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“They’ve been using humans to bolster their numbers,” Ivain said softly. “Humans breed faster; they die faster. Even in the larger cities, no one bats an eye when a human passes. Whoever planned this attack has been preparing for a very long time, and if I had to guess, I would say that they’ve been harvesting areas with little in the way of defense in order to mount an attack on fortified strongholds. After all, we’re more likely to let in a familiar face than we are—”

Sarina let out another sob as the implication began to settle over the group.

“No,” Skye said again.

“Skylen.” Ivain’s voice held a hidden edge. “I don’t like it either, but we have to be realistic.”

“Taly’s not dead.” And Shards, it hurt. It hurt just to say that word. “She’s not.” Because he wouldn’t accept it.

Aiden piped up, “I didn’t see Taly among the shades I killed.”

“I’m not surprised,” Ivain said. “Whoever’s doing this—if they have any inkling of what she is to me” —his eyes cut to Skye— “or to you, they’ll save her. They’ll use her against us. And considering the way that Aiden’s spell reacted, I suspect—”

“Don’t say it!” Even Skye was surprised by how vicious the words sounded.

The room went silent, save for Sarina’s quiet sobbing.

Skye turned to Aiden. “I’m going to need the rest of her blood, her pack… anything you have of hers.”

“Skylen.” Again, that sharp, lethal edge. Ivain finally let go of the desk, standing to his full height. And despite every instinct that told him to back down, to shut his mouth and obey—Skye met the old man’s stare. “We are in a difficult position right now, and we do not have the luxury of entertaining folly.”

“Brother,” Sarina rasped, but Ivain held up a hand, shushing her.

Aiden turned away, staring out the window through red-rimmed eyes.

“Taly is dead.” Ivain’s voice cracked on that last word.

Dead.

Dead, dead, dead…

Until now, Skye hadn’t even allowed himself to think the word. That horrible, horrible word that now clanged through him.

Something inside him began to scream as that hole that used to be his heart grew wider, and wider, and wider.

“She’s gone, boy.” Ivain again. He said something else, but Skye had already turned.

Someone called his name, but he was already out the door and down the stairs.

It was late when Skye finally stumbled out of the tavern. He wasn’t sure how he had ended up there. And after a few dozen drinks, he didn’t care. All he knew was that everything had becomecomfortably numb, that pain that threatened to cleave him in two temporarily muted.

The streets were far emptier now that the vendors had packed up their shops for the night, and the sounds of chatter and drunken laughter began to fade as he staggered down the street, somehow managing to stay on his feet.

He wasn’t ready to go home yet. Sarina would likely be waiting. Ivain too. But Skye couldn’t face that. Face them. Face that empty room across from his that still smelled likeheror the reality that it was going to stay empty.

Not yet.

Skye turned down a random alleyway.

Taly was dead, and it hadn’t really settled into him yet. He felt pain, but not enough. Yes, there was a hole that had been punched straight through him. And yes, he marveled at the fact that his heart could keep beating when hers didn’t. But it didn’t feel real. He was walking around in a fog, and when he finally forced himself to face that reality head-on, he would undoubtedly be inconsolable. He would fly into a rage, curse Aiden, curse the gods, curse any reality that didn’t have her in it.

Dead.

And surprisingly, it didn’t seem so hard to think the word now because it seemed so positively ludicrous.

Dead, dead, dead…

Because surely, he would know if she were gone. Some part of him would’ve surely felt that life extinguish, would instinctively know that the world had become just a little darker.