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Eli groans and thrusts Poett underwater. A muffled scream travels below the surface. I’ve seen enough death for a thousand lifetimes, but I can’t look away. Rain-soaked hands latch onto my arms from behind and pull me out of the water. The onslaught of cold air strikes my entire body.

“Elivander,” I scream.

He flips around, shoves Poett’s body deeper underwater and swims for the bank, heavy boots slapping the surface of the lake with the few kicks it takes.

“That’s the second time I’ve pulled you out of water, Hollow. You should have been killed that first day.” The guard from the courtyard who almost drowned me—she adjusts her grip and grabs me around my ribs, dragging me away from the inlet…away from Eli. He’s at the bank, climbing out after me, but Poett leaps onto his back and drags him into the water by his suspenders.

“Go, Jace,” Poett yells to the guard holding me. My nails scrape uselessly over her jumpsuit.

Eli lands a punch to Poett’s jaw combined with an underwater move that makes his face scrunch up in agony—a blow to the balls, likely. He lets out a gurgle audible from here, and Eli leaves him, swimming for the bank again.

The guard holding me, Jace apparently, whips me side to side in response to my thrashing. She’s all muscles and speed. “The only reason I’m not strangling you right now is because the Centress wants you delivered alive.”

Another guard appears through the trees, schlepping Milo along. I recognize the guard from the school in the village too—dark brown skin and tight curls with bright eyes. He’s at least six inches shorter than Milo, but manages to drag him next to Jace. Milo’s lip is split and swelling. His shirt is ripped, and shiny bruises obscure his normally rosy cheeks. How could they? He’s not like them. Milo’s gentle. I fight harder against Jace’s hold.

Following the sound of grunts and yells, I crane my neck to see the shore through the trees. Kaleida and Sypher fend off a huge guard in a black jumpsuit. He’s slow and unfocused, but so solid that their advances bounce off him. Kaleida fights with her elbows, jabbing every which way and targeting sensitive areas. Sypher leverages brute force with punches to the stomach and face. Even two-on-one, they’re barely standing.

“I’m taking her in,” Jace tells the guard struggling with Milo.

“The Centress is gone for the night,” he says.

“It’s fine. Bring him too.” Jace signals to Milo with a jut of her chin. “The Centress will want to kill him herself.”

“Eli!” I yell to him again as they drag us away. He doesn’t turn around this time. Poett elbows him in the face and drives him underwater.No.

“You think a Vaile will help?” Jace says in my ear. “No one—especially not Eli—cares about you. That man broke after his father died. He doesn’t care about a single soul but his own.”

Ten, twenty, thirty seconds…still under. Raindrops smack the surface. A shadowy form dips and dives below. Eli’s head pops back up. Then his hand. And his knife. He swings it around, searching for Poett, but he’s feet away, ducking back under. Eli swims backward toward the bank, turns and pulls himself up and out. Squelching boots and soggy, dripping clothes don’t hinder his nimbleness as he springs toward the guard holding Milo and stabs his thigh. I don’t hear the rip of flesh over the rain, but the blow of blade on bone is unmistakable.

The guard wails and releases Milo. He crumples to the ground, clutching his leg and groaning. Blood streams over the raised veins and tight knuckles of his hands, turning pink in the rain. Milo staggers back, stunned, and ducks behind a tree. He’s trained like the rest of them, but clearly wants nothing to do with fighting. Eli climbs on top of the guard, and with two hands around the wet handle and a perfect face of murderous malice,he drives the blade through his heart and pulls it out just as fast, like a vision of death coming to life in the most alluring way.

Then he’s a step in front of me, bloody knife in hand. “Hand her over, Jace. You touched her, you’re next.”

He won’t let her take me from him. He won’t.

“Back off, Eli.” Jace loosens her grip on me long enough to produce a club from her back and slip it across my throat. “You’re already a dead man.”

Poett emerges from the water behind Eli, strands of hair wrapping around his neck and crossing his face.

“Behind you,” I screech, and Jace tugs the metal club in and up, squashing my throat.

Eli spins around and elbows Poett in the neck. Poett bends in half, wheezing, breath crackling. Eli helps him fall to the ground and sends a knee into his stomach with all his weight. I have to look away after he curls into a ball and vomits chunks of brown bar and blood. I gag against the club from the sour stench.

Eli’s about to bury the knife in the back of his neck when Kaleida shrieks. I turn my head to see her collapse against a tree near the shore. The enormous guard stomps on her limp figure. Sypher kicks the back of his knees, but fails to bring him down. Jace takes the moment to attempt to slip away with me.

Eli hurls himself forward, knocking Jace on her back with me on top of her. She pulls the club tighter. My throat gargles and groans. Eli sits on top of my hips, his wet weight squashing me against Jace. He raises his knife, aiming it dangerously close to my face, but she swings the club away from my neck and into his wrist. The knife flies from his hand. I suck in as much air as I can, coughing and gasping.

Eli lifts his hips and rolls me to the side, off of Jace and out from between them. She reaches for me, trying to gather me back up as her shield. Eli’s fist soars past me and into her face.

“Go,” he says. I roll once more, smacking into the dead guard that held Milo. Poett pushes up out of his pile of vomit and reaches for me. His hand snags my hair as I scurry backward on my hands and feet, my bottom scraping the ground. I squeal, pivot and jab my booted heel into his ribs.

“Oh shit.” I stare at my leg as if it weren’t mine. Poett releases my hair, and I catch Eli’s eyes on me while I push myself up, blood and mud squishing between my fingers.

I run to where Milo disappeared behind the trees, spinning in search of him—only to spot the little boy from the forest slipping behind a trunk. As I reach the tree, a hand finds my wrist, and I’m hauled to the ground and into Milo’s arms. No little boy.

“It’s you.” I let out a relieved breath, my heart clamoring for a way out.

Milo pulls me sideways into his lap and wraps himself around me. He’s wet, but somehow warm like Kelter, and he still smells like cloves—reminding me of Eli. “Are you hurt?”