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Johesha—who Tarley was sure was rarely surprised by anything—looked dismayed, his face slack with shock, before asking, “What just happened? Was that real?”

“I wish I had an answer for you, Captain, but it is only one of the strange things I’ve witnessed today,” Tarley pulled on his sleeve to get him moving.

“Tarley!” a voice yelled.

She looked up to see Jessamine, followed by Mattias and their father, rushing from the woods.

“Go,” Johesha said, raising his sword and disappearing into the throng.

Tarley raced across the grove, closing the distance to her family, and they swarmed her. Inside their collective embrace, she relaxed into them as they all spoke at once. Angry with her, relieved, warning her of Scarlett’s impending wrath, but the discontent meant so little now when before it had meant everything, because they loved her. They’d come for her.

But she needed Lachlan and pulled away. “Where is he?”

Her father—seeming to know—nodded toward the meadow beyond. “Doing what needs to be done.”

Tarley followed her father’s gaze and found Lachlan astride a horse, moving through the mass of people, his countenance assured and in command. It was clear Jast had control of the camp, the traitors restrained, strays being subdued. Lachlan stopped his horse when he found Captain Johesha and leaned forward as they spoke.

The captain gesticulated in her direction and Lachlan looked up. His eyes locked with hers. Tarley raised her hand, and his body seemed to sag with relief. He nudged his horse in her direction, pushing it into a trot so he could reach her faster.

Suddenly, an awful screech rent the air.

Tarley—along with everyone else in the meadow—covered her ears, crouching down. Lachlan’s horse cried out, rearing. The horse yanked against Lachlan’s lead, sidestepping, but Lachlan remain seated.

A horrifying darkness appeared, floating between Tarley and Lachlan—an entity of corporeal form—spooking the animals and terrifying everyone in the glade. Unlike Nixus’s appearance from the shadows, however, this being’s countenance seemed both slick—like black liquid—and simultaneously matted like granular sand. It had a pale, gray face, red eyes, and a wide grimace filled with sharp, pointy teeth. Its face turned Tarley’s way, tilting its horrible head at an unnatural angle, and floated across the meadow toward her with a terrifying grin. It lifted a clawed hand and pointed at her.

“I see you, Tarley Fareview,” it hissed. “So shiny.” The horrible voice scraped along her nerves, and she shuddered. “You cannot hide. You’re too bright.”

“Tarley!” Lachlan yelled, sliding from his horse and rushing toward her.

“No!” she screamed, afraid for him, knowing what that thing had done at the campsite. Lachlan scrambled forward anyway, only Captain Johesha tackled Lachlan to the ground as the dark thing folded in on itself in the opposite direction without turning at all.

“Mine,” it seethed, the sound stretched out.

On shaking legs, Tarley stepped forward. “Not yours.” Someone grabbed at her arms to keep her in place.

“That, Miss Fareview, is a darkling.” Nix’s voice—unexpectedly next to her—startled her. “And technically, it would seem in its way of doing things, you kind of are.”

She turned her head and frowned at him. “Nixus!”

“First names then? Got it. Tarley!” He mimicked her frustrated tone.

“Where have you been?”

He crossed his arms. “Here and there,” he said and nodded at the creature who’d stopped. “And as you can see, I’m nothing like that. I’m quite put out by your comparison. You should take it back.”

“Can’t you just snap your fingers or something. ‘End him,’” she lowered her voice to Nixus’s octave.

“Terrible impression, Tarley. Sorry. Can’t do it with this. There are other factors at play. I could steal and control its darkness momentarily, but–” He shuddered. “Gross.”

The creature screeched again.

Her gaze snapped back to the monster undulating over the meadow, staring at her once more with its mouth distended in its awful scream. “Mine! Mine!”

“That’s Rufus?” she asked, more to herself than to Nixus.

“Is it? I don’t know what a Rufus is. Horrible creatures. Difficult to kill, but not impossible.”

“Why can’t you?”