I pulled Zayvion’s sword, and wondered why that hadn’t been in my hands all along. A calm washed through me, as if this sword that Zayvion had spent so much time with had been infused with his calm, his strength, his clear, concise ability to deal with a horrifying situation and make competent, lifesaving decisions.

The Hungers, a dozen, two dozen, went from transparent beasts into solid muscled creatures with wide heads, red eyes, and fanged jaws. Magic pulsed down their hides, like black veins, wild magic feeding them, making them strong.

Other things with too many eyes and too many limbs clattered out of the gates behind the Hungers.

Magic users turned weapons and magic on the beasts that howled and charged across the field. But just as quickly as the magic users struck the beasts down, magic, wild magic, poured through the beasts. The black veins along their bodies pulsed with it, and then the beasts stood again, attacked again.

They were not going down and staying down.

A beast leaped for me. I swung the sword, caught the thing midleap, straight through the neck. It fell to the ground, quivered, and lay still.

The blade in my hand went black, then grew bright and silver tip to hilt. Holy shit. Zay’s sword had some kind of spell worked into it so that it could drink the magic out of its foe. Maybe it was honed to drink down dark magic.

It is, Dad said. But you are not trained to use it. You will grow weaker with each strike.

So tell me how to use it right, I thought.

I can’t. He didn’t sound happy about that. I am not the guardian of the gate.

Here’s the thing. I was getting pretty tired of having to pay the price of magic. But I’d do it with grim satisfaction if it meant I could save my friends.

Another Hunger leaped at me. I swung again. Left it headless. It did not rise. The ground beneath my feet swayed and I stumbled as my knees gave out. Okay, he wasn’t kidding. It took a hell of a lot of stamina to wield dark magic.

I pushed back up to my feet, into a fighting stance, sword at the ready.

The four beasts nearest me backed away. Like scenting the wind, they all lifted their wide heads. And ran. Past fallen or injured magic users—easy kills—which made no sense. Ran toward Sedra.

A dozen beasts ran for Sedra. Two dozen. More.

Dane could not hold them off and keep the cage whole. He threw a wall of magic at the beasts, but only half of them fell. The rest rushed him, fast. Too fast. Dane disappeared beneath slathering jaws and wicked claws.

The cage around Sedra constricted, crushing her. Sedra screamed—a strangely inhuman yell.

I started off toward her. But the battlefield was filled with beasts. And with each one I killed, I had to pause, catch my breath, and balance before I could raise the sword and stride forward again.

Jingo Jingo answered Sedra’s cry. Caught in battle with a beast, he cast magic, the disk clenched in his thick palm, and chanted something that sent the beast to its belly. No. Something that made the beast crouch, then spin to launch at Shame’s throat.

Shame opened his arms and laughed, magic caught between his two hands drinking the dark magic out of the creature. But the monster was huge, bigger than a car. It kept coming, no matter how quickly Shame drained it. Shame yelled, anger, terror, maybe even desire, as it broke through his spell and leaped upon him, jaws tearing into his chest.

Terric, on the other side of the battlefield, yelled. “No, no, no!” He swung his axes, cleaving through the beasts between him and Shame, blood and a black ichor covering his face, so much that not even the rain could wash it away as he hacked and sliced. Hungers and the other, stranger creatures with too many hands, too many eyes, and too many teeth fell in pieces at his feet as he cut a bloody swath through them.

I ran toward Shame. Slow. Too damn slow.

Jingo was already striding over to Sedra. Past the slathering pile of beasts on top of Dane, ignoring them, and Dane’s screams, like they were of no more concern to him than a pack of puppies. He slammed the disk, full of magic, into the cage that held Sedra. His voice rose above the battle, above the storm, above the thunder. “This will end!”

Copper lightning shot up out of the ground, enveloping them. Then Jingo Jingo and Sedra were gone, leaving nothing behind but a circle of black ash.

Holy shit. I killed another beast. And another. Then pulled the blood blade to hold another off while I tried to catch my breath and strength. I wasn’t going fast enough. Shame lay dying beneath that creature. Might already be dead.

A blur to my right caught my attention. Victor, wielding his sword, and I swear not even breaking a sweat, sliced his way toward Liddy, who held a protective spell around Chase. I didn’t know why she was protecting Chase, but Chase wasn’t looking too good. She looked dazed.

