I struggled again, forcing the men to use their strength to hold me still. One of them cuffed me upside the head, putting a bit of his magic in the blow. It took me a moment to blink the white stars out of my vision and focus on Grant again.

He raised the dagger, resting the pointed tip against my heart. “You know, I’m actually sorry about this, Lila. I really did like you.”

“Just not enough to keep you from trying to kill me multiple times, right?”

“It’s nothing personal.” He shrugged. “I never liked anybody all that much.”

I thought he would pull back and plunge the dagger through my heart. He hesitated, as if he was considering the idea. But in the end, he wanted my Talent too badly to kill me outright. He dropped the dagger from my heart and twirled it around in his hand a final time.

I looked past him at Devon. Once again, our eyes locked, and I felt all of his rage, worry, despair, and guilt—guilt that he had dragged me into this.

“Don’t worry,” I called out, trying to reassure him. “Everything’s going to be okay. You’ll see.”

“Mm! Mm-mmm!” Devon tried to scream through his gag, probably yelling at Grant to stop.

But it was too late.

Grant gave me an evil grin, then stabbed me in the side with the dagger.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

For a moment, I didn’t feel anything.

Not a nick, not a cut, not a brutal stab, nothing.

I looked down, staring at the dagger embedded in my side.

Then the pain rushed to my brain in one blinding, white-hot blast.

I screamed when Grant thrust the dagger into my side, and I screamed again when he yanked it back out. He held up the weapon so that everyone could see my blood staining it a bright, glossy, sickening red.

But my blood didn’t stay on the blade for long.

Almost immediately, the stains began to vanish, bit by bit, drop by drop, as the bloodiron soaked up all the liquid that coated it. I could have sworn I could actually hear the metal sucking up my blood, like a kid chugging down a glass of cherry soda through a straw.

Slurp-slurp-slurp.

And Grant was right. The more of my blood the metal absorbed, the darker the blade became, going from a dull gray to a deep midnight, until it was almost glowing with blackness, if that was even possible.

Grant’s eyes lit up with delight at the macabre sight. Devon kept screaming through the tape over his mouth. The two guards looked mildly bored. No doubt they would have killed me by now and been done with it.

“You were right, Lila. Practicing on you will be loads of fun,” Grant said in a cruel, satisfied voice.

I kept screaming and screaming, wondering if the pain would ever end. Hoping that it would. Praying that I hadn’t miscalculated, and that my own magic would kick in and save me the way it had so many times before.

But there was just pain . . . and more pain . . . and more pain still . . .

Finally, I couldn’t even scream anymore, and I slumped forward, sweat streaming down my face. The only thing keeping me on my feet were the men propping me up, and the ropes tying me to the meat hook above my head. Still, more and more pain thrummed through my side, spreading to every single nerve ending in my body. The pain warred with the magic inside me, trying to snuff it out. So I concentrated on that faint, cold chill of power, trying to focus on it, instead of the red-hot pain of the stab wound in my side.

“Don’t worry,” Grant cooed. “I didn’t hit anything vital. Not yet, anyway. We need to get more of that blood pumping out of you first so I can take your power.”

In a way, black blades—bloodiron—were eerily similar to my own transference power. I soaked up magic from people, and so did they. The more you cut someone with a black blade, the hungrier the metal became, until it actually pulled the blood out of a person’s body—along with their magic—sucking them dry like a leech.

It could be a slow, torturous process, with dozens of wounds inflicted, or you could stab someone through the heart and take all their blood and magic at once. Either way, when the black blade was brimming with blood and magic, the person wielding it could turn it on himself, stab the point into his own heart like a needle full of adrenaline, and inject all of that stolen blood and power into his veins and fully make it his own.

Apparently, Grant was in favor of the slow, torturous method because he stabbed me again, this time driving the dagger deep into my left thigh. More blood spilled out, and he laughed again. I was getting real sick of hearing that sound. But before I could brace myself against this new wave of pain, he brought the dagger up again.

I hissed and arched my neck back, but blood dripped down my face from the shallow cut he’d opened up on my right cheek.

“Don’t worry, Lila,” Grant said. “I’ll leave your pretty face intact. More or less.”

“Lucky me.”

“We’ll see if you still have that smart mouth on you after I cut you some more.”

He looked over his shoulder at Devon, who was still trying to shout through the tape and get free of his ropes. But his struggles were useless.

“What do you say, Devon?” he cooed again. “Looking forward to round two on Lila? Because I sure am.”

Grant turned back toward me and studied me with a critical eye, trying to decide where to stab me next. All the while, blood oozed out of the wounds he’d already inflicted, spattering onto the floor, rolling toward the concrete drain beneath my feet, and disappearing into the darkness below.