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“Just keep an eye on that fire and don’t let it get out of control!” Ella yelled back at Rossa as plumes of thick black smoke billowed into the air. “Two of the guards are coming over!”

She ran headfirst into the magical smoke, using her hands to push it ahead of her like a shield.

Her vision blurred, but she kept her sights on the gate and the two remaining guards.

No one had seen her yet; they were all too busy staring at the fire she’d started.

She sidestepped one of the remaining trolls, who had deserted his post, and slammed right into the massive door.

Luckily, with all the noise, no one heard her, the bang or her muttered expletive.

Dammit, the door was locked. Duh. She closed her eyes and concentrated on exhuming its secrets and its weaknesses. Even as she searched, the timber groaned and shivered under her hand like a living being.

A snap of light whizzed past her nose as the smoke began to clear. Could they see her? Rossa had tried to help her with an invisibility spell, but she wasn’t sure she had the ability to maintain it.

“Watch out!”

He was bellowing in her head. On the road behind her, she saw a figure approaching on the back of a horse, long blond hair flowing in the breeze, a hand raised to cause magical mayhem. If that wasn’t Rossa ratting her out, it had to be Vadim’s father.

Another blast of deadly power hit the door, bounced off, and buried itself in her left shoulder.

It also weakened the integrity of the door.

To her complete surprise, her desperate spell worked.

She fell flat on her face on the other side and looked up into the unwelcoming black eyes of yet another troll, his long spear an inch from her nose.

“Hang on!” She got to her feet, arms raised, and ignored the horrendous pain in her shoulder. “I didn’t mean any harm. I was just getting away from the smoke.”

He didn’t reply, just gestured at her with his weapon to move off.

She didn’t argue, and let him walk her down the narrow corridor.

When he grunted, she paused obediently before a locked door.

As he reached past her to unlock it, she brushed against his hand, pushing the smallest amount of power into him.

Without a sound, he crumpled to the floor.

Using all her strength, she bundled the troll into one of the empty rooms and shut the door on him.

She had no idea whether she’d killed him or not and didn’t have time to check.

At least he hadn’t exploded all over her.

A quick glance back at the entranceway confirmed her fears that Rossa and the fire’s usefulness had ended and that the guards were once again mustering at the door.

Would they sense her presence? Had the Fae king seen her escape through the smoke, or had he simply been attempting to get into the castle himself?

She didn’t have time to care. With her current luck, she’d be captured before she even had a chance to look for her face.

She could pick up no sense of Adam, so what should she aim for?

An image of Brad and Ms. Phelps came into her head, and she focused on that instead.

If she followed their empathic signals, she would hopefully find hers.

Carefully reciting the invisibility spell Rossa had hurriedly tried to teach her, she locked the door, gathered herself and ran toward the back of the massive building.

Bits of her eluded the cloaking hex, so she caught the odd glimpse of her arm, her boot and her jacket like pieces of an ever-changing kaleidoscope.

It was quite bizarre. Even though she was in a rush, she couldn’t fail to notice the beauty of the place.

It was a monument to the work of the sect, like a treasure seeker’s private paradise where they could come and gloat about their cleverness.

There was another long hallway and, at the bottom, two huge gold doors, which were guarded.

That had to be the place. Flattened against the wall, Ella spared a moment to touch her shoulder, and discovered the cloth of her jacket was still smoking and seared right through.

Her skin was broken and discolored and radiated a weird metallic glaze.

What the hell had the king fired at her?

Molten lead? She stuffed one of Vadim’s old handkerchiefs over the wound and used magic to repair the damage to her jacket. It would have to do.

After a deep, steadying breath, she sauntered down the hallway toward the two guards, her hands at her sides and her expression pleasant.

“Hey, what’s up?”

The guards glanced at each other and then barred the door with their crossed spears. Ella flexed her fingers.

“I need to get in there, and you two are in my way. I’m giving you this warning, because my magic is a lot stronger than my control, so I might accidentally fry you both.” She raised her eyebrows. “So if you want to leave right now, I won’t tell anyone, okay?”

