“You’re still singing the same song, Deacon.”

“I don’t want to fight you.”

“Then don’t,” I said. I took I step backward toward the stream. It didn’t look deep. If I could get across it, and somehow get my hands on that jade box before Deacon got to me . . .

I didn’t know if that was possible. In fact, about the only thing I did know was that Deacon meant business. If I wanted this first piece of the Oris Clef, I was going to have to fight for it. And, dammit, that meant I had to trust that Clarence would get the bridge to me when I needed it.

Deacon was watching me warily, his gaze shifting from the mirror to the stream and to me. “Work with me,” he said. “We’re running out of time, and you know damn well I’m not your enemy.”

“Tell that to Kiera,” I said, glancing toward my partner, who I really hoped was only laid out and not dead.

“Paralytic,” Deacon said. “I’m surprised you don’t remember. It’s the same one I used on you.”

“I didn’t pass out,” I countered.

He shrugged. “Combined it with a sleeping agent. She’ll have one hell of a headache, but she’ll be fine.”

“Gee, that was considerate of you. But you shouldn’t have wasted it on her. I’m the one getting the relic. That means I’m the one you need to stop.”

“I intend to,” he said, and this time there was no conversational tone to his voice. No banter between two people who’d been skirting around the edges of a building tension. No small nod to whatever tenuous trust had developed between the two of us. No, this time there was nothing but sharp edges and the promise of danger.

This time, I saw the Deacon under the surface.

I told myself not to be scared. Of all the people in the world, Deacon wouldn’t hurt me. After all, I was at the center of his belief system, wasn’t I? I was the girl who was going to lock the gate to hell with him.

Which meant he wouldn’t do anything to put me truly out of commission.

But knock me out, take me far away, destroy the relic that I needed to save my sister? Any of those options was still highly plausible. Even probable.

“Enough with the talking,” I said, then turned and made a break for it. As I did, I heard him cry out, “No—the water,” and then I felt something hard and fast grab my legs. I barely had time to process the fact that he’d leaped forward and grabbed my ankles, pulling me backward toward him.

I went sprawling forward, smashing the side of my face on the stone floor. My cheekbone felt like it exploded, and white-hot pain radiated out like the sun, filling my face with liquid pain and turning the entire room a sickly red color.

“Acid,” he said, as I climbed to my feet. “The water’s acid.”

“What?”

He pulled a coin from his pocket. He tossed it in the stream, and it immediately dissolved, leaving nothing but a bit of smoke fizzing on the surface of the water. “Holy shit,” I said.

I took another look at the altar and the setup of mirrors. Then I crawled to the edge of the stream and peered down. Sure enough, the jade box was down there, somehow unaffected by the acid. And inside it, I was certain, was my prize. The piece of the relic that was making my arm ache and burn.

“It’s impossible to retrieve,” Deacon said.

“And you know this how?”

He ignored me, turning away, moving to bend down next to Kiera. “Her pulse is steady.”

“Yay,” I said. “Wasn’t really worried. Focus, dammit. Because I’m going to get that thing.”

“No,” he said. “You’re not. It’s down there. In acid. And it’s not coming out.”

“If it’s acid, why isn’t the box burned up?”

He lifted a brow. “It’s magic acid,” he said, his tone dripping with such sarcasm that I had to laugh. Especially since that was clearly the truth. It was magic acid. And if there was one thing that the magic didn’t affect, then I had to assume there was something else as well.

“Jade,” I said. “Maybe there’s more jade in here. We can dam up the acid water around the box, and when it’s dry, we can reach in and get the relic.”

“Brilliant,” he said. “But the jade will disintegrate.” I looked pointedly at the obviously intact box that lay within the flowing water. He shrugged, then nodded toward the murals on the walls. “The gemstones on the swords in the pictures,” he said. “They’re made of jade.”

“You’re helping me?” I asked. But I wasn’t foolish enough to argue about it. Instead, I went to the wall and used my knife to pry out one of the jade pieces. Then I hurried back to the stream and dropped it in.

Seconds later, it had dissolved.

“Like I told you,” Deacon said. “It’s impossible.”

“I don’t believe that.” At the moment, however, I had nothing to back me up. Just a deep sense of righteousness. After all, a fricking map had appeared on my skin. So what was the point of having a map to lead you to something that no one in the entire world could get their hands on? And I wasn’t in the mood to believe it was a cosmic joke. When your arm has been slashed and diced, and your blood smeared and drained as much as mine had, the idea that you did it all so that the cosmos could have a big laugh really didn’t go over well.

Even then, my arm was aching. Deep, steady throbs, like some damned coded message I was too dense to understand, too stupid to get.

Except . . .

I cocked my head to the side. Surely it couldn’t be that simple.

