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The girl stepped in front of me, wrapped her hands around the blade, and yanked it out. “I’ll need this one now.”

I bellowed.

With a surge of adrenaline, I whipped Leif’s blade from my side to jab up. She merely swatted it away.

“Please. Don’t embarrass yourself now.”

My breath came in ragged gasps, each one a struggle, each one sending more pain rippling through me. I tried to press my hand against the wound to stop the blood I could already feel pooling under my fingers, sticky and warm even as the night froze around me. My cloak, heavy and useless, tangled around me as I slumped forward, one hand bracing against the icy ground.

The metallic taste of fear crept into my mouth, and my vision swam, the edges blurring like ink bleeding through paper. I couldn’t think. The pain was too much, too bright, eclipsing everything else.

Every heartbeat felt like a hammer striking the wound, and my stomach churned, nausea clawing its way up my throat. My head spun as I forced myself to lift my gaze to see the girl as she ran away.

The snow beneath me was red now, a dark, spreading stain that mingled with the icy whiteness. I blinked, and the world tilted again, shadows creeping into the edges of my vision.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this. Not here. Not now.

I clung to that thought, to the anger of it, to the sheer defiance that burned hotter than the pain. My fingers tightened against the ground, my nails digging into the frozen earth, and I gasped for air, forcing myself to hold on.

To fight.

Because if I stopped now—if I let the darkness take me—then I was as good as gone. And I wasn’t ready to die. Not yet.

A new sound came, and I looked up to see a wolf with snow-dusted fur.

Brilliant. Let them all come at once.

But he didn’t attack. He walked slowly, inspecting me with sad eyes.

“You’re not with Dimitri,” I said, almost wishfully. “Delilah’s?”

The wolf nodded.

“I need help,” I told him. “Go find help.”

The beast ran away, and my world went dark.

I woke sometime later to the feel of the cottage bed beneath my aching body, the faint scent of lavender and aged wood filling mynostrils. A coarse wool blanket scratched against my legs, a stark contrast to the warm pressure of a hand pressing firmly over the wound on my stomach. My breath hitched, but before I could fully comprehend my surroundings, my gaze caught a face staring down at me.

Leif watched me with a frown as though he were as displeased to be there as I was to see him. His dark hair flared up in little wisps, untamed as if he had run all the way here. The firelight from the nearby hearth reflected in his brown eyes, which flicked briefly to my wound, narrowing as though he believed sheer willpower might be enough to seal it.

I tried to sit up. “You came.”

“You called.” He moved his hand from the wound on my stomach to my shoulder, where he gently lowered me back down. His hand shifted from the wound on my stomach to my shoulder, pressing down with just enough force to keep me still. His touch was firm, but his movements were surprisingly gentle, almost hesitant. “Sleep, Ren. The magic is still working.”

That was when I saw the onyx bottle of his potion, and it was empty.

I laid back down while struggling to comprehend what was happening. I’d told the wolf to find Delilah, hadn’t I? He found Leif instead.

“Why?”

Leif’s voice softened further, barely more than a breath. “I don’t know,” he said, his gaze dropping to the empty bottle as though it might hold the answer.

I slipped back to sleep.

FORTY-EIGHT

I missed hours of the day. When I woke, sunlight poured through the frosted window, bathing the room in a soft, golden glow that made the motes of dust in the air shimmer like tiny stars. The warmth of it pressed against my face.