belong less. Never wanted anything more than to simply walk away from this stadium and never look back.
There are only eight people in this entire place who I actually care about—everyone else can go straight to hell.
Ironic? Yes. Something I need to deal with right now? Not even close.
So I drop what I sincerely hope is my last entry into the “Shit I Don’t Have Time For Today” file, then rest my head on the ground and breathe. Just breathe.
I’m going to get up—I am—just as soon as I’m certain that my legs can support me. Turns out doing the entire test on my own and then following it up with some kind of mega power explosion takes a lot out of a girl…especially with the night I had.