Liddy wasn’t looking too good either. She didn’t even try to keep Victor from breaking the Shield spell. She stiffened and fell before Victor’s blade reached her.

And then I saw why. Behind her hunkered a huge nightmare of a thing. Too many heads and mouths and hands, all bloodred. It pulled six bloody pincers out of Liddy’s back and reached for Chase. Chase crumpled as if she’d been hit by a Taser. Victor’s sword, which I thought had broken Liddy’s spell, instead finished its intended arc and sliced the creature in half.

The creature shuddered, then fell into a pile of quivering flesh. Flesh that started smoking in the rain. Victor grabbed Chase and dragged her away. He ran back for Liddy, but he was late, too late.

The creature went up in a screaming bonfire of flames, so dark, it hurt to look at it. And somewhere in that flame had been Liddy.

This was a slaughter.

Chase coughed and rocked, as if she’d hit the ground from a height and was trying to kick-start her lungs. Blood and rain splashed across her face. That nightmare creature had done some damage.

From the edge of the clearing, I saw another beast moving fast, liquid on four legs.

Greyson. No longer a man. All pissed-off hell-spawn creature, somehow more familiar and less frightening than the Hungers and horrors, coming straight for Chase. He tore through the Hungers, sucking down their life, their magic, and then spewed that magic at the other creatures, boiling them until they burst into flame.

I didn’t know where Hayden was. Didn’t know how Greyson had gotten away from him. But there was another killer on Greyson’s heels. Just as fast. Just as frightening. Coming down heavy enough I could feel the vibration of his stride under my feet.

Stone.

And he looked angry.

Greyson pounded toward Chase, throwing Hungers to the ground, laying a path of destruction behind him.

Allison, my dad said. Get close to Greyson.

I intended to do just that. Then I intended to stick Zay’s sword in his chest.

I understood the pain Chase must be going through. She still loved Greyson, even though he wasn’t human anymore. I could forgive her for siding with him, for wanting to defend him. But I would not let that keep me from killing the bastard.

If you kill Greyson, Dad said, you will kill the part of me inside him.

You’re not supposed to be alive anyway, I said. Get rid of him, get rid of you. How is that a bad thing?

A chill washed over my skin, colder than the rain. Stone leaped and landed, hard, in the middle of Greyson’s back. I heard bones break. Chase screamed as if the pain was hers to share, and maybe it was. She pushed up to her knees, and feet, and stumbled toward Greyson.

Victor did not stop her, too busy with the half dozen Hungers that surrounded him.

Hayden was back, at the northernmost edge of the field, swinging his broadsword like a one-man army, and yelling at the top of his lungs.

Zayvion is trapped, my father said. They did more than push him through the gate. They locked him there. They are using him there. He will never return.

No, I thought. That’s a lie.

My hand jerked, and I nicked the side of my thumb on the glass and steel blood blade I carried. Zayvion’s blood blade. I hadn’t moved my hand—my father had.

What the hell? It was a small cut, but blood ran freely from it.

I didn’t know what he was talking about, or why it mattered. He drew on the magic in the air, maybe used some of the magic in me, and I felt the tight, intimate tingling of a Truth spell spread through me, spread between us.

Zayvion is locked on the other side of death, my father said, and I felt the truth of it like a fire against my bones.

I thought Truth spells were bad on the outside. Having someone inside of my head bonding through Truth hurt. But it was very, very clear that my father was not lying.

I didn’t want to hear that, didn’t want to feel that truth burning through me.

We can do it later. After the battle. After we win. You can help me later. I didn’t care how desperate I sounded. He already knew what I was feeling. Truth spells worked both ways.

He broke the Truth spell, or uncast it, or did whatever it is a dead guy who can still freaking cast magic from inside someone else’s freaking body can do.

I opened my mouth to curse, but didn’t have time. More and more creatures continued to pour out of the gate. Too many for the magic users to deal with, too many to hope to defeat, too many to let loose into the city.

Victor had carved his way across the field to the front of the gate, his hands lifted in a complicated glyph that would close it. Nikolai, the good-looking Russian Closer, stood next to him, killing the beasts that came too near, holding a Shield of magic so that Victor could do his work.

