Page 116 of Alchemy of Souls

I stare at him, trapped. And even though it nearly kills me, I reach into my pocket and hand it to him.

The moment it touches his palm, his eyebrows shoot up and I scent his possessiveness. But a full minute goes by and the Key remains in his hand, its flowered vines moving. The hell?

“Remarkable,” he says, not taking his eyes off it. “How did you manage to call it without Miss Belrose?”

“I didn’t,” I say, and for the first time during this twisted conversation I enjoy what I’m about to say next. Because now I’m certain—he has no idea where Eloise is. “She’s in the Archive Room.”

His anger comes full force, strong and sticky like tar. “That nothing girlis in a room that could literally make or break our world and you arejust telling me now? Are you daft?”

Bingo. “I figured you knew, since Akari clearly did,” I say, pushing his buttons very much on purpose.

His gaze darkens and his casting hand flexes. “Move!” he says with enough force that my feet slide toward the door without my permission. My back hits the wall with a thud and pushes uncomfortably against my sore ribs.

“If I find one single thing disturbed in that Archive, she’ll die a gruesome death, Grayson—one that I’ll make you watch on repeat for the next twenty years.”

We’ll see about that.

He tucks the Key into his breast pocket, striding for the door and releasing me from the wall. The damn thing still hasn’t disappeared.

When he finds Akari in the hall, I scent his annoyance.

“You’re not needed, Akari,” he says sharply, and I smile. Mission accomplished.

“But, Sir. Given the raid—” she says, and now her frustration matches his.

“I said youare not needed. Don’t make me repeat myself,” he replies.

As I pass Akari, her frustration flares. But I don’t wink at her, which I think is rather big of me.

My uncle walks quickly through the halls, and stops in front of the Archive Door. It doesn’t escape my notice, however, that he knows exactly where it is.

My uncle holds the Key in his hand and turns the handle. It doesn’t move. He casts an unlocking spell—still nothing. His uncertainty wafts toward me.

I wait.

He tries another spell and then another. None of them work.

“What is it you know that I don’t?” he says with a dangerous glint in his eye.

Which is when I say the one thing that will hopefully stop him from trying to kill Eloise. “It takes both meandEloise to open the door.”

“And yet you left herinside the room?” he snaps, his magic buzzing around him like hornets.

“Yes,” I say with emphasis, “because if the Key disappeared while I was bringing it to you, we’d have to start over. And we’ve only ever successfully called it once. So, as a safeguard, Eloise stayed to periodically—”

Click.

The door opens a sliver and Eloise peers out. When she spots me with the Chancellor, her eyes widen and she fully opens the Archive Door.

“Do exactly that,” I finish, stepping closer in anticipation of the moment I follow him through the door.

My uncle’s expression once again calms and he takes a deep breath. Only he pauses before he crosses the threshold to straighten his suit jacket.

One more step and his magic is voided. One more damn step.

Then faster than I can blink he casts two spells at once, with so little effort that I don’t have a chance of putting up a shield. In a fraction of a second, Eloise flies across the Archive Room slamming into one of the columns and I find myself wrapped in a cocoon of vines, with no access to my hands in order to cast.

“Betrayal always puts me in such a bad mood,” he says. “But I suppose this is fitting in a way. You steal plants from me, and I trapyou in them. There’s a balance to it all, don’t you think?” He stares at me, trying to read my emotions, but I can also scent his and he isn’t sure. He’s testing me.