“I know,” he says, “but I failed to do this once before. Sometimes no choice is a gift… and, sorry, but he has to bleed.”

He yanks Ethan’s head up by the hair and runs the final blade across his throat.

I become nothing but blood. It blinds me. I breathe it in. It slips into my mouth, open and screaming for him to stop.

My skin burns with it, boiling the blood that keeps on coming. I can’t find air. I’m not sure I need it anymore. There is only blood and the thirsty magic inside me, calling it, licking it from my skin. Magic rips through me, hot and cold, tingling and numbing all at once. I close my eyes, afraid the pressure will blow them from my skull. Before I do, someone rips Roman away from me. Was he holding my hand? My fingernails cut through the skin of my palms. My bones buck, trying to escape my own skin as the power threads into them, tying them down, taming them, making promises as it sings its soothing, violent song.

Finally, it ends, and I am left a throbbing ball of magic.

My heart stutters under the weight of power, and the power forces it to continue on.

Lucius rocks back on his heels where he’s crouched beside me. I notice the black band that’s tight around my stinging wrist. I blink at the red jewel at its center puncturing my skin, feeding my blood with the power it soaks from the garden.

There’s not a drop of blood on me. The spell swallowed it all.

I gag and push Ethan from me like he is nothing. His head thuds on the floor, and I wince. Pulling myself to my knees, I look up at Lucius, who stands above me now like an angel of frost in cold white. His eyes glitter like ice as he watches me with a mixture of anger and disappointment. Finally, he bares his teeth in something that might be called a smile but isn’t.

This was supposed to be the moment I proved myself as his heir. Instead, I hesitated. I showed compassion. I showed I’m not him.

“Welcome, Ava, to the Society of True Magicians. You are one of us now. You will be forever.” His last sentence rings with a threat.

A few in the crowd clap. They do love a good show, and Roman gave them a twist they didn’t see coming. More grumble until Lucius holds his hand up for silence. “Rules are rules, and she is the last one standing.” His lip curls as he turns away from me to Roman, and my skin goes cold despite the barely contained inferno of magic raging inside me. “You, however, will be punished.”