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“You hit her!”

“I didn’t—”

“She’s no good to us if she’s dead.”

Heat flared against the side of my face.

The jarring crunch of boots against fallen branches made me flinch.

“Pick her up!”

“Carefully!”

Broad hands with hard fingers took hold of my arms and I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out but a ragged groan.

“I hit the bike! Not her!”

Was I dead?

I’d been on the brink of escape just moments before… or was it hours?

The crash came back to me in bits and pieces: the vibration that had ricocheted through me as the motorcycle was hit with a glowing projectile, the acrid tang of burning rubber and tree sap, my body a rag doll tumbling through the air.

The left side of my body screamed in pain and a jagged ache pulsed through me as I fought for awareness.

Two sets of hands were clamped down on my arms as I was dragged along like I weighed nothing.

Terror coursed through me as I struggled against their grip.

Figures blurred and then game back into focus.

It was lighter now—dawn?

How long had I been in the forest?

The figures wore black robes, and masks that concealed their faces.

I twisted and kicked, but their grip didn’t loosen.

My captors moved with purpose, heedless of the roots and stones that bit into my back and snagged at my clothes. Fear gripped me, and even though I tried to wriggle free, my limbs were weak and uncooperative.

Everything hurt.

The memory of the crash pushed itself into my thoughts.

I should have died.

Instead, I was trapped in the snare of another nightmare.

“But you didn’t die…”

The relief that flooded through me as the grimoire’s whisper rippled through my mind was unwelcome. But at least I wasn’t alone.

“Where do you want her?” one figure grunted, the voice rough and low.

“Just keep moving,” the other snapped, his grip tightening like a vise.

I choked back a cry as pain lanced through my left shoulder and down into my ribs, a white-hot flash that nearly made my already blurry vision worse.

My body was battered and a collection of bruises and cuts throbbed with every jostled step. I could taste blood on my tongue and my hair was matted to my head.

But I wasn’t helpless.

Not yet.

I couldn’t be.

My thoughts were jumbled as I fought to make sense of the fragments that crashed together in my mind. How long had I been unconscious? Who were these people? I’d heard both men and women among them.

The harder I fought, the more their grip intensified, and with every motion, the pain grew sharper.

I wasn’t ready to give up.

Not yet.

I thrashed with renewed fervor and my breath came in ragged gasps that they ignored with a practiced indifference. I wanted to scream, to call for help, but all that came out was a choked whimper.

“Lucian will have to listen to us now,” one of my captors said.

At the sound of Lucian’s name, my heart stuttered in my chest.

“Traitors,” the grimoire hissed.

Anger that wasn’t my own began to overpower my fear, giving it shape and heat.

At that moment, the pain in my limbs and in my ribs faded just enough to make me think I could do something reckless—I writhed and kicked, and an unexpected surge of adrenaline lent me strength I didn’t know I had.

My foot connected with something solid, and the man on my right cursed and loosened his grip. For a fleeting moment, I believed I could get away. I could almost imagine outrunning them and slipping through the trees like smoke.

Then the world swung violently, and I was hauled back with bruising force.

I couldn’t let them take me.

Not like this.

Not without a fight.

The fear, the pain, the anger—it all coiled inside me, tight and electric.

I would make them regret this.

I had to.

It was my only chance.

It started as a whisper. A fluttering of wings inside me, frantic and insistent.

My magic.

It clawed at my insides, a living thing that begged to be set loose.

I didn’t have time to think, didn’t have time to question. I seized it and forced it outward with a scream that ripped through the trees.

The blast lit up the forest like a violet tinged lightning strike, raw and furious.

My entire body sang with it and the sensation was so overwhelming I thought I might come apart.

The force of my magical outburst flung one of the masked men backward into a nearby tree trunk, cracking it. A fierce, reckless joy filled my chest as I watched him slide down the tree and crumple to the ground.

The magic coursed through me like fire, a torrent of energy that threatened to swallow me whole. I was too stunned to feel afraid, too desperate to stop it. It burned in my veins, electric and consuming.

My mind reeled, struggling to catch up with my body as I fought to understand what I’d done.

This power was wild and untamed, an explosion that had been building inside me without my knowing. I marveled at it, the way it moved like something alive.

Dangerous and beautiful.

For one brilliant moment, the world was color and noise, bright enough to blind me.

I stared at my captors as they staggered back, and a raw cry tore from the throat of another man. Then he collapsed, all his menace gone in an instant.

I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

All I knew was that I’d struck him down.

Me.

Avril.

The quiet girl whose magic had been too pale to even light a goddamned candle.

