"Don't move," Kumori's quiet voice said. She was stretched out quite a bit to be pulling my hair and holding the knife, but she'd done it right. There was no way I could try to escape her without her opening an artery. I ground my teeth, my power still ready to lash out again, and debated doing exactly that. Kumori would probably kill me, but it might be worth it to finish Cowl.

I looked up at the writhing vortex. Its tip was now barely above the height of my own head.

Cowl recovered his feet by slow degrees, shaken more than hurt, and anger radiated from him in nearly palpable waves. "Idiot," he said, voice harsh. "You have lost. Can you not see? This game is over."

"Don't do this," I growled. "It isn't worth it. You're going to kill thousands of innocent people."

Cowl's hood tilted up toward the descending vortex, and he marched over the grass until he stood directly beneath it. "Keep him still," he snapped to Kumori.

"Yes, lord," Kumori replied. The steel at my throat never wavered.

Cowl's hand dipped into a pouch at his side, and came out holding Bob the skull. The lights in the skull's eye sockets burned a cold shade of blue and violet.

"There, spirit," Cowl said, holding the skull up to see the vortex. "Do you see it?"

"Of course," said the skull, his voice just as cold and empty. "It is precisely as the master described. Proceed." The eye lights swiveled and came to rest on me. "Ah. The White Council's black sheep. I recommend that you kill him immediately."

"No," Kumori said firmly. "His death curse could destroy the working."

"I know that," the skull replied, his voice contemptuous. "But if he lives when Cowl draws down the power he might disrupt it. Kill him now."

"Silence, spirit," Cowl said in a harsh voice. "You are not the master here. Challenge me again at your own peril."

The skull's eye sockets burned colder yet, but he said nothing.

I swallowed. Bob… wasn't Bob anymore. I'd known that he was bound and beholden to whoever possessed the skull he resided within, and that their personality would strongly influence his own—but I'd never really imagined what that might be like. Bob wasn't precisely a friend to me but… I was used to him. In a way he was family, the mouthy, annoying, irritable cousin who was always insulting you but who was definitely at Thanksgiving dinner. I had never considered the possibility that one day he might be something else.

Something murderous.