She’s doing it.
Angelique’s magic burned around her with the light of a shooting star. The silver of her eyes glowed, and her magic spiraled under her feet and filled up the room.
She’s always been powerful, but when did she become this skilled? How long have I been captured?
Evariste laughed as Angelique pushed her entire forearm into the mirror.
No wonder the Chosen fear her! I cannot wait to see her beat them!
“Take my hand!” she shouted.
Evariste stared into her eyes—which raged silver with her power—and felt the enormous pressure of her magic even through the mirror’s surface.
A part of him still couldn’t believe that she was here—alone!
I’ve missed her for so long, and she’s helped me more than she likely knows with her magic, and she’s finally here.
“I love you!” the words were out of his mouth before he could rethink them.
Angelique squinted a little and tipped her head at that specific angle she used whenever she wasn’t sure what he had said.
She didn’t hear me.
He wasn’t sure if his relief or disappointment was stronger.
Before she could ask what he said, he grabbed Angelique’s hand, his eyes briefly fluttering shut when—for the first time in what felt like a decade—he touched another human being.
“Take my hand!” Angelique shouted, desperately hoping Evariste would hear her over the wind gusts.
Evariste said something—she couldn’t quite tell what—but his hand folded shut around hers, and Angelique almost cried. She wasn’t sure if it was the pain or the familiar feel of his hand, this was the assurance she needed to know it was really Evariste.
Angelique rolled her shoulders back, then flicked her eyes up to the giant red gem on the top of the mirror.
Sybilla thinks I need to disrupt it to get him out? Fine. I can do that.
“Go,” Angelique said.
Her magic flowed through her, channeling down her arm and straight into the mirror’s interior, piercing it through with silver. Always enthusiastic in its deadliness, it splashed past Evariste, pouring into the mirror with the crispness of a sword thrust.
The mirror’s overbearing presence lifted. It didn’t retreat entirely, but under the invasion of her powers—bolstered by her hold on nearly every weapon inside the palace—the mirror shifted its focus to her magic.
“Enough!” the mirror hissed.
It tried to block her powers, but her magic sliced straight through its resistance.
I don’t have enough power to totally overwhelm it, but I have more than enough to push it back long enough to get Evariste out!
Angelique set her shoulders, and then pulled on Evariste’s hand, holding her breath as her arm passed back through the jelly-like surface. Her wrist passed through, then her palm, and then Evariste’s fingers!
She could hardly believe it as she pulled his arm out. Her heart beat faster and faster as Evariste tested it, pushing a booted foot against the surface, passing through it without resistance.
“No!” the mirror snarled.
It launched its magic at Evariste’s back while he was mostly still inside the mirror.
But Angelique’s magic hadn’t stopped flowing. And while she’d lose in a long fight, her magic wasn’t even nearing the bottom of her resources.
Rather, she felt more alive than she had in ages.
It only took a tiny nudge to her magic, and it pierced the mirror’s attack, dismantling it as it relentlessly pounded the artifact. Rivers of her magic pooled around her feet, flowing out from her in a star-like shape.
But no matter how much her magic saturated the room, she couldn’t quite seem to match the mirror’s power. She needed to finish this fast, or she’d lose him. Again.
Every muscle in her body trembled as she dragged Evariste so he was halfway out. Even with her magic’s undisturbed attack, the mirror’s magic clung to him, actively trying to drag him back.
No, you don’t. I’ve come too far, practiced too hard, and have searched too long to let a mirror keep him from me—artifact or not!
Angelique sucked in air between her clenched teeth and cut off contact with her magic. The unnumbered weapons that littered her mind disappeared.
Her magic was out only for a moment, but it was all the chance the mirror needed. Unfettered, it unleashed more of its magic—rapidly dropping the temperature of the room so the sweat that beaded on Angelique’s brow froze.
Angelique sank deep into the spring of her magic. It stretched around her like an ocean—placid and calm despite the battle around her.
And then—as she’d practiced countless times with Puss and later Quinn—she collected as much as she could possibly hold (so much that her skin tingled) and released it in one electrified bolt.
She yelled as she unleashed it—her consciousness once again filling with the glittering knowledge of all the weapons in the palace.
The concentration of her magic was so thick and so sudden, the air felt sharp as her powers gushed to the outskirts of Glitzern. It burned through the coin bespelled by Stil to slightly change her features, hitting the coin with such fierceness, it burned in her tunic and must have cracked in half. The attack was relentless, and it cut through the mirror’s horrible magic.
With one final, desperate pull, Angelique jerked Evariste out of the mirror, managing to swing him behind her so she stood between him and the awful artifact.
She clutched Evariste’s hand so tightly, she had to have been hurting him, but she didn’t dare let go. No—she’d never let go! At least not for days.
The mirror’s surface swirled.
“Evariste…”
“No,” Angelique vowed in a voice tight with passion. “Never again!”
She snapped her left leg up and kicked with everything she had, knocking the mirror backwards.
It didn’t crack—it was too infused with magic for that—but it made a resounding crash that was quite satisfying.
Angelique was fairly certain Evariste exhaled a single breath of laughter, but she swung around and looked past him, her consciousness prickling with the awareness of the armored constructs, and their less-potent companions in the halls and galleys around the palace.
The mirror’s magic was still present—it was as cold as Verglas in the throne room, and the wind whipped hard enough to make Angelique’s eyes sting. But Angelique was used to the coldness of her own magic, so she barely registered it as her powers twined around her.
I’m not sick from my price yet—that means I have to strike now!
Angelique pulled her hand back as she mentally sorted through all the sharp-edged things her magic had claimed, picking out the armored constructs’ swords—which would probably be the only things strong enough to harm them—and all the arrows, swords, crossbow bolts, spears, and weapons the Mullberg soldiers and guards wielded, which she could feel but not see.
She gently tugged the weapons from the soldiers’ hands, dragging them into the air with the obsidian constructs’ swords.
Her mind buzzed with information as she held the weapons high above everyone, stretching her awareness so she could aim with the same precision she used to create her pin pictures.
Then, at once, she released it.
The weapons dropped, falling on their carefully chosen targets.