All Spell Breaks Loose by Lisa Shearin Page A

was finished with the spell, but the spell wasn’t finished with Tam. It had consumed four Magh’Sceadu, and it wanted more.
    Talon darted around Piaras to get to his father. Piaras made a grab and missed. Nath didn’t.
    “It’s not safe,” Nath said through clenched teeth. He was finding out the hard way that Talon was stronger than he looked. It took both arms and all of his weight to hold Talon back.
    “Safe?” Talon snarled. “He wouldn’t hurt—”
    “He wouldn’t hurt you; his magic would,” Nath said.
    Jash and Mychael had sprinted down the tunnel toward Tam, stopping just out of arm’s reach.
    I saw why.
    Tam was smeared with the gelatinous residue of his own black magic. He’d put everything he had into destroying those Magh’Sceadu. The monsters were gone, but the spell was still here. Tam collapsed before he could contain it, and the spell turned on him. If Mychael couldn’t stop it from spreading, the spell would consume Tam as it had the Magh’Sceadu.
    With a word and gesture, Mychael’s hands glowed blindingly white, like twin suns. The spell covering Tam recoiled. Mychael quickly knelt and laid his hands on Tam’s shoulders. With a sizzling hiss, the gel scuttled away from his glowing hands. Mychael’s incantation came quickly, the words sharp, the tone commanding. He wasn’t asking that black magic goop to leave; he was ordering it. The spell wasn’t going without a fight, but it was going.
    Everyone’s attention was on Mychael and Tam.
    Except one.
    The only warning I got was the scuff of boots.
    Carnades’s shoulder rammed into my ribs, expelling what air I had, and we both went down. He landed on top of me, clawing at my neck with his fingers, desperate to get his hands around my throat.
    “Filthy, lying bitch!” he spat.
    This wasn’t a straight-up fight. Neither one of us could use magic. Yeah, he was bigger than me, but those chains were just going to keep him from frying me and my throat like he had that Khrynsani in the mirror room. He could choke me the old-fashioned way just fine.
    Carnades Silvanus had been directly or indirectly responsible for every attack and near fatality that either myself or the people I loved had endured since this whole crapfest started. Now Tam had almost died and worse to protect all of us—including Carnades.
    I’d kept my temper and fists to myself.
    No more.
    I wanted to scream every murderous thought I’d ever had about Carnades Silvanus. But I didn’t need words; my knees and fists and feet did it all for me. My torso was pinned under him, but my legs weren’t. I couldn’t ram my knee into his nuts, but all other options were wide open. I twisted hard toward Carnades, and pounded my right knee up into the base of his ribs. Once. Twice. Hard and harder. It felt good.
    Carnades grunted with each blow, and his weight shifted off me for a fraction of a second. It was an opening, and I took it. I snarled and twisted again, landing a left hook to the side of Carnades’s head. I was aiming for his temple, but hit closer to his eye. I wasn’t picky. Any punch that landed on Carnades felt good.
    A leather-armored forearm wrapped around Carnades’s throat in a choke hold, jerking the elf mage off of me in one smooth move.
    Piaras.
    Oddly, Carnades wasn’t trying to get his hands up high enough to dislodge Piaras’s arm, and I caught a quick glimpse as to why.
    He had a knife.
    One of mine that had been tucked into my belt.
    Piaras saw and acted. He snapped Carnades’s wrist up and away from his body. The mage screamed. Piaras didn’t break Carnades’s wrist; that was up to Carnades. He could either drop the knife or kiss his wrist good-bye. I could have kicked that knife out of Carnades’s hand, but Piaras had the situation well in hand. He had nearly as much reason to hate Carnades as I did, and I wasn’t going to deny him some much-earned payback. The pressure of Piaras’s arm locked around Carnades’s throat was turning the elf