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He paled. Then he roared, the force of the sound rocking the antechamber. His fist flew, and my head snapped back.

Pain exploded behind my eyes. I staggered, then shifted to shadow form.

Graeme streamed into the air beside me, his body a seething, roiling mass of vaporized rage. We spiraled around each other as we sailed toward the ceiling.

Abruptly, he vanished.

I slowed, twisting this way and that as I searched for signs of him. If I’d had a pulse, it would have been racing. If he’d cloaked himself in glamour, he could be anywhere. He could be right beside—

A tight, concentrated ball of smoke appeared a dozen feet away from me. It split into dozens of smaller balls.

Oh, fuck.

The balls shot toward me like a hail of bullets. I couldn’t move fast enough, and they slammed into me, scattering my form into tiny pieces. The world spun. Disorientation swept me as I struggled to reform. But I couldn’t pull myself together. Gritting my teeth in my mind, I shifted in the air and plunged to the cavern floor as flesh and bone.

Several of those bones snapped as I hit the ground and skidded on my stomach. The rock peeled my skin. Agony knifed through me, ripping a cry from my throat. Graeme’s answering roar pierced the fog of pain. I flipped onto my back, the taste of blood in my mouth.

Graeme stalked toward me, his eyes wild and unfocused.

Georgie stepped between us clad in nothing but a towel. “Stop!”

Graeme recoiled like he’d been struck. He blinked at her, his bare shoulders heaving.

She faced off with him like an avenging angel, her wet hair streaming down her back. A strange power hovered around her, and it had a voice. But it didn’t speak. No, it writhed, filling the air with vicious whispers I couldn’t quite catch. Witchcraft. I’d never experienced it up close. Anyone who claimed witches were the weakest immortals had clearly never seen one ready to throw down.

“You will not touch him,” Georgie said, and the whispers hissed with a thousand different tongues. The hair on my nape lifted. I was suddenly grateful I couldn’t see her face.

Graeme’s ragged breaths filled the antechamber. His pale gaze shifted from Georgie to me. For a moment, something like regret flickered in his eyes. Then he took shadow form and streaked away, setting the torches dancing in his wake.

Georgie whirled around and rushed to me. “Callum!” She knelt at my side and held trembling hands over my body as if she was afraid to touch me. Her eyes glittered bright purple with anger and worry. As she looked me over, the worry won out. “Talk to me. Are you okay?”

“Never better,” I grunted as I sat up.

“You’re bleeding! Oh gods, your arm…”

I looked at my forearm, where a purplish splinter of bone protruded from my skin. As Georgie and I watched, it shivered and slid back into place. “I might need a band-aid,” I said, nausea filling my mouth with saliva.

She lowered her voice to barely above a whisper. “You need to get out of here. Both of us. Now.”

“But…Graeme.” We couldn’t leave him.

“He attacked you,” Georgie said, something fierce leaping into her eyes. “He was going to kill you. Gods, Callum, how can you even think of staying?”

“He wouldn’t have killed me.” I was sure of it.

Pretty sure.

She put her mouth to my ear. “We should go to the Oracle before the storm comes. You heard Graeme. If I’m meant to get past the White Gate, I will. And I’m not going to sit around freezing my ass off, waiting for him to beat you.”

Something—my wounded male pride, perhaps—roused in my chest. “He didn’t beat me.”

She pulled back. “What did he mean about searching for Hamish?”

So she’d heard that. “I don’t know, but I’m hoping he meant it metaphorically.” Which had to be the case. The Firstborn Races were hard to kill—and dragons more so than most—but no one had ever returned from the dead. I was sure of it.

Well, pretty sure.

Fuck.