Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 231436 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1157(@200wpm)___ 926(@250wpm)___ 771(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 231436 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1157(@200wpm)___ 926(@250wpm)___ 771(@300wpm)
Making their way to the dungeon, Malik urges them to hurry. He details how he ran into Callum earlier and felt he needed to check on his brother—to see what Callum might have done. When they all see what he did—wounding Casteel gravely enough to kick start his bloodlust—they realize they can’t get him out, at least not while conscious. So, Malik has Kieran distract Casteel while he puts him in a sleeper hold.
Kieran suggests they will need the deity bone chains for when Casteel wakes, and Malik agrees. When Reaver uses his fire to free Cas, Malik is shocked to find that he is a draken. Once they get Casteel free, he carries his brother through a series of tunnels and out of the castle. He then leads them to a friend’s house—Blaz, and his wife Clariza. Both Descenters.
When Clariza greets them with skepticism and a dagger, calling him Elian, Poppy tries to calm her by reinforcing what Malik told her and Blaz: that the unconscious man in their friend’s arms is the King of Atlantia, and she is the Queen. When they bow, Poppy shocks Malik by telling them not to because she’s not their Queen.
Once they get Casteel into a bed, Malik tells Poppy that his blood won’t do much for Cas. It has to be hers. Though when they try to secure him, he fights, the bloodlust taking control. Stunned, Malik watches as Poppy heals and soothes his brother. They finally settle him, and Malik tells Poppy that Cas needs motivation, like the scent of her blood, then explains that if he doesn’t take enough, things will be even worse for him.
With Cas still not entirely with it but calmer, Malik goes to get Reaver so he can remove the bone chains. When he returns, Cas acts as if he wants to attack the draken, and Poppy tries to remind him who it is, telling him that he probably doesn’t want to take him on. Malik remarks that it looks like he does.
Once things are settled there, Malik leaves, presumably to fill Blaz and Clariza in on what’s going on. He ends up on the settee in the living room to rest. Before he goes to sleep, however, he tells them all that he will secure a ship to smuggle them out of Solis and away from Carsodonia.
Talking later, he tells everyone that Blaz and Clariza are good people. When Poppy asks him if Millie is her sister, he wonders how she knows. Cas remarks that Millie both told and showed him, and Malik says how much she and Poppy look alike and adds that they both ramble.
As an answer to some of Casteel’s questions, Malik confirms that Millie would have been a god had she survived her Culling. When Reaver enters and reiterates what he heard, only referring to Millie as the Handmaiden, Malik gets upset and tells him that she has a name, thus letting everyone know there’s more to their relationship than meets the eye.
The conversation continues, and Malik explains that Casteel’s blood wasn’t strong enough to Ascend Millicent—he was too weak from the captivity, and Isbeth didn’t consider that. When they ask about Ires, he explains that bone chains and the deity bone cage nullify the god’s eather. He then mentions how Callum showed Isbeth how to make Revenants and says he wishes Millie would have kept her mouth shut about…everything. Everybody who knows those secrets is dead, and he doesn’t understand why she took such a risk.
His final bit of knowledge is that while she isn’t powerful enough yet, Poppy’s purpose is to destroy the realms. And she will be strong enough to do just that after she completes her Culling.
He shares with Poppy that Isbeth named her after the goddess who warned of the prophecy, then goes on to say how Poppy has already taken part in Isbeth’s plan by being born. But then he adds that perhaps her free will is greater than the prophecy and what Isbeth wants—after all, Coralena believed she would usher in change and not destruction.
When Poppy displays her shock at Malik having known Cora, and he can see that she remembers that fateful night in Lockswood, he tells Casteel that what they did to Preela broke him. He said he was never loyal to Isbeth—not after what she did to Cas and what Jalara did to Preela. Not after what Isbeth made him do to Millie. He wanted to kill the Blood Queen and actually tried before realizing what she was. And he likely would have kept trying if it weren’t for the prophecy. But when he learned of that, he couldn’t let Isbeth destroy the realms or Millie. He had to do something.
He says that killing a child was a line he simply couldn’t cross. Even when he tried again, thinking it was the only option, he saw the Consort looking at him through Poppy’s eyes. He didn’t know that was possible, and it stayed his hand. When additional questions arise about the events of that night, he explains that the Craven followed the trail of blood he left—the distraction was the only way he knew he could get past Leo and Cora.