Page 63 of Of Flames and Crows

Roman rose and approached the door, his face dark with anger. “How about you stop talking in riddles and tell me what this is about, asshole?!”

Oscar’s eyes widened a little.

“I have to hand it to you, kid,” he said after a pause. “You have guts. And I mean your grandfather being a Bratva general.”

Roman flinched. “Stop with your lies. My grandfather works for a benevolent organiza—!”

Oscar’s laughter drowned out the rest of his words. He doubled over and wheezed, tears streaming down his face at the truth that had dawned on him. A voice had him looking around.

“What are you doing?” Barquiel said curiously, coming down the passage in Rose’s form.

“Nothing much.” Oscar snorted. “This kid here didn’t know who his grandfather is.”

A frowned darkened Rose’s face. “Dietrich just told me.” The demon glanced coldly at the ashen boy standing forlornly behind the bars. “You sure this won’t be a problem? The Dark Council works with a lot of criminal organizations.”

“Come now,” Oscar drawled. “Once we get our hands on Hellfire Magic and unlock theBook of Shadows, not a single crime syndicate will be able to stand up to us.” He manifested another sphere of black magic and sneered. “Besides, I am more than powerful enough to crush any Bratva.”

Crimson gleamed in the demon’s eyes. A smirk lit Rose’s face. “I came here to tell you the decoy worked.”

Oscar stiffened. “You mean, the trap we laid with those bodies?”

Barquiel nodded, Rose’s smile radiating satisfaction. “Even though it took trial and error to figure out we needed to use the cores of Fire Magic users to access Hellfire Magic, those experiments were still worthwhile. I just felt one of the snares activate.” The smile turned savage. “Considering my devils are dead, I bet Mae was the one who triggered it.”

Oscar’s mouth stretched in a matching grin. Drabek growled.

They left, leaving the shocked boy whose world they had just turned upside down still standing motionless inside his cell.

* * *

“It’s been a while,”Marlena told Ludmila.

The old witch grimaced. “I’m afraid events got the better of me. I would have visited sooner otherwise.”

“Tell all the covens in Europe to look for traces of black magic in desolate places,” Mae said in a hard voice. “Cemeteries. Mausoleums. Anywhere close to where magic users have gone missing under strange circumstances.” She clenched her jaw. “But tell them not to disturb any bodies they find.”

Marlena looked at her worriedly. Her terrier woofed, similarly anxious.

They’d reconvened at the Council of the Moon to get their wounds treated. Ludmila and her escort had accompanied them.

“Are you saying that those bodies were bait?” the Vissarion matriarch said sharply from where Klara was tending to her.

“Yes.” Mae ran a hand through her hair. “Brim and I felt something strange inside the corpses. It looks like my magic triggered their dead familiars and activated whatever sorcery was used to turn their cores into portals for Barquiel’s devils.”

“That’s—” Julius’s voice trailed into silence.

“—some pretty sick shit,” Violet mumbled.

“He must know what happened by now.” Vlad thanked the witches and sorcerer who’d tended to him and shrugged into a shirt he’d borrowed off Nikolai. “If those devils are linked to him in any way, the Dark Council knows you’re in Prague.”

I agree, Brimstone huffed.

Miles got off the phone with Bryony. “She’s going to contact the High Council and spread the word about those booby traps.”

A fraught hush befell them. It was Nikolai who broke it.

“Using magic users as bait and weaponizing their familiars is a step above anything they’ve tried before,” the sorcerer said somberly. “Their methods are getting more and more cruel.”

“They have a lot at stake,” Mae muttered. “Getting their hands on the soul of the first Sorcerer King has got to be their top priority right now.”

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