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“Ewwwwwwwww!” someone squealed.

Loren’s conduit was suddenly flaming hot.

She plunged a hand down the front of her shirt and pulled it away from her skin, tugging it up through the collar of her blouse. She let go of it as soon as she was able, letting it fall against her chest. Pain bloomed across her skin, and she drew a hiss in through her teeth, rubbing the tender spot through her blouse.

Now that the conduit was no longer trying to burn a hole in her body, she looked up to see what the commotion was all about.

The table the three witches were at was covered in frozen coffee; it was splattered all over their books and bags. The other two were still giggling as the brunette attempted to wipe the coffee off the front of her blouse. It looked like her drink hadn’t just spilled—the cup had exploded.

Loren stared, mind spinning.

What in the name of Ignis?…

She grabbed her conduit and felt the metal. It was no longer scalding, but it was still warm to the touch. Had she done that?

Loren glanced around the library. Nothing else seemed out of the ordinary, nothing that might point to how the girl’s cup had exploded.

Except the clock hanging on the wall appeared to have stopped working. She checked the time on her phone, comparing it to the clock…

The hands had stopped moving approximately two minutes ago.

Loren stood. Feigning interest in the shelves of books, she walked around the area, looking for anything else that might be out of place. There was nothing else that she could see, no items or people frozen in time, though there was a shift in the air—a different temperature near her table, several degrees cooler than the rest of the library.

Loren shook the thoughts out of her head and returned to her table.

As she was gathering up her books, a figure in her peripheral vision caught her attention.

Klay was watching from several tables over. She wasn’t sure when he had got here, but something about the way he was looking at her made her wonder if he’d been there the whole time. And if he had, that meant he’d seen everything.

She was running out of time. And now that Klay had seen her using her magic, the imperator would be coming for her—and soon.

44

Darien never imagined he would be back here so soon.

He stood on the sidewalk in front of Blackgate Manor, Bandit at his side. One of the charms he wore around his neck was resting between his teeth; he lightly chewed on it as he stared at the grimy windows and peaked roof. The sign rattled in a warm breeze. Aside from the distant beeping of car horns, it was the only sound in the area. The old house was exactly the same as the last time he’d seen it; it never changed. It would be here forever, until the planet was nothing but dust.

Down the street, a woman and her canine Familiar approached, their footsteps becoming audible the closer they got, bringing a flicker of life to this dead place. She was tossing a murkball—a shadowy toy a Familiar could materialize out of thin air—for the hound, and he used his nose to bounce it back into her waiting hand. When the woman spotted Darien and Bandit, she crossed the street with her Familiar and continued their walk on the other side.

Bandit looked up at him, black nose twitching. Why don’t we ever do that? His glowing eyes narrowed into slits.

Do what? Play fetch?

Yeah.

You? Play fetch? Darien smiled around the charm, the taste of metal spreading across his tongue.

Bandit looked wounded. Why not?

Darien shook his head. That’d be the day.

He stared at the house again. A gust of wind howled down the street, the force of it stirring his hair. It carried a flurry of crisp leaves and tree branches that scraped across the pavement like nails on a chalkboard.

I don’t know why we’re here if you’re just going to keep staring at the house, Bandit said. Daylight’s running out. They looked in unison at the sun, the red orb dipping swiftly toward a shadowy skyline. Someone’s going to call the cops on you for casing the neighborhood.

I’m not stealing from anyone who matters.

You’re scared, aren’t you?