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Back Black Magic Sanction Save as PDF
Chapters (42)
  1. Title Page
  2. One
  3. Two
  4. Three
  5. Four
  6. Five
  7. Six
  8. Seven
  9. Eight
  10. Nine
  11. Ten
  12. Eleven
  13. Twelve
  14. Thirteen
  15. Fourteen
  16. Fifteen
  17. Sixteen
  18. Seventeen
  19. Eighteen
  20. Nineteen
  21. Twenty
  22. Twenty-one
  23. Twenty-two
  24. Twenty-three
  25. Twenty-four
  26. Twenty-five
  27. Twenty-six
  28. Twenty-seven
  29. Twenty-eight
  30. Twenty-nine
  31. Thirty
  32. Thirty-one
  33. Thirty-two
  34. Thirty-three
  35. Thirty-four
  36. Thirty-five
  37. Thirty-six
  38. Acknowledgements
  39. Also by Kim Harrison
  40. Copyright
  41. About the Publisher
  42. Cover

Ceri’s lips pressed as she saw our united front. “Fine,” she finally said, and the sudden relief almost collapsed my knees. “I don’t agree with this,” she added. “You are all only going to hurt Jenks. Pierce, you’re familiar with twisting curses. I’ll need help to make three quick enough to do some good. You can help.”

Pierce’s expression was a mix of relief and heartache. “Of course,” he said, gesturing for Ceri to accompany him inside. But the elf would have none of his courtesy, and with her head high, she stalked up the stairs and into the house with a loud bang of the screen door.

Ivy exhaled long and slow. Pierce seemed to relax as well, and he touched my arm and smiled. “It’s a curse,” he said, startling me when he leaned in and gave me a chaste kiss on the cheek, leaving me with the scent of redwood swirling in my brain. His steps confident, he rose up the stairs as well, closing the door behind him without a sound. A moment later, the kitchen window slammed shut, feminine fingers on the sill.

The hint was obvious. Stay out.

Shaking, I sat back down. With a sigh, Ivy slipped in to sit across from me. We exchanged a long look, both of us knowing that Ceri and Pierce had the easy part. It was going to be up to us to find a way to convince Jenks that life was worth living when his reason for living was gone. Deciding what to do with the fairies could wait.

Twenty-three

Twenty-three

It was almost noon, and I was still sitting at the picnic table, my upper body slumped against the damp wood and my head down, staring at Jenks’s stump. I’d be dead if Brooke knew the fairy attack had failed and decided to come after me twice in one morning, but I didn’t care. I was waiting for a sign of life from Jenks’s stump, and I wasn’t going inside and possibly miss it. Ivy had gone in to find out how much longer it would be, but that had been, like, five minutes ago.

The spring breeze shifted a curl into my eyes, and I brushed it away, staring, still staring, at the stump as my hip ached from hitting the floor too many times, my arm hurt where the fairy dart had found me, and my fingernails stank of burnt amber. At the end of the table, the fairies were moving around, recovering from their wounds and learning how to walk without their wings, still waiting to learn their fate. The garden was almost silent. Not a bird or insect, not a clatter of wing or pixy wail of mourning. It was eerie, and I sat up, feeling my back crack. “Where is everyone?” I whispered, not expecting an answer.