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The ghosts rushed in the direction he was looking, then one by one, they faded away. I realized then what he’d been seeing. It was a reaper portal. He’d crossed them over the moment the hold the priestesses had over the ghosts had ended.
Lucas looked even paler now. I could tell this much magic was taking a toll on him. Even though he had the Mortana Wand now, he hadn’t utilized it for every spell. He’d been drawing on his own magic this whole time, too. It was a lot of power for one person.
I quickly got to my feet. “Come on! Let’s keep moving.”
We hurried up several flights of stairs, keeping on high alert for another attack by the priestesses, but it never came. We reached the top floor and burst through the door to the Imperium headquarters, only to come face to face not with the priestesses, but with Mandy.
She raced around the room, gathering valuable artifacts that the priestesses had on display. One by one, she subconjured them, until she came to an immediate halt when we charged through the doorway.
The nerve she had! She’d been working with the priestesses this whole time and took our son for them. Now she was robbing them? It was like she was trying to get herself killed. If we didn’t kill her, the priestesses would. It was so unlike her that I could hardly believe what I was seeing.
Mandy didn’t get a chance to open her mouth and defend herself, because Lucas had crossed the room in an instant. He grabbed her with all his strength and slammed her back against the wall. One of his hands curled around her throat, while the other pointed the Mortana Wand straight between her eyes.
Mandy kicked her feet and tried to fight him off, but Lucas was a hell of a lot stronger than her. A blazing fire burned behind Lucas’s eyes, and it was clear to everyone that if Mandy made one wrong move, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill her.
“You kidnapped our son, you evil bitch!” Lucas seethed. “Where are the priestesses? Where have they taken him!?”
Mandy made a choking sound. Lucas loosened his grip on her throat, but he pinned his forearm across her chest so she couldn’t get away. Mandy turned her face away from him without a word.
“ANSWER ME!” Lucas roared. He curled the Mortana Wand in his fist and smashed his knuckles into the wall beside her head. The wall cracked, and the sound echoed down the staircase. Mandy said nothing.
“Don’t want to talk? Fine. We don’t need you to talk.” Lucas cocked his head. “Chloe, Talia, use teleinsight on her. Read her mind.”
The girls lifted their Wands in unison, and the ends glowed. They spoke the incantation and entered a trace.
Chloe’s brow furrowed. “We can’t. It’s like something’s blocking us.”
I narrowed my eyes on the traitor. “The Wands have power over all witch magic. There has to be a power greater than the Oaken Wands working on her. Or something the Wands can’t influence.”
I approached her, and tendrils of blue magic swirled out of my fingers.
“Don’t you fucking touch me!” Mandy growled.
My powers crept over her skin. I felt nothing at first, not even an indication of her Cast, until my magic brushed up against something strange. It was similar to witch magic, but different, too. It vibrated at another frequency, a frequency far too reminiscent of our time in Malovia. It was dark, though—darker than any magic we’d encountered when we visited the fae.
It had to be Unseelie magic, the magic of the dark fae. My eyes fell upon the red gem hanging around her neck. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that was the object giving off the power. It hadn’t ever registered as strange, because Mandy was always wearing jewelry.
“Fucking fae magic!” I sneered. I grabbed the fae amulet and tore it off of her, then tossed it aside. “I see you made a deal with the fae as well as the priestesses.”
Mandy chuckled lightly. “I didn’t have to make a deal with any fae. I found an Unseelie roaming Octavia Falls, trying to get away from the fae war. He wore this amulet to disguise his magic from being detected easily. One sip of tea was all it took to kill him.”
Heat flared through my body. Mandy had never been a killer, so why was she speaking of murder so casually?
“Why would you ever work with the priestesses after what they did to you?” I demanded.
Mandy didn’t answer.
“You can answer willingly, or we’ll make you talk,” I started, but it was at that moment that my magic sensed something else. Now that Mandy was no longer in possession of the fae amulet, I could feel her magic again.
Only… it wasn’t hers.
I took a cautious step back. “I sense Alchemy magic. Mandy’s a Mentalist. Which means…”
“This isn’t Mandy,” Lucas finished for me. His eyes went wide. “All this time, Mandy was never with us to begin with. It was an Alchemist with one hell of a transformation potion.”
Lucas dug the tip of his Wand under Fake Mandy’s jaw. “Tell us everything.”
“Why? So you can just kill me?” the Alchemist said in Mandy’s voice. “You’re not going to let me go now that you know.”
