Page 309 of City of Souls and Sinners

More beasts like the one Darien had downed at the carnival were heading straight for them.

Big as trucks. Heads like skulls. White scales. Grotesquely muscled bodies that were a cross between human and animal.

“I’m assuming we don’t like these ones?” Valen asked.

Malakai swore. “I’ve nearly reached my limit, man,” he said to Darien through clenched teeth, breaths rasping through the room. “I’m shaking—look.” His hands were shaking, and Max knew it had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with exhaustion.

Darien shifted his feet farther apart, and with an outward sweep of both hands, he reinforced the wall of shimmering black that he’d built around their group.

Max’s skin tingled, his blood warming as the protective magic washed over him, candle smoke filling the area. But even he could feel the difference between this wall and the one Darien had cast before. It was weaker. Diluted. A flicker of smoke instead of a solid wall of black adamant. Not only that, but Darien’s head and shoulders were dipping in a way that told Max he was seconds from passing out.

The monsters drew closer.

Closer.

Darien’s magic faltered.

A breath left his lungs.

Blood drained from faces. Frightened glances were exchanged, hands tightening on weapons.

The protective wall of shadowy magic flickered like a dying flame.

Just as the demons reached the gate, leaping through with otherworldly snarls that curdled blood, Darien’s magic went out entirely, leaving them all defenseless except for Malakai and Travis’s magic, both of their walls guttering and transparent, not nearly as strong—

The tunnels were choked with screams and shouts. Without Darien’s magic, the tables had turned, and not in their favor.

Blood sprayed the walls as the monsters attacked.

—

The new forcefield bubbling above the city had given the Fleet soldiers the upper hand.

But while it may be helping Roark and his army, it was doing nothing to aid Darien and the other Devils. The Angels. The Reapers, who Loren had seen bolting into the tunnels not long ago, likely answering Darien’s call for aid.

Loren could scarcely breathe. She stood on the ledge of the tower, hand still on the panel, eyes forever diverted toward that one street that branched off from Angelthene Boulevard.

Max and the others had disappeared below the grate minutes ago, but shots were still being fired, and hellseher magic rumbled below the city like an earthquake. Which meant the plan they’d put in place to close the gate wasn’t working.

As Loren watched, waiting for any sign that would tell her the others had finally won this endless battle, thoughts spun through her head, along with memories.

She was the key, the Widow had said of her mother. The turning of metal that split two worlds.

Loren faced Erasmus, who was still at her side, quiet as ever. “Our world used to be one with Spirit Terra,” she said. “Didn’t it?”

Erasmus’s eyes met hers. There was a twitch in his tightly closed mouth that told her he was trying to answer her question, trying to speak in truth, but was unable to do so.

Loren knew that look well.

She persisted, “My mother was the one who split the worlds in two. I know she was.” Loren wasn’t sure how her mother had done it, but this conclusion she’d drawn… It had to be true. Spirit Terra and the world she knew were two sides of a single coin, only separated by a curtain that eventually became known as the Veil. The curtain her mother had cast.

The legends—they were all true. They had to be.

Loren was moving, sidling along the circumference of the tower, feet nearly slipping on sheer cristala.

“Loren, wait,” Erasmus tried, grunting as he hurried after her.

Loren didn’t slow. Mortifer gripped her ankle tight, arms and legs wrapped around it like a koala.