I didn’t know who she was anymore.

Exhilaration and disbelief flooding through me.

The sight of them on the ground, still and silent, filled me with a savage hope.

I’d done it. It didn’t matter that my skin was hot and feverish, that the air still shimmered with leftover sparks. What mattered was that I had fought back, and for the first time in my life, I had won.

The realization was intoxicating. I could barely hold on to it, afraid it might slip away if I looked too closely.

“How—”

“Don’t talk, just get her!” someone shouted. Their words were jagged with anger and the sound of them broke the spell of my disbelief.

The world came back into sharp focus.

I was still trapped in the forest, still hunted. But everything had changed.

The fear that had wrapped itself around my heart was gone and had been replaced by something reckless—and it made me giddy and bold.

If I could take one of them down, I could take them all.

“All of them,” the grimoire said. Its voice was stronger now. “Make them pay—”

The masked figures closed in, their movements precise and deadly.

I saw the flash of their eyes behind their masks. I’d murdered one of their comrades. They wanted revenge.

They couldn’t kill me—not if they wanted anything from Lucian. But that didn’t mean they wouldn’t try.

They advanced without hesitation, stepping over the fallen man as if he were nothing but a bump in the road.

My brief victory had done nothing to deter them.

If anything, it made them more dangerous.

The magic still hummed through me, a bright, wild thing that I didn’t fully understand.

But I knew one thing—I wasn’t helpless.

I wasn’t weak.

“Not anymore,” the grimoire agreed.

The masked men closed in like wolves, but I wasn’t afraid.

I wanted to lash out with my magic again, but the strength of it was waning—I could feel it fading from my fingertips with every breath.

Run.

I didn’t hesitate.

I couldn’t feel my feet, and every step was agony. But I ran. The ground tore at my feet; the air burned in my lungs, but I reveled in it and let the pain drive me forward—or back—where was I going? Back to the mansion? Back to Withermarsh?

I stumbled over roots and fallen branches and I knew that my bare feet were bleeding. I couldn’t stop.

Their pursuit was like thunder in my ears, the pounding of footsteps and the harsh shouts that echoed between the trees.

I had to escape them—I had to believe I could, because the alternative was too dark to bear.

The forest was a blur and trees reached out with skeletal branches to pull me back. It felt like they were alive, like they were closing in on me at the same speed as my pursuers.

I crashed through the underbrush and thorns tore at my skin.

The magic inside me flickered like a candle. I tried to reach for it to call it forth again, but it was too elusive… out of focus. My mind reeled with the effort of it, and with the desperate desire to make it bend to my will.

I cursed it, begged it to come back.

“The keyline,” the grimoire murmured. “Too strong—”

The world shrank to the space of my breath.

The ragged gasp, the hollow exhale.

It was all that existed. The forest blurred around me and the trees became a smear of color that twisted with each stumbling step.

My limbs refused to cooperate, and the pain surged back—stronger than before.

My magic was gone, a fickle thing that abandoned me when I needed it most.

The grimoire’s whispers were silent.

I staggered and leaned against the trunk of a tree.

I was exposed. I was vulnerable.

And they knew it.

The masked figures closed in, circling like vultures.

I struggled to keep moving, but it was impossible.

All I knew was the burning in my lungs, the blinding pain in my limbs and torso, and the hot, useless tears that blurred my sight.

It was almost dawn—the light between the trees mocked me.

“We’ve got her,” someone said, an edge of triumph in their voice.

I wanted to scream and lash out, but I had nothing left.

“Lucky she came back across the keyline,” the woman said.

Blunt hands seized me and I went limp against them. I didn’t have any strength left to fight; even the grief that welled up inside me was hollow and too exhausted to fill my chest. I closed my eyes.

“Not so defiant now,” the woman’s voice taunted. Her fingers brushed my neck, light and cold as a snake.

The keyline.

No wonder my magic had faltered.

No wonder the pain felt so deep.

I wanted to scream, wanted to thrash and bite and claw until I was free.

But I was too tired, too broken.

The last remnants of fight slipped from me as rough hands lifted me.

As we moved through the trees, a flash of colored light caught my eye.

I let out a groan as I turned my head.

The burning wreck of the motorcycle was in a hollow nearby—deep blue and bright gold flames licked at the trees and had started to spread through the dry underbrush. I’d been so close to freedom...

When they found the wreck they’d think I was dead…

Valen.

Maybe dead was better.

I opened my mouth to say something—anything—

But before a single word could escape my lips, a hood was shoved over my head…

And then pain enveloped me, and everything went black.