You think I haven’t tried that? I shot back because answering him was better than focusing on the appalling pain. Those flames were increasing, engulfing my legs, back, and head.

Don’t try, do, Mircea stressed, the word ending on a scream as that pain ripped through him, too. The voltage won’t make Vlad immune as it does with you, but it should give you a brief window. Use that window to reach his mind and make him see you.

Another scream caused Mircea to stop speaking, then he went on in a rush.

Once Vlad’s mind sees you instead of the memory from his curse, the curse will consider itself completed and stop. If you didn’t doubt yourself so much, you could have already finished this because you are more than powerful enough to reach him!

If I wouldn’t have been in agony, I would have laughed. Now you suddenly believe in me?

Another burst of fire claimed both our attention. I tried to push my way through it by talking to Vlad and focusing on the voltage that I kept pushing into him, but it kept growing, until it was all I could do not to run out of sheer, mindless panic.

Your abilities have saved you more times than I ever believed they could, Mircea said, pain making his voice a ragged roar. You linked to me through this spell despite that requiring the skill level of a powerful sorceress, not a second-rate psychic. I don’t know how you have such power, but you DO—

Our combined screams cut him off as the flames kept eating through my skin faster than I could heal. The pain was horrific, all-consuming, and relentless, until I was convulsing against Vlad and barely able to think. Yet Mircea’s voice still reached me because it was a roar of defiance.

You do HAVE the power, Leila! Now, for the sake of both our miserable lives, stop doubting yourself and fucking use it!

I latched on to Mircea’s confidence because my repeated failures had drained away all of mine. Then I tried to push past the crippling, madness-inducing agony to try one last time since I had done all those other things and it might not be too late to do this, too!

With the last bit of strength and coherence I had, I slapped my burning hands onto Vlad’s face and forced back the screams that continued to rip from my throat. Instead, I used my mind to release the agony that caused everything in my body to viciously contort as my muscles began what I knew to be death contractions.

I’m here, I’m here, I shouted with my thoughts instead of my voice. None of what you’re seeing is real! It’s the spell, and you need to stop burning everything. You’re burning me, too, so put out the fire, Vlad! Put it out, out, out, out, OUT!

My thoughts lost cohesion at the next flash of fire. It burned me right through to my bones, and I fell back, my charred legs snapping beneath me. For a torturous moment that seemed to stretch into forever, all I knew was pain, and I could no longer see the fire because my vision had gone black.

Then, as if coming out of a nightmare, I heard my name and felt the unbelievable relief of something warm, not agonizing, running over my body.

“Come on, Leila, you need to heal. Heal, my darling, heal, please!” an anguished voice bellowed.

I opened my eyes. Vlad’s face was a blur from either the soot in my gaze or my eyes still healing, yet when that haze finally cleared after I kept blinking, I realized that he was staring at me and seeing me, not just looking through me. That, plus not being on fire anymore, let me know that the spell’s grip on him had finally ceased.

“You said please,” I whispered, smiling when his relief flooded my emotions with the force of a thousand dams breaking. “I’m never going to let you live that down.”

Chapter 41

Vlad wouldn’t let go of my hand. Not when he stripped off his shirt to cover me because my clothes had burned off, and not when Marty, Maximus, and Mencheres all enveloped me in hugs after they ran into the room, knowing from the sudden lack of fire that my efforts had succeeded.

“You are remarkable,” Mencheres said, brushing my other hand with a formal kiss after he released me from his embrace.

“I had help,” I replied, still feeling stunned by it all.

Mircea, who had been the reason behind the countless awful things that had plagued both Vlad and me this past year, had also been instrumental in saving us. Yes, he’d done it because it had saved his own skin, too, but the fact remained that I owed my life and Vlad’s life to him. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, so for now, I didn’t want to dwell on it.

Ian was the only one who didn’t give me a celebratory hug. Instead, he stared at me, a smile ghosting across his lips. “Seems that next time, I’ll know to bet on the Chihuahua instead of the werewolf.”

“Yeah? Well, ‘though she be but little, she is fierce,’” I quoted with an answering, if much wearier, smile.

Ian laughed, but the look he gave me was appraising, as if he were mentally ranking me into a whole new category.

“More authorities have arrived,” Mencheres unnecessarily noted as a new wail of sirens joined the other noises outside the warehouse. “You should all leave. The necromancer needs to be secured before the mirror spell wears off. I will stay behind to reinforce the story that a performing band’s faulty pyrotechnic display caused this blaze.”

I was all too happy to get out of here, so he didn’t need to tell me twice. When we reached the other room, Maximus scooped up the necromancer and hoisted him over his shoulder as if he were a sack of potatoes. As soon as we stepped outside, a blast of freezing wind cut through the thin shirt I was wearing and felt like it formed ice crystals on my newly bald head. I shivered even as the irony struck me. How strange to be cold now when mere minutes ago, I’d been burning to death.