She meant it as a taunt, but there was truth in it that made me hesitate before I planned my next course of action. It was too long a delay, as she soon cast what I recognized as the same spell that had frozen Eddie. That one was too complex for me to fully follow, but it gave me the opportunity to dodge and block it. I then opted for a different kind of freezing—a literal one, as I sent a wave of ice her way. It wasn’t nearly as lethal as a fireball, but it also wouldn’t add to the already-spreading fire. Alicia responded with the mirror spell, sending the ice back my way. I ducked, and the ice landed in part of the burning room beside me. Rather than diminish the fire, however, it simply made the smoke grow thicker.

“You must be getting tired,” she teased.

She was right. I still had plenty of magic in me, but this active combat was exhausting. Ms. Terwilliger’s words came back to me: She wants an easy fight. That’s what Alicia was doing, trying to wear me down with magic so she could cast the spell that finished me. With the stolen life and magic she had, this battle wouldn’t exhaust her as quickly.

“Alicia, we don’t have to fight,” I said. “Please. Let’s stop this and get out of here before this place burns down. Tell me where Jill is, release Eddie, and we can be on our way.”

“Stop this? After you tried to kill me?”

“I only—”

Not caring about making the flames worse, Alicia hurled another fireball at me. I was tempted to try the mirroring spell and send it back to her, but she was too close to Eddie for my comfort.

“You’re too much of a threat, Sydney,” she said as I neutralized the fireball with a water spell. “I can’t allow you to leave. I’m going to let this building burn down around you, just like you left me to burn in that house.”

The floor rippled beneath me again, causing me to fall once more. She began speaking a complicated incantation, one I recognized as the start of the spell that had frozen Eddie in place. That was her plan. Make me into a living statue and leave me in this burning building, paralleling what I’d done to her. Desperately, I scrambled to my feet, needing to get out of the way of the spell. As she finished speaking, I saw something incredible: Malachi Wolfe, standing in the doorway to the burning room. His eye patch was on his right eye (it changed from day to day), and there were pieces of rope around his wrists and ankles as though he’d been bound.