Across Red London, the bodies fell.
Men and women who’d been kissed or taken, wooed or forced, those who had let the magic in and those who had had it thrust upon them, all of them fell as the black flame inside them gutted and went out. Dispelled.
Everywhere, the magic left a trail of bodies.
In the streets, they staggered and collapsed. Some crumbled to ash, all burned up, and some were reduced to husks, empty inside, and a lucky few crumpled, gasping and weak but still alive.
In the palace, the magic dressed as Gen had just reached the royal chambers, his blackening hand on the door, when the darkness died and took him with it.
And in the sanctuary, far from the castle walls, on a bare cot in a candlelit room, the prince of Red London shivered and fell still.
