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The shadows hissed, fighting as she tried to form them into long strands and pull them together into a patch as she’d done so many times before on Shadowbank’s ward with her earthen magic. Immediately, sweat beaded on her brow as she felt what she could only describe as resistance .

The dark had a will of its own. Shadows couldn’t be tamed.

A sudden realization struck her, and an icy fear filled her chest.

If she couldn’t manage to repair the tears, then her friends would be putting themselves in danger for nothing. This would be a colossal waste of time when they could have fled on foot into the forest immediately.

They were relying on her to help them. She wouldn’t leave them to die pointless deaths. Or worse, be taken prisoner by Magnus.

But she was so woefully undertrained in her shadow magic.

The time she’d spent working with Lucinda, a former apprentice of the Witch of the Woods, in Shadowbank seemed so long ago. It felt like another lifetime. It was before her powers had been unleashed, and she had so much she still needed to learn.

And no one to teach her.

Again, she tried to will her shadows to plait together. The vines writhed around her arms, and she felt the stinging kiss of the thorns puncturing her skin.

“Tell me you’re doing something,” Breckett hissed.

Frustration swelled in her chest and a growl escaped her lips. “I’m trying.”

“Try harder,” he said, voice low as he glanced around.

Beyond the tear in the ward, she thought she heard rumbling footsteps.

Sweat poured down the sides of her face as she moved her arms in a sweeping motion, forcing bands of shadow, one by one, into the air.

It was like trying to force a tornado in another direction or to contain the power of the oceans with her bare hands.

As the shadows slowly acquiesced to her will, she tasted blood, belatedly realizing her nose was bleeding.

But she ignored it along with a dizziness forming in her vision.

The shadows formed a crisscross patch that she slowly brought up to the tear in the ward that was nearly two stories in height.

Just then, an ogre emerged from the trees.

It didn’t look at them, unable to see them through Breckett’s invisibility cloak. But it marched with purpose toward the castle and through the tear—and directly into her shadow weaves. They stuck to its cheek like a spiderweb, the thorns clinging to its flesh.

The ogre roared, its arms waving.

The shadows seemed to grip tighter as the creature’s fingers tore at its own flesh in its desperation to free itself from her weaves.

“Did you mean to do that?” Breckett asked as they watched in horror as the shadow vines began creeping up the ogre’s face.

In agonizing slowness, the vines plunged into the creature’s eye.

Blood spurted everywhere before the ogre fell to its knees with a loud crash and then collapsed onto the ground, unmoving.

The dark weaves dissipated before the shadows at her feet grew thrice as dark as they should be.

She swallowed thickly. “No.”

“Remind me not to piss you off,” he muttered.

“Too late,” she said, careful not to look at what remained of the ogre’s head and swallowing back bile.

He cleared his throat. “Now what?”

“We try again.” She wiped back the remnants of blood beneath her nose with the back of a sleeve.

There was no other choice. Not for her. Not when it came to her family.

Before she could summon the shadows, two more ogres appeared before the tear in the ward, their single eyes narrowing—as though they could sense her and the erox behind his cloak of invisibility.

Slowly, she sought out the darkness beneath her feet, coaxing it out of the ground.

The shadows resisted her at first, feeling like they were vexed with her.

When they slowly acquiesced and extended out around her, she realized the ogres weren’t looking at her but something behind her.

Breckett must have realized it at the same time because they turned around together, careful to keep a point of connection between them.

What she saw took her breath away.

A fae warrior with wings the color of midnight descended from the sky, ripping through the daylight and bringing starlight upon the land.

Power thickened the air, leaving a faint humming on the wind.

The ward opened willingly for him as he flew down.

His wings stretched out on either side of him and were twice his massive height.

He landed on the ground behind her with unmatched grace, a sword in a fist. It was then she noticed a faint shimmer of colors on what she’d initially thought was pitch-black wings of countless feathers.

When he looked up, his eyes weren’t the deep brown she’d expected but glowed a dark blue.

The color of the Twilight Court.

“Prince Hadeon,” she said as she released Breckett’s hand. The invisibility cloak fell from them as her vision cleared. “What are you?—”

Before she could finish, the fae swept his arm forward, and the ogres that had pushed through the opening in the ward instantly evaporated. There was a trail of dark blue dust in the air, and then… nothing.

As though they had never existed.

In another sweep of his arms, there was a plume of blue magic that stretched out into the air and latched on to the tear in the ward. Slowly, the magic pulled the sides of the tear inward before the ward slowly started mending itself back together.

Belatedly, she closed her gaping mouth.

So much power.

She knew the fae were powerful, and from their brief interactions in the Twilight Court, she knew Hadeon was especially so. But it was one thing to sense a wielder’s ability and another to see it before her eyes.

The prince lowered his arm, and his eyes fastened on hers, shimmering faintly as though laced with starlight.

“You have ogres on your doorstep.”