Madeline towered over me, more and more acid flames erupting from her hands, like fireworks exploding in my face over and over. But I maintained my control, and I held on.
And eventually, finally, at last, she started to falter.
It was just a small tremor, just the faintest hiccup of her power. As though one gas tank were empty, and she was plugging herself into another one for round two. Maybe that’s exactly what she was doing.
But that’s the moment I knew that I’d finally won—once and for all.
I drew in a breath, careful not to suck in any of the green flames, and let loose with a bloodcurdling scream, as if I were mere seconds away from fully succumbing to Madeline’s unending waves of acid. I screamed again and again, then let my voice choke off, as if I were suddenly overcome with more pain than any person had a right to bear.
I tried to rise up. I could have made it if I’d really wanted to, but it was all part of my plan. I tried again. Then, on my third try, I let my feet slip out from under me and crumpled to the floor, as though I were on my deathbed.
I wasn’t, but Madeline was—she just didn’t know it yet.
But she was so eager to finish me off that she never even thought that I might be playing possum. She took another step forward, then another, then another, coming closer and closer.
I let her come.
I wanted her to come.
Then she did the one thing that was most important of all—she started pushing even more and more of her acid into the flames, thinking that my end was near and that all she needed to finish me off was a big enough dose of magic, one that would finally blast through the protective shell of my Ice and Stone power.
I lay there on the floor and let the world burn around me.
Finally, there was another little hiccup in Madeline’s magic. Another faint tremor. I waited, wondering if she might have guessed my plan, if she might be trying to sucker me in the same way that I was her. But the hiccup came again, and again, and again, like a car that was out of gas and sputtering along as far as it could before it ran out of juice completely.
Good thing, since I was almost out of magic myself.
My own natural power was long gone. So was what had been housed in my ring. One by one, I’d emptied all the links in my necklace, and all the magic that I had left was what was still stored in the spider rune pendant.
Finally, just when I thought that I couldn’t last another minute, Madeline let out a great, heaving breath, as though she was as exhausted as I was. The flames on her hands died down, and she staggered back a few steps before she was able to regain her footing.
I huddled there on the floor, which had long ago been burned all the way down to the foundation. Slowly, the black and white and green stars faded from my vision, the roaring in my ears ceased, and I could hear the whispers of the crowd.
“Is it over?”
“Is Blanco dead?’
“She’s burned, but it doesn’t seem too bad to me.”
Madeline stood there in front of me, panting with exhaustion. But still, I didn’t move, didn’t speak. All I did was breathe and breathe and gather up what was left of my magic.
Finally, I lifted my head. Gasps rippled through the entire room, and Madeline’s face paled as I managed to lurch up and onto my feet.
“You—you—you should be dead !” she sputtered. “I heard you scream. I saw you fall to your knees, to the fucking floor. I used all my magic on you! How can you possibly still be alive?”
I grinned. “Because sometimes, to win, it’s better to play defense than offense. At least, until the final horn is about to blow.”
Madeline frowned, wondering what I was talking about. Then she reached for her magic, still determined to kill me. But she’d burned through all of her power, and all she could muster up were some weak drops of acid that flickered like sparklers on her fingers. I looked at her, as tired and bone-weary as she was.
“This isn’t over,” she hissed. “You’re not dead, but you haven’t won either. Not while I’m still alive. You can’t possibly have any more magic left than I do.”
I shrugged. “I don’t. Not in my own body, anyway. But do you know what the difference is between you and me?”
I reached for my spider rune pendant, holding it away from my neck and out to her. “I came prepared to win.”
Madeline’s eyebrows knit together in confusion, her green gaze locked onto the pendant as I let it go. The spider rune swung back and settled into the hollow of my throat, the silverstone rune a cool balm against the red burns and blisters that marred my skin.
Madeline’s fingers crept up to her own necklace, and she finally realized what I meant. She sucked down a breath to scream, probably for Emery to come finish me off, or save her, but it was already too late.
“Good-bye, Madeline.”
Before she could move, before she could react, before she could fight back, I reached out and clasped her hands with my own.
The flames of her acid magic licked at my skin, but I ignored the pain, even though it felt as though my fingers were melting, melting off. Madeline gritted her teeth and brought what was left of her magic to bear.
But it wasn’t enough.
Oh, her acid still burned me terribly, and the silverstone branded into my palms heated up, as the magical metal absorbed as much of her power as it could to try to protect me.
Madeline was right. I’d exhausted all of my natural magic fending her off, but I still had the reserves tucked away inside my spider rune. When Owen had given me the necklace for my birthday, I’d appreciated its beauty and the thought and sentiment he’d put into crafting something so exquisite for me. But I’d also seen it as the weapon that it truly was.
One that I finally put to good use.
I reached for the magic that was stored in my pendant. I gathered and gathered and gathered up all that cold, hard, chilling power, imagining cupping it in the palms of my hands.
Then I shot it out at Madeline.
Her hands froze first, since that’s where I let loose with the power. In an instant, my Ice and Stone magic had turned her delicate fingers a cold, bitter blue, and I knew that her skin and bones would shatter if I so much as blew a breath of air onto them.
In the next second, the Ice and Stone had traveled up her arms and started spreading across her chest before zipping down her torso, pooling in her legs, and spreading out through her bare feet onto what remained of the marble floor. In another second, she was anchored in place, even as she desperately struggled to move.
I could feel her pushing back with her own power, forcing more and more acid magic out of her hands, but this time, it wasn’t enough to overcome the elemental Ice that I was encasing her with. Still, I added another three inches of it around her hands, just to be sure.