Could it?

“Lily?”

I pulled my knife back out, and as Deacon watched, I sliced my palm, wincing only slightly as the blade cut through flesh. Then I crawled to the edge of the acid stream, held my hand over the churning water, and let the drops flow from my hand into the acid.

I flinched when the first drop hit, expecting a flurry of smoke and the fizz as my blood burned in the acid water. But there was nothing. Just a red stain that slowly dissipated as the acid diluted my blood.

I met Deacon’s eyes, suddenly smug. “My blood,” I said. “It’s wicked cool.”

Not that this newfound knowledge about my blood did me a lot of good right off the bat. Because I had a feeling it wasn’t me, but rather my blood, that was the magic elixir, and to test that theory, I plucked a strand of hair, then watched it fizzle and pop as the acid consumed it.

Damn.

Carefully, I used my knife to slice a thin strip of skin from the pad of my thumb. I dropped it into the acid water, too, and it was consumed even before my palm started to heal. Damn, damn, and double damn! How the heck was I supposed to get to the box if the acid-proof blood was hidden away inside my skin?

“Am I supposed to let it burn off my skin? My muscle? All the way down to the bone?” I looked up at Deacon, certain he could see both the disgust and the fear in my eyes. “I heal, so—”

“Give it up, Lily,” Deacon said. “It isn’t meant to be.” As he spoke, a low buzzing seemed to fill the chamber, and across the stream, the stone guards shifted, moving their swords into attack positions.

“Deacon,” I said, warily. “Did you see that?”

“We’re running out of time. We need to get out of here.”

“Screw that. You heard Johnson. Rose’s life depends on me.”

“You really think Johnson’s going to let her live? You rely on a bargain with Johnson, and your sister is already dead.”

“I am not leaving without the relic.”

He shot a significant look at the stone warriors, all four of which had taken a step toward the stream. “Then you may not be leaving at all.”

“Then help me, dammit.”

He frowned at me, then turned and looked back over his shoulder, at the source of that loud humming, almost like the thrum of an electric generator. When he turned back to me, I could see harsh resignation in his eyes. “This isn’t over,” he said. “I help you now, you have to help me. I want to find the key. The key to lock the gates, not open them.”

I licked my lips, then nodded. “I don’t know how I’d have any more luck searching than you, but I’ll help. I’m not taking any risks with Rose’s life, but I’ll help you look.”

He glanced at the stream. “Give me your arm.”

“What are you—”

“Hurry!”

I complied, and he sliced my forearm as I cried out in pain and surprise. “What the fuck?”

“Wait,” he said, squeezing my flesh, drawing blood to the surface.

“Oh, shit,” I said, realizing what he was doing. “That’s brilliant.”

“I hope so,” he said, as he began smearing my hand and arm, painting me in a protective armor of my own blood. “Now,” he cried, and I plunged my arm into the water, my teeth clenched as I expected the worst.

The worst, however, didn’t come, and my hand closed around the jade box. I lifted it, drew it out, then opened the lid to reveal what looked like a sparkling gold chain necklace.

Across the stream, the warriors sprang fully to life. Beside me, Deacon rose, his weapon at the ready. “Take it,” he said, “and let’s go.”

Going, however, wasn’t an option. Because even though I drew out the chain and slipped it over my head, there was no portal to take us back. We were stuck. And that meant that we had to fight.

“Clarence!” I screamed uselessly, pressing my hand over the tattoo. “Dammit, Clarence, I have it!”

I thrust my arm up into the air and saw that the tattoo of the second location was now raised and burning like the first. Even the third tattoo felt prickly, burning even more than the second one did at that moment.

We were ready to move on, but we couldn’t, and I really wasn’t keen on being stuck down there forever. Especially since for me, forever was a literal thing.

Even as I was pondering how those soldiers’ swords could easily slice me into a bunch of small, eternal pieces, the soldiers themselves leaped over the stream, swords ready. I rolled to the side as one came straight at me, then turned around to stab it in the back with my knife.

Nothing happened.

The statues had started out stone, and apparently they still were.

Honestly, this didn’t bode well.

“We need Kiera!” I shouted to Deacon, who was dodging and parrying two warriors, each of whom appeared ready to remove his body parts.

“At least another hour,” he shouted back, and since my only response to that would have been a very loud curse, I stayed quiet and focused on fighting. My blows were amounting to nothing, as there really is no effective way to fight a rock. With an iron mallet, maybe I could have smashed their heads to smithereens, but I was all out of mallets at the moment. It was just Deacon and me and our knives in an empty chamber with nothing but a stone table, four walls, some murals, and a damned dangerous stream.

