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EVAN HANDS ME my flashlight with a shaking hand. “We’ve got to keep moving.”

I meet his eyes, unwavering in his familiar face. I take the lead this time, flashlight in hand, although my hand trembles as I hold it.

We walk for another few minutes. It takes that long for my breathing to begin to slow, but nothing about the situation feels calm. My eyes and flashlight fly to every distant drip of water, every shadow of stone.

“Those were imps, right? Isels?” I ask, hoping to fill the quiet. Hoping that talking will keep my heart from racing right out of my chest.

“Yes,” Evan replies, his voice cracking.

“Why weren’t they invisible?”

“We’re underground. Aether is richest close to the earth. Down here every Shadowborn is more powerful than it is on the surface. Harder to kill.”

I nod, even though he can’t really see me do it. “That makes sense.”

Fifty feet ahead there’s another turn left. “Turn ahead,” I call back to Evan. I pitch my flashlight low to keep the path in sight so we don’t keep going straight and end up walking right over the edge. That’s how I see that the gravel on the path, which had been small and mostly flat, has changed over into heavier, round pieces. “Watch the ground, these rocks are loose.” I walk slowly, each step shifting the floor slightly before my foot settles. I pause to catch my breath and turn back to see Evan walking about six feet behind me.

It’s only when I turn back to keep going that I realize that while my feet send rocks shifting and crunching … Evan’s feet make no sound at all.

If the cave hadn’t been so silent, I’d never have noticed.

My next step falters, and I have to catch the wall to stay upright.

Goruchel.

Consummate mimics.

“You okay?” Evan asks.

When it facilitates their human ruse.

My heart pounds so hard that I can barely form the words to reply. And I am desperately certain that I have to reply. I push off the wall. “Yep, just slipped.” My voice sounds hollow and thin to my ears, but I hope he doesn’t detect the lie. I pray he doesn’t detect the lie.

I want to run. Run as fast as I can. But instead I walk forward, forcing myself to keep a steady pace and ignore the growing dread in my stomach. I’m so focused on not running, not revealing what I know, that I slip for real and land on one knee.

This time, when Evan reaches a hand toward me, my body flinches without my permission. An instinct. I look up into his dark blue eyes—and see the sliver of something canny move behind them.

“I’m good,” I say with a laugh. A laugh that sounds so fake that no one would believe it. I stand up and keep walking, this time a little faster.

He lets me go a few steps.

“Oh, Bree.”

“Yes?” I whimper, still moving quickly.

His mouth is suddenly at my ear. “You’re a little too smart,” he whispers in a voice like broken wind chimes falling on rocks.

I run then, feet sliding under each step. I don’t know if he chases me. I can’t hear him if he is. I only slow when I reach the turn. I make it without getting too close to the edge, but my left ankle twists sharply when I do it. I cry out in pain and drop the flashlight in my left hand, but keep moving.

Without the flashlight, the pitch black of the cave presses from all sides. I’m completely blind in the darkness. Can’t see my hand inches from my face.

I’d glimpsed the path ahead before my flashlight went flying. It had been straight, then a dip, then straight. I keep one hand against the wall and move as fast as I dare, straining for any sounds behind me. But I’ll never hear him coming.

Drawing my sword would be useless.

He could kill me here, and no one would know it was him.

When he speaks again, his voice is slightly muffled; he’s still on the path before the turn.

“Honestly, I have to thank you. If it wasn’t for you showing up tonight, I’d never have found the entrance to the ogof y ddraig. Well”—he pauses—“I’d have found it eventually, but my kind aren’t the most patient.”

Every step sends a lightning strike of pain through my ankle. I don’t stop, but eventually my jog becomes a limp. I grit my teeth and push forward. Use the wall to take the pressure off my foot.

“I have to thank Davis, too, you know.”

His voice is louder, more direct; he’s turned the corner.

“He threw the Kingsmage blood traitor off my scent by opening Gates of his own. I barely had to open any, really. Just one or two, like the night of the second trial. I’d hoped the foxes would take care of Sel, but then there you were. How’d you do that, by the way?”

The pain drives my teeth so deep into my lower lip that I taste blood.

