As one, the Council murmured something, a word or phrase in a language that wasn't remotely familiar. Whatever it was, there was power in it, so much that my hair blew back off my shoulders while I sat dumbly, glued to my seat. Archer's hand landed on mine, warm and heavy, and I was reminded of the first time we'd ever touched, the night of the assembly at Hecate. From the back of the room, I heard Dad say something, his voice sharp as a blade. As stupid as it sounds, I wanted to laugh. Looks like I was final y going to get what I'd come here for after al .
Dad was beside me now, his fingers clamped on one of my shoulders. "Sophie was at Graymalkin with Archer on my orders,"he said, and I immediately grabbed his hand.
"Dad, no!"
But he didn't even glance at me. He kept his gaze locked on Mrs. Casnoff. "I suspected you were the one who had raised Daisy and Nick, and I sent Sophie and Archer to investigate. If anyone should go through the Removal, it should be me."He nodded at Lara. "Being head of the Council has always been your chief desire. I cede it to you freely."He said the same phrase they'd used when handing down mine and Archer's sentences, and once again, a pulse of power went through the room.
This time, the surge felt stronger, and as I watched, the candles in the room guttered, nearly blowing out. Lara took a deep breath and rol ed her shoulders, like something heavy had landed on them. Dad seemed to deflate a little as he said, "Just let Sophie go back to her mother unharmed."
"Oh, James,"Lara said, almost sadly. "Your sacrifice is noble, if pointless and predictable."
Kristopher, Roderick, and Elizabeth were staring at Dad with the same look, a strange combination of pity and disdain. The dread that had been swirling around in me for over a month suddenly came crashing down, strong and heavy, stealing my breath. This was it. The thing I'd felt coming was final y here.
"You've been such a disappointment to us."Lara's gaze flicked to me. "Both of you."
The whole room was silent, but Lara didn't need any encouragement to continue. This was clearly the moment she'd been waiting for. "When my father and Virginia Thorne transformed Alice, they thought they'd created the perfect weapon-a being containing more power than dreamed of, yet completely under their control. Instead, they ended up with a mad, hysterical girl who had to be put down like a dog. Of course, Father stil had such high hopes for Lucy, but she refused to work for the Council. So the Council simply waited until you were old enough, James, and then disposed of your parents."
It took me a second to realize what she was saying. Alexei Casnoff had been Alice's maker, so he'd had control over the whole bloodline. He'd made Lucy kil her husband. My grandfather. And then he'd had her kil ed, too. I was surprised I could hear anything over the sudden rushing of blood in my ears, but Lara was stil talking.
"Father saw the value in using demons in our war against The Eye. Sadly, your grandmother and your mother proved...incapable of being used as weapons. Father had higher hopes for you."
I didn't think it was possible for Dad to look any paler, but as what Lara was saying sunk in, his skin went papery white. Rage and horror coursed through me, and I waited for my magic to surge up, too. But while my powers were swirling in my blood, it was like they were locked in a glass box. I could feel them, but I couldn't access them. "Don't bother,"Roderick said to me. "As soon as you were sentenced to the Removal, your powers were locked away from you. Your father's, too, once he'd spoken the spel of binding. Very useful piece of magic. Otherwise, a witch or warlock could attempt to fight their way out of the Removal."
Next to me, Archer sat up straighter, and I saw tiny blue sparks on his fingertips. I caught his eyes and shook my head. Archer was an amazing fighter, but he wasn't the strongest warlock. If he tried something now, he'd just end up as another stain on the wooden floor.
Lara was stil looking at Dad. "However, my father was a smart man. He kept the ritual used to raise Alice just in case you did not prove yourself to be what we needed. Sadly, you have not. Nor has you daughter. But we have others."
Dad gave a humorless laugh. "Nick and Daisy? They're too feral to be of any use to anyone."
"No,"Mrs. Casnoff said, speaking for the first time since I'd been sentenced. "Nick and Daisy are simply the ones you know about."If it hadn't been Mrs. Casnoff, I would have said her eyes seemed pleading. "You were never going to move aggressively enough against our enemies, James. I know you have personal reasons for that, but we simply couldn't al ow ourselves to be vulnerable any longer."
"This is madness,"Dad said, his voice trembling. "You have given The Eye and the Brannicks, the whole damn lot of them, more reason than ever to exterminate our kind."
"They have infiltrated our kind, James,"Lara said, pursing her lips. "We need every weapon at our disposal."
She was wrong. I could feel it in my bones, but I didn't know if that was the psychic thing or just common sense. Raising demons would be seen as an act of war. There was no doubt in my mind of that. Despair crashed over me as I thought about al the evil this one family had done. Alexei Casnoff had destroyed Alice, Lucy, my grandfather...and now his daughters wanted me and Dad out of the way, too. The whole thing was so insane, I didn't know whether to laugh or scream.
But that decision was made for me when Lara nodded toward the back of the room and two of the vampire guards, maybe the same I'd seen last night, stepped out of the shadows and grabbed Dad.
"No!"I shouted, but the guards were already dragging him to the door.
