A shout from Fiona turned his head. “Tobias! We’re going to burn!”
His heart wavered as he looked around the temple. His rage had ignited all the tree roots, and his friends were shackled between them. He dropped the iron, sprinting across the floor to Fiona. She was shouting something about keys, but he wasn’t listening. He reached over her head, clenching his teeth as he tore the shackles from the walls.
The irons had begun to burn her skin, and he turned over her wrists, inspecting the red marks.
She yanked her arms out of his grasp. “Free Mariana. I’m going to get the keys to free Alan.”
She took off, running to the guard who lay dead on the floor. Tobias turned, hurrying to Mariana. Her black clothes were torn and dirty, and her head hung down as Tobias pried her shackles from the wall, and then from her wrists.
Nearby, Jack was screaming about something. Tobias ignored him. He picked up Mariana, holding her limp body in his arms.
Emerazel whispered to him: Throw down the girl. Light the world on fire. He focused on Fiona in her torn dress. She had unlocked Alan, and now she edged toward the Fury. Most of the guests had managed to push their way into the tunnels now.
“Fiona!” Tobias yelled, his body trembling. “We need to go!” Before I burn this place down, and you all with it.
Fiona crouched, pulling off the Fury’s pendant. “Hang on!” She slipped the keys into the hag’s shackles, unlocking her. “We can’t leave people here. Or—Furies.” Free from the pendant, the fury’s eyes opened, and she shifted into a feral crouch, her eyes darting around the room.
“Let’s go!” Tobias shouted again.
“Wait.” It was Alan, his voice commanding as he hurried across the room to Jack. “I’m not letting anyone burn to death.”
What is he doing? Tobias watched in horror as Alan plucked the pendant from Jack’s neck. Jack grinned, exultant.
Tobias still held Mariana in his arms, but Emerazel’s rage burned through him. The walls blazed with his fire.
Jack chanted a brief spell, freeing himself from the shackles.
You could kill him, Emerazel whispered to him. Lose the girl, and kill Druloch’s minion.
Tobias glanced down at Mariana, her chest slowly rising and falling. Her lips were white from dehydration. When he looked up again, he found the smile had been wiped from his enemy’s face. Jack stared in terror at the Fury, who prowled toward him on all fours. “Dorcas…” he muttered, his face pale. “I didn’t meant for them to come for you.”
Fiona and Alan were already running for the exits, and Tobias followed, carrying Mariana in his arms.
But Jack and the creature stayed behind. As Tobias ran through the tunnels, he listened to Jack’s fading screams, and could feel the rush of Emerazel’s pleasure at the sound.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Fiona
Just before Fiona and her friends crawled back through the crypt entrance, they paused as Tobias chanted the cloaking spell, carrying Mariana in his arms. There were no sprinklers here, and they faded away without setting off any alarms. The crypt door had been smashed open by the stampeding party guests, and Fiona crept over the shattered glass littering the dirt. As she tiptoed through the garden maze, screams pierced the air, and an alarm clanged from within Winderbellow. The trees around them blazed, and the fire was spreading to the house. Two helicopters beat the air above their heads, whipping Fiona’s curls around her face. Their spotlights darted over the grounds, searching for the witches.
When they stepped out of the hedge maze, Tobias whispered directions, and she and Alan followed in silence. It was clear he was no longer quite the same Tobias that she’d come to know—now half demon, possibly fueled by a crazed bloodlust. But he was on their side for now, and at a time like this, he seemed like a good person to have as an ally.
She regretted the loss of her sneakers. Broken twigs pricked her bare feet as they trudged through the dark fields away from Winderbellow. The smoky air receded as they pressed on. She had no idea where they were going, only that they needed to get to a pay phone to call her mother. Why hadn’t she arrived yet? It couldn’t take more than a day to drive to Williamsburg from Boston.
When they reached a dark road dotted with a few old plantations, Tobias took the opportunity to sneak inside an old wooden house to steal water for Mariana. They had to soak Alan’s shirt in it and drip it into her mouth before she revived enough to drink on her own.