“I’ve got a demon curse to give you,” he breathed for me alone, green eyes turbulent as his wild magic seeped from his fingers and sent tendrils of power I couldn’t use through me, tingling, warming, seductive. “I’ve been carrying it since the arch fell. Ku’Sox gave it to me. I had to take it to free him. It doesn’t do anything to me but give me a headache. You, though, I think it will work on.”

Ku’Sox? I went cold, the memory of an elven assassin singing me to death rising high in me, pulled into existence by Trent’s magic seeping through me like a soporific, soothing even as excitement sparked from his touch. I’d almost died under wild magic. And now he wanted to give me Ku’Sox’s curse with it? I was a fool. Elves fought demons. He’d used me again.

Trent leaned in closer, his hand light on my shoulder. “Once I give it to you, you can—”

“No!” I cried, my bound hands coming up to shove him away, but Trent had grabbed me, his eyes looking behind me. “I’d sooner get a lobotomy,” I said, scared. “You son of—”

Agony exploded in my knees as something hit me from behind, exactly where the guards in Alcatraz had gotten me. Gasping in pain, I crumpled, my knees exploding. I looked up, finding Trent staring down at me, his brow pinched, his unsaid words swallowed in frustration.

“Curse her,” Oliver said as I tried to breathe. “And hurry up about it,” he added.

Squinting in pain, I looked up when Trent’s shadow fell over me. “You not trusting me is going to get you killed,” he said, his expression grim as he bent to lift me up, failing when I refused to cooperate. “As I was saying, take the bloody curse and give it back to Ku’Sox.”

My muscles went slack, and my mouth opened in an O of surprise. Give it to Ku’Sox? That would mean I’d have to, like…touch him!

Seeing my understanding, Trent stopped trying to get me to stand up and turned to the audience. A gold-tinted wash of ever-after sprang up around us, and as the watching people chanted in unison to show their collective spirit, I felt the tingle of wild elven magic spark through me again, making me tremble. Ku’Sox wanted to dissect me. And Trent thought I could hold him still long enough to curse him? Was he nuts, or just tragically overestimating my abilities?

Trent was inside the circle with me, and I tried to get up, falling back against it when he shoved me back down. “No,” I pleaded, my hands bound before me, but he began to chant, low and under his breath as he gathered his magic. I took a wild breath, collapsing slowly when a wave of lassitude spilled into me, carried by his music, circling over and over in my mind, becoming my world. Wild magic. Oh no…

It promised peace, and even as I tried to fight it, my eyes slipped shut against the harsh glare. My soul hurt and needed to heal. Too much had happened, and I wanted it all to be over. That’s what the magic promised, and I wanted it even as I fought its peace.