Pushing her mother away had been Isobel’s own fault. Botching the curse was, too. But she couldn’t lose the only person she had left, especially not the person who believed in her more than anyone, even herself.
“Maybe this is temporary,” she tried to assure herself. “Maybe it will go away on its own in a few hours.”
And maybe a fairy godmother will appear and grant you three wishes.
No, if there was a way to fix this, then she had to do it on her own.
And if there wasn’t, she would die.
But she’d made up her mind. If she died, then she would die a champion.
GAVIN GRIEVE
The opening ceremony of the tournament is historically the last chance anyone has to sabotage a champion before the real fighting begins.
A Tradition of Tragedy
Tonight the tournament would begin, and the seven champions would fight one another until a lone victor remained standing.
So, naturally, Ilvernath had thrown a party.
Gavin could sense that tension hanging over everyone in the city’s banquet hall. The way members of rival families glared at one another. The way “good luck” said with enough insincerity sounded the same as “goodbye.” There was a hungry look on everyone’s face—for alcohol or violence, it was all the same. The tournament banquet had always been a quiet, clandestine affair, but some reporters and onlookers had stolen their way in despite the magickal warding that supposedly blocked those not on the guest list. Flashbulbs popped and cursechasers gaped, and Gavin wondered if they’d find a way to sneak onto the grounds of the tournament, too, if grisly pictures of his death would soon be in the Ilvernath Eclipse. He probably wouldn’t even make the front page.
Gavin kept to the back of the hall, beside the table of hors d’oeuvres tastefully arranged around portraits of the last tournament’s champions. Aggravated, he stabbed a toothpick into a cheese cube from the platter beside Peter Grieve, who’d been similarly skewered with an Ancient Arrows curse. His family had wasted no time making a beeline for the open bar; his mother was already wobbling in her stilettos.
Beside his mother, Gavin caught sight of Reid MacTavish, sipping a drink. Reid caught his eye and winked, then sauntered toward him, smug as a cat with bird feathers sticking out of its mouth.
“Well, Grieve,” he said. “How’s my little present treating you?”
The hourglass tattoo on Gavin’s bicep ached beneath his cheap suit, the same one he’d worn to Callista’s wedding. Gavin hadn’t used magick since the Matchstick. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was frightened of what would happen when he did.
“Fine,” he grunted.
“And have you given any thought to my suggestion? That there could be more to this sad little game than winning it?”
Truth be told, Gavin had utterly forgotten about that part of their conversation. He considered it now—clearly, Reid was trying to offer him another bargain. But Gavin had already turned his body into an unnatural magickal vessel in pursuit of winning the tournament. He wasn’t interested in playing lab rat again.
“I know how your deals work now,” he said gruffly. “Go away, MacTavish.”
“Your loss.” Reid raised his drink in a mocking toast and melted back into the crowd.
Gavin took a deep breath to rein in his nerves, but it was difficult with so many of the other champions in the room. The faces that had once crowded his dossiers, here in real life.
Finley Blair and his crimson tie, boastfully donning the color of high magick. Elionor Payne beside him, posing for a reporter. Isobel Macaslan, her hair spilling like a bloodstain down the back of her white dress.
And in the corner, his father brandishing a glass, the amber glinting in the chandelier light. His mother lolled on his shoulder. Callista on the awkward fringes of the Payne table, paying no mind to him.
Suddenly, it was all too much for Gavin. He abandoned his plate beneath the scarlet-dyed fondue fountain next to a photograph of Alphina Lowe. Then he darted outside into the square.
Out here, the party was a bit less stifling. Small knots of people wove together in the cool evening air. Above their heads, magickal lanterns floated and gleamed in the evening sky, the spellstones inside them shining white.
Then he heard it: beyond the jazzy music spilling out from the banquet, the faint sounds of chanting.
“JUST BECAUSE YOU WIN A PRIZE
YOU’RE NOT ABSOLVED FOR THOSE WHO DIED!”
Past the lanterns, at the edge of the city square, stood a small crowd of cursechasers. They wielded signs with angry slogans on them. Not cursechasers, after all. Even worse—protestors yelling bad poetry. They must’ve gathered here in some last-ditch effort to stop this generation’s tournament from taking place.