Close the gate. So that there were no more beasts loose in the world.

Close the gate. And trap Zayvion.

Close the gate. Sealing Zayvion’s death.

Maeve was still on the ground, unconscious, but Sunny knelt next to her, keeping the beasts away with wicked knives.

Shame was also on the ground.

Terric had destroyed everything between him and Shame, and beheaded and de-limbed the Hunger that had attacked Shame. Terric now crouched next to Shame, one hand on his chest, glowing with magic that sank into Shame and poured out of him into the ground, as if Shame were a sieve, broken, unable to carry magic, life, breath.

I couldn’t tell if he was breathing. Terric was crying, his teeth bared in fury, his ax raised and crackling with black licks of magic as creatures circled them, came too close, and died on the edge of his blade. The blood on one side of his face was finger-painted in the glyph for life and I knew it had been traced there by Shame.

Shame was dying. Maybe he was already dead. I didn’t have the wrist cuff. I couldn’t tell if his heart still beat.

The gate was about to close. There was no more time to make good decisions. There was only time to make a decision.

Whom to save?

Zayvion had once told me I was not a killer. I’d proved him wrong. I had killed. But right now, it was life I was trying to hold on to.

I ran toward Greyson, caught the attention of too many creatures, and hacked my way through them. Months of training and sheer fury drove me on, Zayvion’s sword drinking down the magic, the energy, of the beasts. It was draining me, but I was pulling on magic from the sky, wild magic that licked and bloomed and caught fire in my blood, my bones, and fed me strength.

I channeled the storm. And now the storm raged in me.

Too bad for the beasts. Too bad for anyone in my way.

Closer, my father said.

I made ground as things born of death’s nightmares leaped at me, tearing at my magic, tearing at my flesh. Something, a claw or a fang, got through, sliced my thigh. Something else raked down my back. I felt the hot pump of blood mix with the hard-falling rain.

Then I was on Greyson.

Still pinned beneath Stone, he was more man than he had been. And I knew why. Chase lay next to him, frozen, her hand clasped with his. She was alive. I thought she was. And she was pouring her life out to sustain his.

Sometimes love made you stronger. And sometimes it made you crazy.

Greyson looked up at me. “There is still hope.”

“Not for you. Give me back my father, you bastard.” I swung the sword.

My father shifted in my head, stretched like electricity crackling behind my eyes. He pushed at my brain, my mind, my head.

My sword halted midswing.

My father’s ghost stood next to me, his hand blocking my blade. “Taking his life with this blade will kill you,” he said, from outside my mind.

I didn’t care. I had a lot of fury and magic holding me up. But there was also a lot of screaming in the back of my head that had been going on for a while. I knew I was ignoring a lot of pain. Maybe ignoring too much pain.

“Get out of my way,” I said through clenched teeth.

“Allison.” My father stepped closer to me. I caught the scent of him, wintergreen and leather. His voice was gentle. “There is no time for revenge. Not if you want life to win.”

How much time did it take to kill someone?

And that was when I felt it. The storm was passing, the rain lifting. Wild storms ended as quickly as they hit. Soon there would be no more wild magic to hold me up. I glanced up, away at the city, crouched in magicless darkness.

Lights flickered on, blazed. Magic caught again like a flame to a wick, and exhaled life and safety into the city. We had done it. We had channeled the wild magic away from the city. The storm was passing.

More than that, the wells and networks were filling fast. I could feel the deep tingle of familiar magic wrapping up inside me again, a heavy warm weight that stretched out against my skin, all pleasure, no pain.

I could easily access that magic, even out here in magicless St. Johns. But it was obvious Chase, lying still, eyes closed, hand clasped with Greyson’s at my feet, struggled to reach magic. To keep him alive.

My father let go of the sword, and bent over Greyson.

Stone growled. My father paid no attention to him. Instead, Dad traced a glyph in the air, a serpentine line that glowed pure white gold. He caught it up on his hands, where it pressed into place like gauntlets a king might wear. My father glowed with that light, as if the magic wrapped him in its vestments.

And then he pressed his hand into Greyson’s head.

Yes. Into.

Greyson went absolutely still, and Dad said something that sounded like an old language. A blessing more than a curse.

