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As they squabble, I return to my own mind and funnel more power down my bond. They likely hurt my familiar to lure me out.

Wind is whipping through my hair, and tears are slipping out the corners of my eyes, but beneath my grief and fear, violence rises in me, ancient and eager. I can feel the edge of it staining my power as my magic gathers in my palms. Those witches are fuckingmarked.

Up ahead, the trail of my magic comes to an abrupt end. I can’t see my familiar, but I do notice the witches around him. A couple magical orbs hover in the sky above them, illuminating their forms.

“There she is.”

I don’t know which person announces it, but I’m already dragging my arm back, my power coalescing in my palm.

“Explode,” I command.

And then I throw it.

BOOM!

Magic and fire detonate in the air, blowing back the circle of witches, revealing the slumped shape of my familiar.

The pain that lances through me at the sight of him nearly brings me to my knees.

Make them pay.Memnon’s voice is icy, wrathful.

More magic floods down my arm and into my palm.

“Explode.” I throw it at the witches, uncaring that it might blow limbs apart.

My power detonates just above them, throwing the witches farther from my familiar. Several of them scream, and fire has broken out on one of them. I see the woman frantically try to put it out.

The rage that surges through my blood is otherworldly. There’s a hungry, sinister part of me that needs to end each one of them slowly, but the moment my eyes return to Nero, it dissolves away.

My familiar lies unmoving on the ground. In the darkness, I can just make out the sheen of blood matting his fur.

I can’t breathe over the pain—both physical and emotional—choking the life out of me.

I close the last of the distance between us and fall to Nero’s side, my knees landing in a pool of cooling blood. At first glance, my panther looks dead. He’s too motionless. But when I slip down our bond and into his head, I can feel him still there. That’s the extent of my reassurance, however, because an instant later, I feel the full weight of his pain. It’s more than agony; it’s death throes.

I bite back a sob.

“You’re not dying on me.Vekahi.”Heal. I whisper the Sarmatian word, pressing a hand against his blood-matted fur. My magic soaks into his body, thick like honey.

It’s difficult to sense what it’s repairing, but I think…I think that bad wound, the one that should’ve done him in, is healing. Maybe I’m just being overly hopeful.

I run a hand over his cheek, and he makes a soft, huffing noise.

“It’s okay, big guy,” I reassure him. “I’ve got you. You’re not dying.”

My hand continues down his back, only stopping when my fingers catch on a piece of paper…and a nailhead that pins it to my familiar.

They literally nailed a note into Nero’s skin.

My hands begin to tremble as my power vibrates in me. I’m seeing red—red like blood, red like pain,red like wrath.

Before I can act on it, I hear a whisper. Seconds later, a spell hits my back, searing through the cloth and sizzling my skin. Another curse quickly follows, slicing into my shoulder.

I grunt, slumping forward over Nero, my magic still healing him.

My attacker murmurs again, the incantation too low to hear, and I brace myself, using my body as a shield. The curse grazes the side of my temple. Pain bursts from behind my eyes, and for several seconds, I can see nothing—no red vision, no mutilated familiar, nothing.

Slowly, my sight returns, but there’s little true relief when the hits continue. Most land on my lower back, carving into my skin and scalding my flesh.