Keep. Moving.

“Did you know the real Evan Cooper played the banjo? Do you have any idea how hard it is to learn to play the banjo? Nightmare.” His laughter is a stabbing sound. Devoid of humor.

He’s closer now, but I know he’s toying with me. He’s fast enough to catch me. To kill me, if he wants. The thought is jolting enough to make me trip. I fall forward onto my hands and knees in the darkness. Then I’m crawling. Crawling as fast as I can away from him into black nothing.

A hot hand closes around my bad ankle. I scream, but he drags me back across the rocks on my stomach, my free hand clawing uselessly at the gravel.

With a grunt, I heave up on my left hand. Punch up in an awkward backswing, knowing full well he’ll see it coming; I don’t need to wound him, I just need him to let go. And he does.

I scramble to stand, but his hand shoots out and strikes me, palm open, in the middle of the spine. The force knocks the breath from my lungs, and I fall again. I twist around to face him just as the Evan Cooper that I knew goes away forever.

In the light of his flashlight, the goruchel demon grins, his human teeth stretching in his mouth until they look like a boar’s canines. His fingers darken and elongate to crimson claws. The skin of his eyes recedes into deep hollows, and his blue eyes bleed to red. The smell that fills my nose is the sour scent of burning flesh.

His new gaze scorches my skin. Like my face could sizzle and peel, melt away until it’s only bones and seared muscle.

“It’s rude to ignore someone who’s talking to you,” he hisses. “Evan liked your attitude, Bree. Rhaz does not.”

“My bad,” I spit. “I don’t like listening to murderers!”

The demon—Rhaz—tilts his head to the side. “I didn’t kill Fitz. I only called the imps who killed Fitz.” When he jerks a thumb behind him, I see the long, fresh cut from the outside of his wrist to his elbow. He’d bled into the ravine somehow as we walked. He’d called those demons in the darkness without us even noticing. He clucks. “Well, no, you’re right. I did kill the real Evan Cooper. Took his life. Pretended to be Fitz’s new Squire—even copied Evan’s humanity enough to take that silly Warrior’s Oath right under the traitor’s nose. But it was awful, Bree. I can’t tell you how many times I daydreamed about ripping the skin from Fitz’s meathead face—”

“Why?” I scream.

A glittering, fanatical glee dark as the cave itself slides into his burning eyes. “To get to Nick, of course. And to wait.”

My lungs burn in my chest, but behind them my heart twists and skips.

His scratching voice becomes low and conspiratorial. “Did you know that if a fully Awakened Scion of Arthur dies, the Lines will end forever?” He giggles. “Kill the head, kill the body. It’d be easy if all I needed was for Arthur to Call Nick like the others do, but that arrogant prick of a king won’t fully Awaken his Scion until they take the blade.”

I crabwalk away, my sword dragging at an awkward angle, but he follows, one silent step at a time.

“And here I was, planning to go for the father! Then precious Nickie asks for you at the gala”—his lips curl in a mocking smile, and he clasps his hands to his chest—“declaring to all that he wants you as his Squire. That’s when I realized that foolish boy would do anything to keep you unharmed. Fight a horde of my demon comrades. Take up Excalibur. Expose Arthur. I had to take you”—he grins—“so Fitz the meathead got kebabed.”

My stomach turns. Bile rises in my throat.

“My mistress, Morgaine, will love hearing how I found the Scion of Arthur’s weakness.” He considers this. “Well, love is the wrong word. She’ll be quite jealous, actually. She adores torture.”

I shuffle backward, but he moves faster than my eyes can track, grabbing both of my ankles this time. “Rude!” he hisses.

My fingers dig into the gravel behind me. My only thought is to grab it and throw it into his eyes, but when my fingertips hit the soil and roots below, the doors inside me snap open.

‘The cave is right behind you. Just ten more steps, Bree.’ My grandmother’s voice urges me forward. I feel her hands, warm and soft, wrap around my heart and hold it in her palm.

Rhaz registers something in my face. His eyes narrow—and I wrench my legs from his grip with frightening speed. Pull my knees tight to my chest, and kick both feet upward to send him flying into the ravine.