The gold lines of magic grew stronger and filled my dad with more light. He stood, and was more solid than he had been, though I could still see Stone and Greyson through him.

He regarded me for a moment. “Good-bye, daughter.” He turned toward the gate.

A rumble shook the ground. I turned. The gate, trapped by Victor’s spells, began to collapse.

Hayden was cutting a swath through the beasts toward us. He’d be here, on top of Greyson and Chase, in a second.

And out of the corner of my eye, I saw Terric stand and swing his ax, killing another beast, while he poured magic, less than before, into Shame. Terric was exhausted. The easy magic, the wild magic, was nearly gone.

Without it, Shame would die.

I spun, Zay’s sword still in my hand, and ran for the center of the field, for the pile of broken, blown-apart disks that no longer held magic, where the gate still shimmered in the air, growing smaller as Victor wrapped it in massive lines of magic that webbed it so that no more creatures poured out.

I didn’t want the disks. I wanted the crystal. Found it, glowing pink with magic beneath the burnt silver disks. I picked it up and could almost taste the sweetness of the full, heavy magic it carried like a perfume on the back of my throat.

“Terric!” I yelled.

He glanced over. I threw the crystal to him, willing it with mind and magic to find him, reach him. He caught it with the hand that was channeling magic, life, into Shame.

His eyes widened. And then he was on his knees, his ax discarded at his side, pressing the crystal to Shame’s chest with both hands, as if it were a new heart for a broken toy. He bent and pressed his forehead to Shame’s, whispering to him.

No time.

My father strode toward the gate. Close enough he could step through, but Victor’s lines blocked him.

“He must let me pass,” my father said.

Victor was focused, caught in a trance of sheer will, sweat peppering his face, his arms shaking as he chanted the spell and forced the gate between life and death to close. He was wielding a hell of a lot of magic with very little resources.

He did not see my dad. He did not know he was sealing Zayvion’s death forever.

There was no cavalry to come to our rescue.

But I didn’t need a cavalry to save Zayvion.

I strode over to Victor. My teacher, Zayvion’s teacher, who might even have been a father figure to Zay. I put my hand on his shoulder and used Influence so that he would understand me and obey.

“Wait until I pass through. Then close the gate behind me.”

“Allie,” he gasped. “It is suicide.”

“Zayvion is the guardian of the gates and I am his Soul Complement. No one’s going to tell me I can’t bring him home.”

Someone yelled. I thought it was Shame. He had told me I couldn’t go anywhere without him.

He was wrong.

I glanced over my shoulder. Shame was barely standing, eyes wide in horror or anger, one hand extended toward me. Terric stood behind him, one hand clasped with his, the other arm wrapped around Shame’s waist, holding him up, holding him back.

“Allie,” Shame yelled. “Don’t!”

I didn’t listen. I held up one hand. A wave. A farewell, and I turned away. Shame was in good hands. Maybe the best hands he could be in. Terric’s hands.

If there was ever going to be a chance to bring Zayvion back, it was now.

The shadow of a figure in flight flashed above me. Stone.

The big rock landed with surprising grace at my side.

I sheathed Zay’s sword across my back, and glanced down at Stone, all muscle and wing and fangs. He tipped his head to look up at me, ears perked into triangles.

“Stay,” I said. “I have work to do.”

Stone growled, then crooned like an out-of-tune pipe organ. His wings pressed against his back and he took a step toward the gate.

Fine. I was running out of time. I didn’t know if Stone could walk into death and return alive. Hells, I didn’t know if I could walk into death and come out alive. Didn’t know if I could find Zay’s soul and drag it back with me into the living world.

But I sure as hell was going to find out.

“Are you ready?” I asked my dad.

He frowned. “Where are you going?”

“To save my man.” I put my hand down on Stone’s head. My father smiled. I didn’t know why. Maybe he was angry.

“No,” he said, reading my thoughts. “Impressed. You know you can’t survive in there without me.”

“I didn’t say I was going alone.” I didn’t trust him. Sure, he talked a nice Truth spell, but once on the other side, he might change his mind about saving Zayvion. I wouldn’t chance that.

Dad took his place at my right, and Stone stood at my left. Without another look back, I walked through the gates of death.