Black Blood (Series of Blood Book 4) Emma Hamm (popular novels txt) 📖

the floor as they left his office, made their way down the stairs, and stood on a balcony above the teeming mass of people.

She cast a curious glance at her feet. A black mass surrounded her pale slippers, magic glimmering in galaxies of fog that lifted her from the ground as she walked. So it was his magic then, not her own natural grace.

Lydia should have guessed.

The air was different inside the club. The acrid scent of human sweat was hidden under a wave of sparkling Juice that glimmered so faintly in the air that she wouldn’t have caught it if she didn’t know what it looked like. Magic could not lie, but her other senses could.

People were outlined by their own teeming magic. She thought everyone would look like the veins of power she had seen in herself and Pitch, but she was wrong. Their magic was the inward expression of their uniqueness.

A Dryad danced below them, the faint outline of her body filled with leaves that rustled as she moved. Two Fire Elementals surrounded her, fire engulfing their forms but leaving no marks upon her. The painful glimmering light of a Unicorn nearly blinded Lydia, the innocence and power inside the woman so overwhelming it made her eyes tear.

There were so many people here who were beautiful. Their physical forms may be warped or ugly, but Lydia could not see them. Instead, all she saw was their inner beauty, their inner strength.

This gift was more than she had ever expected. She could not even be appropriately thankful for it because Sil was well and truly gone. In honor of the Goddess’s memory, Lydia swore to herself that she would never forget the beauty of this moment and the inner glow of every spirit laid out before her in a banquet.

“What do you see?” Pitch murmured in her ear.

“Everything.”

“Nebulas?”

“They are made of more than stars. They are made of beauty, grace, nature, life itself. I cannot describe them, my love. They are wonderful.”

The smokey outline of his face turned, staring down at the mass of people. She hoped, she knew, he was looking at them with new appreciation.

“Are they worth saving?”

“I’ve never questioned that,” she said. “And neither have you.”

“No I suppose I haven’t.” Pitch paused, his hand stiffening on her spine. “It appears the game is starting, my love. I have left my shadows with you. Observe, but do not speak. Let this play out without interference, I want to see what he can really do.”

And then he was gone. Disappearing into the shadows without her.

Lydia controlled the upheaval of her stomach. She pressed a hand against her belly and took a deep steadying breath.

“Observe,” she whispered. “I can do that.”

She didn’t want to go down into the teeming mass of people. They were beautiful but she would drown underneath all that power.

Hundreds of years ago, she had stood on this exact balcony. Nothing had changed in his den of salacious activities and abandon. Though sightless, her eyes traced the outline of magic that coiled up the railings to the catwalks.

Sil had hovered in the air there, looking down at the mousy girl she had been. Lydia could remember it vividly. The pain. The electric strike of power. The whispering voice she couldn’t understand. Then the silence and the voice in her head screaming that she was alone, she was possessed, but she was still alone.

A shiver danced down her spine.

Hugging herself, Lydia looked down at the mass of people made of leaves and dust. They couldn’t understand her. She would never walk the street again without seeing them for what they truly were. No one could hide from her eyes now, just as much as they couldn’t hide from her power.

It was so easy to let loose a single strand of power. It threaded from her mind and tangled around the webs that stretched upwards from each person as if they were dancing marionettes.

The Dryad, though beautiful, was a cruel woman. She used men to her advantage. Begged them to buy her pretty things so she could sell them later for the drug addiction that left track marks down her arms, which she always covered.

The Fire Elemental was going to steal his cousin’s wife, although the other man did not know it. She was packing her things right now. Her husband danced with a Dryad whom he planned to take home while his cousin plotted to ruin his life.

The Unicorn was too innocent for a place like this. She was going to be jumped in an alley on the way home, her throat slashed and her horn stolen to sell to the highest bidder. There was no way to stop the inevitable from happening. She never should have come to this place.

Lydia jumped from person to person, her mind stretching toward its maximum capacity. There was so little happiness in this room although everyone was drinking Happiness by the bottle. Their lives at home were so violent that anger ran through their veins instead of blood. These beautiful people were unhappy. And there was no way for her to help them.

Pitch was standing next to a woman, Wren, a little thing who would help change the passage of time. She didn’t know it yet, but she was a key part to saving this world.

Lydia’s brows furrowed.

“Rather tragic, isn’t it?”

The voice startled her out of the webs of Time. She jerked back into herself, power lashing out at the man who now stood behind her. The softest lick of her magic filled her mouth with the salty brine of the sea and the scent of rotting whale.

“Malachi,” she whispered.

“I don’t believe we’ve met.”

But they had. He didn’t know she had traveled down the length of his Time so many times that she knew his parents’ names and the color his eyes were when he was born. She saw every possible ending for him, none of them good. But she had not seen the ending where he was not