The taller troll hissed at her in his own language and brought his spear up, nearly taking off the top layer of her new face.

She wasn’t even aware she’d brought her hand up.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Power sliced from her, and the nearest troll screeched and fell to the ground.

She swung to face the other one, but he was already running in the opposite direction, no doubt to raise the alarm.

She stepped over the smoking body and pushed open one of the golden doors.

Dark power streamed past her and through her, strengthening her magic.

She drew the door shut behind her—there didn’t appear to be any way of locking it—and walked toward the furthest end of the vast cathedral-like room. The ceiling was domed and painted, the walls covered in trophies. It was also silent in the vast space, as if someone held their breath.

There.

Already aware of a huge commotion behind her, she ran toward her goal, her gaze fixed on the smiling face of Brad Dailey, the agony of Ms. Phelps, and her own familiar features.

“Thank God,” she breathed, and reached out her hand to claim her prize.

Agony hit her hard and she staggered and held on to the nearest shelf. Looking down, she discovered her ankle was clasped firmly between the jaws of a small black dragon with eyes like rubies. Blood dripped from his jaws, and she knew it wasn’t his.

“Oh, holy crap. No one said there would be dragons. ”

Before she could even think of retaliating, blackness engulfed her. She collapsed onto the carpet, aware of claws scrabbling at her legs, and then no more.

* * *

His cell door opened, and Vadim winced at the glare of the torch. Adam appeared, silhouetted against the light. He threw something at Vadim that hit him hard on the chest and came to rest on his lap.

“Bad news, Death Bringer. Now you have every reason to stay and fight.”

He left the torch in the sconce by the door, giving Vadim some light, and withdrew. Still half-constrained by the leaden chains, he stared down at an all-too-familiar blue-and-red backpack.

Rage and grief coalesced in an unstoppable crescendo.

He roared his fury at the top of his lungs, making his prison shake and the torch go out, leaving him in darkness with madness his close and dearly desired companion.

Pain flooded his senses, tearing down his carefully constructed barriers.

Inwardly he screamed for her, not willing to expose her precious name to his captors.

Slowly he came back to himself, his breathing ragged, his claws and fangs extended to their fullest, more beast than man, more filled with bloodlust than love. He forced himself to think through his instinct to simply destroy the world that had destroyed her.

A growl escaped him and he shut his eyes.

Think.

If she were dead, there would be no reason for him to do anything but annihilate Otherworld.

Adam wouldn’t want to provoke that.

Would he?

Treacherous hope stirred in him. But if she wasn’t dead, she was being held captive, her survival subject to his good behavior.

If Adam expected him to fight, he obviously had to offer him an incentive to do so.

Vadim took a deep steadying breath. If Ella was in Otherworld, he would find her, and be damned to anyone’s expectations of him playing nice.

He reached out a shaking hand, grabbed the backpack and brought it to his face, inhaling Ella’s scent. Beneath his tightening grip, the fabric started to tear, and he forced himself to relax. She felt close, but was that an illusion created by his need or was it reality?

Dammit, he was touching the backpack. His hands were free of the chains…

His rage had fueled his power to new heights and he was recovering far more quickly than Adam might have anticipated.

Vadim smiled into the darkness. Luckily, the attempt to undermine him had simply made him stronger.

If Ella was near, he was going to find her and then let loose hell…

* * *

Ella sat upright as a burst of magical power shook through the building, and more importantly, right through her. That had to be Vadim, but what was up with him, and where was she? Her head pounded and she was thirsty. Dammit, she was tired of waking up and not knowing what the hell was going on…

Her leg hurt.

Looking down, she couldn’t see the damage the dragon had inflicted on her ankle, because someone or something had bandaged it up. Were dragon bites infectious? Would she need a shot? Where the hell would she get that?

She was in a small room with just a bed and a sink, rather like a monk’s cell.

There was a window, but it was set high in the wall.

She didn’t think it faced the outside, because the light was wrong.

Tentatively, she searched for Rossa in her mind, but he wasn’t there.

All she could feel was Vadim, and even he felt different.