"I'l be fine,"Dad said, holding my gaze. His voice didn't shake, but I saw fear in his eyes.
I stared at him, my panicked mind trying to come up with something, anything, to say to him. After al , this could be the last time I saw him. But my brain was ful of too much terror, and al I could say was, "Dad."
And then he was gone, the slamming of the door echoing in the dark chamber.
Archer and I were taken to the lowest part of Thorne and put in one of those cel s Dad had mentioned the other night. They weren't anything like what I'd imagined; I'd been picturing steel bars, a narrow cot-like a prison. Instead, they were just caves with iron doors. We were thrown into one of the larger ones, the white rock wal s slick with moisture, the only light coming from an orb like the one I'd made the other night, hovering high overhead. Power crackled throughout the room-a spel , Archer informed me, that kept anyone held in the cel from doing magic. Apparently he'd discovered that last night.
For a long time, we just sat on the damp floor, holding hands. Somewhere in the house, my dad was being put through a ritual that might kil him. I was next, and by this time tomorrow, Archer would be dead. It was too much to think about, much less talk about, so we didn't speak for the longest time.
I watched the light flicker on the limestone wal s until Archer said, "I wish we could go to the movies."
I stared at him. "We're in a creepy dungeon. There's a chance I might die in the next few hours. You are going to die in the next few hours. And if you had one wish, it would be to catch a movie?"
He shook his head. "That's not what I meant. I wish we weren't like this. You know, demon, demon-hunter. I wish I'd met you in a normal high school, and taken you on normal dates, and like, carried your books or something."Glancing over at me, he squinted and asked, "Is that a thing humans actual y do?"
"Not outside of 1950s TV shows,"I told him, reaching up to touch his hair. He wrapped an arm around me and leaned against the wal , pul ing me to his chest. I drew my legs up under me and rested my cheek on his col arbone. "So instead of stomping around forests hunting ghouls, you want to go to the movies and school dances."
"Wel , maybe we could go on the occasional ghoul hunt,"he al owed before pressing a kiss to my temple. "Keep things interesting."
I closed my eyes. "What else would we do if we were regular teenagers?"
"Hmm...let's see. Wel , first of al , I'd need to get some kind of job so I could afford to take you on these completely normal dates. Maybe I could stock groceries somewhere."
The image of Archer in a blue apron, putting boxes of Nil a Wafers on a shelf at Walmart was too bizarre to even contemplate, but I went along with it. "We could argue in front of our lockers al dramatical y,"I said. "That's something I saw a lot at human high schools."
He squeezed me in a quick hug. "Yes! Now that sounds like a good time. And then I could come to your house in the middle of the night and play music real y loudly under your window until you took me back."
I chuckled. "You watch too many movies. Ooh, we could be lab partners!"
"Isn't that kind of what we were in Defense?"
"Yeah, but in normal high school, there would be more science, less kicking each other in the face."
"Nice."
We spent the next few minutes spinning out scenarios like this, including al the sports in which Archer's L'Occhio di Dio skil s would come in handy, and starring in school plays. By the time we were done, I was laughing, and I realized that, for just a little while, I'd managed to forget what a huge freaking mess we were in.
Which had probably been the point.
Once our laughter died away, the dread started seeping back in. Stil , I tried to joke when I said, "You know, if I do live through this, I'm gonna be covered in funky tattoos like the Vandy. You sure you want to date the Il ustrated Woman, even if it's just for a little while?"
He caught my chin and raised my eyes to his. "Trust me,"he said softly, "you could have a giant tiger tattooed on your face, and I'd stil want to be with you."
"Okay, seriously, enough with the swoony talk,"I told him, leaning in closer. "I like snarky, mean Archer."
He grinned. "In that case, shut up, Mercer."Then he pressed his lips to mine. I was very aware of the fact that this was probably the last time we'd ever kiss, and I think he was, too. The kiss was different than any of the others we'd shared, slower and tinged with desperation. By the time it was over, we were both breathing hard, our foreheads pressed together.
"Sophie,"Archer murmured, but then the heavy iron door opened with a screech.
Kristopher was standing there, his hair blue in the orb's light. He barely seemed to register me and Archer, turning over his shoulder to someone behind him and barking, "In here."
Two dark figures walked into the cel , carrying a bundle between them.
Dad.
He was dressed in a black robe, similar to the one he'd worn the night of my birthday party, and his head lol ed back as the two men-vampires, I realized-lowered him to the ground. At first, al I could see were those marks twining up his neck, spiraling over his cheeks and forehead like poisonous vines. In the gloom, they looked black, but I guessed they were the same dark purple as the Vandy's.
But I didn't care about any of that. Al I cared about was the steady rise and fal of his chest and, when I grabbed his wrist, the thread pulse that beat there. "Dad,"I said softly, but he didn't wake up. I squeezed his hand harder. Something about him felt different, and it took me a minute to realize that what I was feeling were his lack of powers. I'd been so used to tuning in to Dad's magic, like a low-frequency radio station that only I could hear.