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Aneirin’s smile faltered. “Well, aren’t you clever? The White Fox, indeed.”

“Taly,” Ivain said sharply, his eyes never leaving Aneirin. “Go. Now. Get as far away from here as possible and wait for me to find you.”

Taly didn’t need to be told twice. She picked herself up off the floor. Her feet moved, not toward the safety of the entrance, but to Calcifer instead.

She fell to her knees beside him. “Come on.” She slid her hands under his massive frame, trying to lift him, but his body was limp, unresponsive. “Calcifer, please! Get up!”

He didn’t move.

A low, pain-filled sound escaped him, a weak echo of his usual growl. The edges of his shadowy form rippled, feathering away into the air.

“No,” Taly choked out, tears blurring her vision as golden motes of light lifted from him, drifting upward like embers in the dim light. “No, no, no. You’re fine. You’re fine! Just—just get up!” She shook him gently, then less gently as more and more of him dissolved into the air.

“Taly!” Ivain’s voice was sharp. She turned, her chest heaving, tears on the brink of falling, but his gaze was unyielding. “Go.”

Another golden wisp floated upward, and her throat tightened. She couldn’t leave him, she couldn’t—

The first clang of metal struck.

Ivain’s sword clashed against Aneirin’s in a shower of sparks, but the fight shifted quickly. Kalahad flicked his hand, and a crack tore open beside him, swallowing his weapon. It reappeared above Ivain, who barely dodged the blade aimed for his shoulder.

“Go!” Ivain roared, his own swing arcing wide in retaliation.

With a ragged sob, Taly kissed Calcifer’s nose, just like she had a hundred times before. But this time, he didn’t stir.

She let go—and felt the last of her heart shatter as she wrenched open the door and fled the temple.

Chapter 68

Taly emerged to a city in panic.

All around her, people screamed, some huddling together while others tried to flee. Thunder drummed wildly in the distance, boom after boom of it. The warning bells rang down near the city walls.

Taly pushed into the crowd, her sobs muffled by the chaos. Her vision blurred with tears, and her body was weightless, swept up by the tide of desperate souls rushing in every direction.

Calcifer was gone. In an eyeblink, this little thing that she’d cared for and helped to grow, that she was supposed to protect was justgone, and there was nothing she could do to bring him back.

It didn’t seem real. Every bit of her, every fiber rebelled against it. Her mind was in freefall as all around her people were screaming.

Something had happened, though Taly couldn’t say what. Above, flashes of lightning danced through the gaps in the tarps strung between buildings.

No, not lightning, she realized. It was the aerial ward shield flashing.

A man stumbled into her, catching her before she fell. “Sorry,” he panted—then blinked. “Wait, Taly?”

She stared at him, disoriented.Ren. Behind him, a woman with two young girls clinging to her skirts—his mother and sisters—looked her over.

The woman—Ana, if Taly remembered right—noted the tears on her face, must have mistaken them for panic. “Bring her,” she told her son.

Ren gripped her tighter as Ana caught her other arm, and together they dragged her along.

Taly let them. She didn’t have it in her to fight. With every step, the shattered pieces of her heart scraped like glass inside her chest.

Two more massiveboomssounded, getting closer. Enough now to know for sure—those were explosions, not thunder. The ward shield sputtered. Beyond it, she could just make out a swarm of dark, winged forms that hovered and swooped, throwing themselves at the invisible veil of protection magic that stretched like a dome over the city.

Of course, that asshole had to bringharpiesinto this.

They lunged for the ward shield, their stretched arms clawing madly. Where they struck, lightning splintered from the point of impact, illuminating their grotesque forms in bursts of electric blue.