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Because his spiders were scuttling past an all-too familiar figure pinned up against the wall, swathed in layer upon layer of silky cobwebs that wove around two empty sconces on either side. Her face was the only thing still visible, mouth open in a perpetual scream. On display like one of her insect displays in her classroom.
Mrs. Smetlar.
Dead.
“Who could have done this?” Emelle whispered, and the face of a very particular instructor popped into my head. After visiting her house in the Wild Whisperer sector last year, I’d recognize Ms. Pincette’s work anywhere.
I swept away the thought. Dissecting how she’d snuck ahead of us to do it and where she was now was a mystery for later. Coen nodded his agreement and said out loud, “Doesn’t matter. This woman was one of our enemies anyway. Let’s keep going.”
We did. Finally, the spiders swarmed up another stairwell to a sliding metal door that had been latched shut. Whips were piled on the floor right before it. Chains were coiled in heaps. A single metal chair lay on its side, as if an elite on guard duty had jumped up and abandoned the end of this corridor in a rush.
“Is Dyonisia…?”
“In there,” Coen nodded, eyes on the sliding metal door. “She has to be. As are the rest of her elites.”
When I instinctively touched my thigh where my knife sheath had been stolen, Coen shook his head and cupped my face.
“You’ve been fighting for longer than any of us have, via. You’ve been so, so brave, and you’ve got enough blood on you.” His pupils guttered, jaw clenched as if prepared to grind anyone who touched me to dust. “You don’t have to fight any more today.”
He knew. Knew that physically, I couldn’t even keep standing for much longer, let alone keep fighting. In the last twenty-four hours, I’d escaped Wasteon, faced exile and torture and that other thing Dyonisia had inflicted upon me that I couldn’t bring myself to think about right now, and battled Free Will.
Still, I shook my head.
“I need to be here. I need to see her go down.”
“I know.”
Coen kissed my forehead, a sly smile creeping over his features as he snatched the overturned chair and set it on its feet, facing it toward the door. He dipped his head at me in reverence.
“So sit down and enjoy the show.”
CHAPTER
61
RAYNA
My heart trilled, and I sank into the chair.
Coen gave a curt nod to those beside him. The sliding door burst open as if someone had just pummeled a giant fist into it—a combination of magics from those around us that sent metal shards spraying outward.
A cavernous room yawned wide beyond the opening like the belly of an underground beast. Several hundred elites stood in trembling lines, blocking a final sphere of antipower on the other end of the giant space.
They didn’t stand a chance.
“Attack,” Coen said calmly.
With a whoop, Kanuk and his warriors charged, followed by Nara and Barberro. Powers clashed among them, chaotic flashes of the elements or whizzing objects that morphed midair…
But then the Esholian Institute students streamed past me, knowing exactly how to block and shield and defend.
Whenever fire billowed our way, an Element Wielder was there to douse it in a spray of water. Whenever an elite shifted into something deadlier and stronger, a Shape Shifter was there to smash into them with equal force. Whenever a voice tried to chisel its way into our minds, a Mind Manipulator was there to tear them out again.
All our training over the years, all our tests, had led to this.
My eyes bounced this way and that. I caught a glimpse of Wilder, who had gone red with rage and brought down three elites with just the force of his mind. Lander’s jaguar form ripped into elites left and right. Rodhi’s spiders scurried up legs and sent elites twisting and hollering and writhing. Agathea directed her horde of nocturnal creatures to shred through cloaks and flesh.
Nobody moved more beautifully than Coen, though.
