Page 48 of Of Flames and Crows

Mae sighed. “We don’t really have a choice. This involves Oscar and the Dark Council. We can’t let them carry on doing whatever they’re planning to do with Fire Magic users.” She glanced at Filomena where the familiar perched on the coffee table. “Besides, not helping her sorcerer would leave a bitter taste in my mouth.”

“I agree,” Brimstone said.

Nikolai and the others dipped their chins.

“What about Cortes?” Vlad asked Mae guardedly. “Is what he’s asking of you even possible?”

Lines wrinkled Mae’s brow. “I’m not sure. But if anyone can fix his core, it’s either me or Azazel.”

Brimstone’s ears pricked forward. Alastair squawked out a warning.

Filomena screeched, flipped onto her back, and started convulsing.

* * *

Mae jumped to her feet,alarm twisting her gut. She could sense something within the chameleon’s core. Something that reeked of Hell’s corruption.

“What’s happening to her?!” Nikolai said.

“I don’t know!”

The sorcerer moved to touch the familiar.

“Don’t,” Brimstone warned. “Her core is unstable!”

As if to prove his point, flames detonated around Filomena.

Mae’s eyes widened.Her Fire Magic is out of control!

She clenched her jaw, tapped into the power simmering inside her body, and raised a hand.“Contain!”

Her spell enclosed Filomena inside a barrier that bottled up the blaze that would have spread through the suite.

A choked sound left Nikolai. Mae’s head whipped around.

Fear squeezed her heart.

He was bent over, his features distorted in pain. A haze blossomed around him. Hellfire sparked into life on Alastair’s body. The crow’s wings burst into flames with a whoosh.

Violet and Miles cursed and jumped out of the way. Their familiars’ eyes flashed with magic.

“Contain!” the two of them barked at the same time as Mae repeated her spell.

Their magic wrapped Nikolai and Alastair in a layered cage.

“Brim, what’s going on?!” Mae said, her voice trembling with trepidation.

The fox’s eyes radiated demonic power where he stood over her, his energy and that of Hellreaver flooding her veins and augmenting her own.

“It seems their cores are still linked to Filomena’s magic. And hers is connected to her sorcerer’s.”

Mae glanced at the chameleon where she twitched and jerked within the sphere containing her. Dread knotted her shoulders.

Something must have happened to Roman!

Nikolai fell to his knees, hands grasping his belly. He met their gazes, his own wild with horror. “I—I can’t control it!”

Hellfire flared in his pupils. Mae’s stomach plummeted when she felt the magic building inside him.

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