He took a step toward her and stumbled, his smile fading a little. “You don’t understand my motivation. I’m leaving this place.” He said this place like someone might say maggot. “I’m going home to my people, to the places I remember and love.” He stumbled again, but then straightened and walked steadily for her, as if gaining strength from the very idea of returning home. “I refuse to die.”

Isabelle backed up farther and farther. She simply couldn’t stop herself. It took every ounce of her willpower not to run, just as it seemed to take every ounce of Boyle’s not to die and keep slowly advancing on her. The bad thing was that she suspected Boyle’s will was stronger than hers.

However, the copper she’d injected into him was taking its toll. If Micah’s theory was correct, the copper was eating him up from the inside out. His body struggled to heal itself and regenerate tissue, just as he did with the external injuries inflicted with copper weapons. But copper taken internally would be far more harmful. Now it was simply a question of which was stronger, the killing effect of the liquid copper or his body’s healing ability.

She kept her gaze on Boyle’s shuffling feet as he neared her, completely unable to look up into those red, burning eyes—the ones that told her the end was near. “What tells you the sacrifice of five witches is all right? Because you have killed five, haven’t you, Boyle? You took another one before me.”

Shuffle. Pause. Shuffle. “Six witches. You haven’t yet discovered the third I killed. The one after your sister.

Her stomach lurched.

“You are aeamon, only half-breeds. It’s like slaughtering cattle, like hunting. It is nothing to kill you. Some aeamon I might take a liking to, like a human might care for a pet. I have taken such a liking to you.” Shuffle. Pause. “But make no mistake; I will still kill my dog if it means I can go home.”

Boyle stopped about five feet from her. Isabelle had backed herself up against the wall that had been farthest from him. The metal felt smooth and cool through her T-shirt.

“And the doorway? How does it work?” Her voice sounded hoarse and ravaged, as if she’d smoked a pack a day for the last twenty years. Really, she was just trying to stall, hoping the copper would do its work.

“I suppose you are owed an explanation. It appropriates the magick of the witches I sacrifice. Certain types of magick in certain amounts at certain times. Some witches I was able to take remotely, some I had to kill here. You, the last, must be killed in close proximity to the doorway.”