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“Oh no.” I ground my teeth as the demands multiplied, fragmented my own. “We’re not alone.”

The rosy slivered moon offered no light. Not that I needed it. A fluorescent ring of squirming mouths and striking claws erected around us.

Weapons shot up. Roark’s sword. Michio’s staff.

“Where’s my carbine?” Trapped and outnumbered, I shook with the effort to hold the aphids with will alone.

“With your Lakota,” Roark said, eyes probing the dark.

“Where’s my Lakota?”

He spun in a circle, lips pinched. “Plan A, we meet him a’ the boat.”

“And Plan B?”

“We meet his team a’ the boat.”

If we made it to the boat. My throat dried up, strangled by streamers of predatory need.

“How many?” Michio’s neutral voice.

I blew my hair out of my face. “Dozens and growing. I can hold some of them but we’re fighting our way to the exit.”

“And Aiman?” Michio asked.

The warmth of the bricks soaked into the soles of my feet. A tepid gust swept in with the thunder of the tide. My stomach growled with hunger that wasn’t mine. I reached beyond that basic need and followed the darkest thread. Flickering and angry, it led me up, up, up…there. “The tower. My chamber.” Then, with a snap, the connection blinked out. Dammit, he knew how to shut me out the way I shut out him.

Michio tilted his head and studied me sidelong. “How many can you hold?”

I pulled his back to my chest without losing contact with Roark. “I’m holding the ones in front. The rest are mindless with hunger. I can feel them pushing through the horde, getting closer.”

We sidled toward the exit, the circle of aphids shifting with us. Then the inner ring shrank, halting us.

“We’ll fight them off with our backs to you, Evie.” Michio glanced over his shoulder at Roark, who gave a swift nod and glued his back to mine.

Behind me, a glowing figure darted from the front line. Roark broke away from my embrace in a flash of steel. A head rolled. Then another.

The vigor powering my command dimmed and my vision went with it. My limbs turned to cement, and I sagged against Michio. His arm looped back to catch me. The band around us wavered.

Roark returned to my back in a rise and fall of muscle. We gained a few more steps. Points of skin contact came and went. A fleeting grip. A brush of fingers. I pulled energy when and where I could, gathered it into myself, and released it with everything I had. Leave.

The aphids faltered, allowing a reprieve to run. The swoosh of the sword led the way. Michio’s stick snapped through the air unheard and with a long reach, fending off those closest on our heels.

Blinking sweat from my eyes, I held the knives at my sides and clamped down on the network of threads heating under the passage of my commands. Their numbers grew. Too many were gaining too close.

Our feet slapped across the quadrangle. A swarm rose up from the side. I released a blade and missed. “Michio, watch out.” My teeth sawed my lip and I tasted blood.

A chain whipped out from the end of his cane and disabled a row of double-jointed legs.

“Behind you.” His tone was calm, at odds with the fierce movement of his arms.

I spun, swapping the knives in my hands, double-fisting, and collided them into both sides of the bulbous head crashing into me. My back hit the bricks and my heartbeat screamed.

Eerie shrieks ripped through the night. The pit of bugs squeezed in.

Arms gripped me, lifted me over a bare shoulder. My energy spilled out, tendrils elongating, skirting the tubular suckers, the snapping pincers, and the hunched torsos. The web spread, ensnared everything in its path. My muscles trembled under the exertion.

Aphids invaded from all directions, flooding my horizon with green. I sucked in a jagged breath. “How far to the exit?”

“Ten paces.” Michio’s voice vibrated beneath me.

I pictured the arched stairway, the freedom beyond. Then I poured out my essence. My body fought it. My mouth watered, imbued with acid. Move.

The crowd of creatures divided, opened a path. The bricks ran together under my hanging feet. An inner agitation tore along my spine. The pain rippled up, bowed my back. The stone archway passed overhead and blocked out the floating crescent in the sky.

“Evie? Evie?” The voice faded. The arch tilted.

Brine teased my nose. I opened my eyes. “Did I pass out?”

“Where to?” Michio shouted.

My waist bounced on his shoulder, arms lolling down his back. Sea breeze whipped my hair as he glided through the dark.

“The boreen. There,” Roark said, winded.

Sand sprayed under Michio’s feet as he reeled in a circle. A narrow path flickered by. Water slapped at a huge boat docked at the end.

Michio grunted and jerked to the side. His body flowed through the swing of his free arm. A meaty smack followed. When he whirled again, I craned my neck. A sea of green stretched to the horizon. Driveling mouths struck at our heels.