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Into Aecora’s possession. I unwittingly managed to screw over the very person I owed my life to.

I decided then that silence was probably the best.

Next to me Asher seethed. I could sense his fury, feel it building up beneath his skin. Like an Infernarus who’s taken in too much magic, he needed to release it.

He wasn’t releasing it. And I was trapped in the car with him.

I waited for it. For him to curse, to yell, to rage.

Instead, Asher began to laugh.

Laugh.

Definitely moon-touched.

“Wh—why are you laughing?” I was almost afraid to ask.

He shook his head. “Now that Aecora has my blood, you might just get the opportunity to repay your debt after all.”

The next severalhours were tense. The thing about misfortunate magic is that you can’t always tell when it is responsible for bad luck. Sometimes unfortunate events happen without the aid of curses. And then sometimes you endure the aftereffects of dark magic and never fully realize that the skirmish you lost or the food poisoning you acquired were not chance events at all.

But if Aecora did indeed have Asher’s blood, she would use it, and the curse would be strong enough for us to know.

“I’m really sorry,” I said quietly, staring out the window.

“Stop apologizing,” Asher said, aggravated.

“You don’t want me to apologize, you don’t want me to save your life—whatdoyou want from me?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Asher said. “I want nothing from you.”

I flashed him a strange look.

He tore his gaze away from the road to search my face. “Has anyone evernotwanted anything from you?”

“All Infernari are indebted to one another from birth. We owe each other allegiance. The only ones not indebted to each other are mates—”

Before I could finish the thought, a dark creature flashed in my peripheries, darting across the road. I swiveled my head in time to see a furry animal cross in front of the car.

“Asher!” I cried, my eyes widening.

His head snapped back to the road.

He didn’t even have time to curse before he jerked the wheel. The car swerved violently off the highway. It bounced as it left the paved road, driving over rock and underbrush.

My eyes were peeled to the sight in front of us. We careened toward a small guardrail mere feet away. Beyond it... the land dropped off, and I couldn’t tell how deep the gully beyond it was.

We were far too close to stop our momentum.

Asher laid on the brakes, our tires squealing. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly. Our vehicle smashed into the guardrail, which groaned and bent, and then we were moving over it. I didn’t have time to scream before the vehicle careened over the edge. There was nothing beneath us but empty air.

I gripped the door handle and the center console as I stared at the ground far below. Far, far below.

The edge of the car connected with the walls of the gully. Metal groaned as it met resistance, and then the world was flipping.

Mother above, save us.

Asher’s side of the car slammed into the sloping side of the gully again, the frame of the car making a shrieking noise as it crunched together. My body whipped about at the impact, my hair scattering. Next to me, I heard Asher grunt, and then the vehicle was rolling again, the metal banging into the sides of the mountain, and all that wondrous human technology we sat inside was now nothing more than a cheap parlor trick to the force of nature.