I was, I realized as another of the stone beasts leaped on me, a complete idiot. Rather than attack, I ran, this time heading for the stream. What I planned to do was dangerous, but right then I didn’t see another option. The stream was wide, and if I lost my footing at all, I’d be living out the rest of my immortal existence as microscopic bits of fried Lily. Not my idea of a good time.

The warrior thundered after me, so close I could almost feel the point of his blade at my back. I reached the edge, I launched—

—and I landed on the far side, falling into a roll and twisting back around to face my oncoming attacker.

As I’d expected, the warrior followed in my foot-steps, but as it was about to land, I kicked out, catching it across the face with a solid crescent kick and throwing off its trajectory. It tumbled to the ground, right at the edge of the stream, and for a moment I feared it would claw its way free. To offset that possibility, I raced forward and kicked it once, hard, in the face. That was all it took. The warrior slid backward, its tenuous grip lost, and fell into the stream with a sickly, hissing splat.

Two seconds later, the warrior was no more.

Not that I had time to congratulate myself. My melted warrior’s buddy was already launching himself over to my side of the stream. But these dudes weren’t too bright, and I was able to get him with the same maneuver. And as I watched the stone body fizzle away in the acid, I saw that downstream, Deacon had followed my lead and taken his two attackers out the exact same way.

I stepped back, took a running start, and leaped over the stream, then hurried to crouch beside Kiera. “I don’t know how to leave,” I admitted to Deacon. “Clarence conjured the bridge, and he was supposed to send another one. But . . .” I trailed off with a shrug. “We need to get out of here, but I don’t even know where here is.”

“China,” he said. “The Buddhist grottoes.” He looked around. “Somehow, I don’t think the Chinese have excavated this far back.”

China. Great. Now I really was wishing I’d brought my passport. “Can you conjure a bridge?” I asked, hopefully.

He shook his head. “I piggybacked.”

I frowned, then nodded toward Kiera. “You knocked her out; you get to carry her. And let’s go.”

Once he had her up and in his arms, I realized that even though the stone warriors were destroyed, that odd, low thrum still filled the chamber. “What is that? Is that the bridge? Is it about to appear?”

Deacon shook his head, and I caught the wary expression in his eyes. “No. I think that’s something different.” He shot me a sharp glance. “Come on. And hurry.”

He didn’t have to ask me twice. The sound was getting louder and louder, and I’d seen enough adventure movies to guess what was going to happen next—now that we’d stolen the treasure, the chamber was going to collapse around our ears.

Except it didn’t.

No, what happened was much, much worse. Because while the walls stayed high and strong, our path was immediately blocked by a whirling, swirling mass of air and energy, and right in the center of it all was my hulking, tattooed, warrior-demon friend. And he looked seriously pissed.

“Fuck,” Deacon yelled, which summed up my feelings nicely.

“Come on!” I have absolutely no idea what I expected to do. I’d already learned that fighting this behemoth was a risky proposition, so the flight part of the fight-or-flight response had kicked into high gear. Except I wasn’t going anywhere. Whatever power the warrior had used to grab the car had a hold of me, and I couldn’t run, I couldn’t hide, I couldn’t do anything except slide backward, my feet suddenly not my own, and though I fell forward and tried to grip the rock with my hands, all I accomplished was ripping my fingernails to shreds as the force field dragged me back, back, back toward the behemoth.

“Deacon!”

“The bridge! Lily, the bridge!”

He was right. Across the stream—less than five feet away—the bridge had appeared, an orangish cylinder of mist and light, and I needed to be inside there. Needed to be whisked to safety, but it wasn’t happening because I was being sucked into the hell beast’s arms.

Deacon was at my side, Kiera at my feet, and I grabbed on to her lifeless body as Deacon took his knife and slashed my arm. “What the fuck?” I yowled, but he wasn’t listening. Instead, he was smearing his arm with blood, and then, as I watched, he took the jade box I’d retrieved from the stream and, using his bloody hand and arm, thrust it into the water and filled it up. Then he ran toward the warrior, drops of acid burning holes in the rock as it sloshed out over the sides of the container.

He hurled the acid toward the warrior’s face, and though I’d expected his flesh to melt away, in fact, all it did was make him howl, a thunderous roar that shook the very walls of the cavern.

But it was enough. Because it also shook off his hold on me, and before he could reach out with his mind and grab me once again, Deacon grabbed up Kiera, and he and I lunged forward, jumping over the stream, and thrusting ourselves through the mist and into the bridge that led back home.

The darkness consumed us once again, and I could see nothing. Could hear nothing. And then I felt the press of Deacon against me, his body hard against mine, his lips firm and demanding, and then his low whisper. “Remember your promise.”

And then my hand was closed not around Deacon’s hand, but around Kiera’s.

Deacon was gone, and it was just me and Kiera and a job well-done.