“We know this must be very hard for you to hear, Apprentice Angelique,” Enchanter Crest said in a soothing voice. He didn’t even have the decency to look at Evariste.
“You’ve been the most loyal of pupils,” Enchantress Primrose added, shooting Enchanter Tristisim a glare when he snorted.
Angelique ignored the Council and turned to Evariste, studying him.
The shadows were back around his eyes, and he stared at the Council without any expression.
Angelique narrowed her eyes.
“We can show you all our records once Lord Enchanter Evariste has been processed,” Enchanter Tristisim said. He jostled his elbow into Lazare’s side, waking the ancient enchanter up.
“What? Who?” The enchanter squinted in the bright light. “Oh, Evariste’s here, is he?”
There are so many things that feel wrong right now.
Angelique ignored the Council and kept her gaze on Evariste. “You may recall I told you Lady Enchantress Lovelana thinks there’s a mole in the Veneno Conclave,” she said to her teacher in a lowered tone.
Evariste turned to face her, a sort of jaded smile crossing his lips. “Oh?”
“Yes,” Angelique said. “I think I know who it is.”
Evariste shut his eyes and tucked his chin.
“Apprentice Angelique,” Enchantress Felicienne started. “We authorize you to take Lord Enchanter Evariste into custody.”
“He’ll need to be taken into the secured rooms, lest anyone be tempted to break him out,” Enchanter Crest added.
“Oh—we’re on to that, are we?” Enchanter Lazare stretched his arms out in front of him and groaned. “Make a move, girl.”
Angelique smiled. “I am.”
Chapter 34
Angelique let her war magic flood her. She felt it pool behind her eyeballs and tumble around her like the froth of a waterfall, lighting the area up in silver.
Enchantress Primrose sighed. “I wish it hadn’t come to this, Lord Enchanter Evariste.”
Angelique nudged her magic, which slithered from her. “Me, too.”
Enchanter Lazare squinted at her. “Eh?”
Angelique extended her hand, and six swords—yanked from the war mages posted outside Hallowed Hall by her bottomless magic—drilled through the wooden door, blowing it to smithereens.
A snap of her magic, and she flung the blades at the Council.
One of the Lady Enchantresses screamed, and Lord Enchanter Crest yelled as the weapons found their mark.
Enchanter Tristisim and Enchantress Felicienne trembled with fear. Their faces were white, and they shook as they stared at the two swords that had impaled themselves hilt-deep through their chairs, about one finger’s thickness away from their necks.
Enchanter Crest, Enchanter Lazare, Enchantress Primrose, and Enchantress Galendra stared at Angelique from behind the safety of iridescent green shields—a shield that Angelique was greatly familiar with, given her fight with Acri and her lengthy meetings with their creator, the Chosen mage Nefari.
The light of the shield cast a sicky green hue over Crest, Lazare, Primrose, and Galendra, and their faces conveyed varying levels of horror as the swords—still coated in Angelique’s magic, pressed so sharply against the shields, they dimpled the shields’ surfaces.
It’s them. They’re part of the Chosen.
Angelique opened herself to her magic, blinking when her senses expanded as her magic scrabbled to ensnare everything from a sharp rock fragment dropped in a darkened corner to the spoke of her own belt buckle.
Two of the war mages poked their heads through the dilapidated doors, which hung by one hinge each.
“Don’t just stand there!” Primrose pointed at Angelique with a shaking finger. “She’s gone mad! Subdue her! She—” She broke off in a high-pitched scream when Angelique reached out with her magic.
She combined the sharpened edge of her magic with a spell, and cut clean through the massive wooden table that the Council Members shared. A twist of her magic, and she yanked Enchanter Tristisim and Enchantress Felicienne through the openings in the table, dragging their chairs across Hallow Hall so they skidded to a stop by the doors.
The pair shouted and held on to their chairs with grips so tight, their knuckles were white.
“Protect Tristisim and Felicienne—and Evariste,” Angelique shouted to the war mages.
The silver-haired war mage darted in front of the two Council Members, his own magic—amber in color—covering his hands as he loaded a bolt into his crossbow.
Angelique held her breath. This was the moment she found out just how much the war mages trusted her and believed in her.
The war mage lifted his crossbow, pointing it at Enchanter Crest. “The others?”
Relief briefly caressed Angelique in the middle of the sizzle of magic—they believed her. They’d help her. “They’re with the Chosen. The black mages.”
“Right. Mages—you heard her!” The silver-haired war mage shouted.
The rest of the war mages moved into a protective formation behind him, standing around Felicienne and Tristisim with steely expressions and glittering magic.
Angelique flexed her fingers as she let more of her magic flood her, and her skin started to tingle as it slid up and down her body, alluring in its potency. “Evariste, the war mages will protect you!”
“How’d you know?”
Angelique peeled her eyes from the traitorous Council Members long enough to gawk at Evariste. “What?”
“How did you know they were lying, and that I wasn’t colluding?” Evariste—the stubborn idiot—had his legs planted as he stared her down.
Angelique ripped her satchel off and tossed it at Evariste. “I spent fourteen years with you, and it took me six years to find you. Do you really think I’d be so stupid—and disloyal—to just believe them?”
Evariste caught her satchel and smiled fully and brightly at her. For a moment, it felt like he brimmed with magic like he usually did.
But while the feeling made her eyes ache, she knew it was only temporary. And she wasn’t going to let the Chosen get away this time. “Stop smiling and go!” Angelique pointed to the war mages, then vaulted over the wooden railing, landing in a crouch.
Her magic swept around her like a wave, buzzing against her skin as her senses spread through the room, compliments of all the edged objects under her control.
“How dare you raise your magic against us,” Enchanter Crest shouted. “You’ll be stripped of your title—”
Angelique prowled across the room and poured more of her magic into the swords that were increasingly digging into the shields, creating tiny cracks and chips. “Your green shields reveal where your allegiance stands as I met the Chosen mage who made them. Unfortunately for you, I won’t let another member of the Chosen escape me.”
Angelique’s smile was sharp, and with a snap of her fingers, splinters, sharpened rocks, even a few quills pummeled the iridescent green shields.
Galendra squealed. “We have to run! She’s going to kill us!”
“She hasn’t the control for it,” Lazare snarled.
“Who needs control when you have power?” Angelique stopped just short of their battered and broken desk.