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They retreated a few steps while Leon rolled up his sleeves and took up position in front of the bookcase. He cracked his neck, widened his stance, and shook his fingers loose at his side.

Evander felt the charge of magic build as the Frenchman called upon his powers. Static erupted around Leon, causing his golden hair to glow and spark. He raised his hands and skimmed the air with his fingers.

Rufus startled and Cecillia gasped when the wards became visible to the naked eye, runes coming to life in a pale haze.

Leon began unravelling the complex magical protections one by one.

“Is that—” Cecillia stopped and swallowed convulsively as she met Evander’s gaze, her own stunned. “ Nullification Magic?! ”

Evander nodded curtly and watched his former lover work. “Leon is a tri-elemental mage, with power over wind, water, and the rarer Nullification Magic .”

Leon flashed him a cocky grin over his shoulder. “You mean, so rare I am one of a handful people on the Continent to possess the skill?”

Evander sighed. Humility had never been the Frenchman’s forte.

“There,” Leon said with grim satisfaction as the final layer of the ward dissolved with a faint sizzle a moment later. “Now we can see what it is Whitley was hiding back?—”

The words died in his throat when the chamber suddenly darkened.

Evander’s head snapped to the windows. The sky was blue and the sun was shining outside the Institute.

The temperature plummeted, frost crystallising on the nearby glassware.

A strangled sound escaped Cecillia.

“This is dark magic!” Leon barked.

Evander’s chest tightened with dread. The shadows were coalescing, forming writhing tendrils that reached out with malevolent intent. Ice magic flooded his veins, his instincts driving him to summon a thick dome of ice that gleamed like a mirror around them in the rapidly dimming light.

“Evander?” Rufus asked in a strained voice.

The phenomena on the other side of the crystalline wall were twisting and bulging, forming vaguely humanoid shapes with elongated limbs and featureless faces.

His hand tightened on his enchanted truncheon, the defensive runes etched into the wood glowing dully as darkness encroached around them. “Are those?—?!”

“Shadow creatures,” Evander confirmed in a hard voice.

The apparitions moved with unnatural fluidity, slithering across the floor and ceiling as they sought a path to reach them.

Evander’s heart thumped against his ribs. The defensive ice wall he’d erected was ten times thicker than the one he’d raised in his and Viggo’s last battle with these monsters. Still, their stench reached him, bringing unwanted memories of their final confrontation with Caine Renwick.

The door to the laboratory opened behind them.

Evander’s stomach plummeted when he whirled around and saw Shaw entering the chamber.

“Your Grace, I’ve finished my investigation of the quadrangle. You won’t believe— What in the unholy blazes are those?! ” Shaw stumbled back, eyes bulging.

The shadows creatures twisted sharply, a sibilant hiss escaping them as they focused on their new prey. They lunged for the forensic mage even as earth magic bloomed around her fingertips.

“ WALL! ” Evander barked, hastily creating a doorway in the ice dome.

Shaw responded instantly to his command. She raised a barricade of earth in front of her just before the first shadow creature smashed into it.

Evander bolted out of the protective dome and began closing the opening behind him.

“I’m coming with you!” Leon snarled, forcing his way through.

Evander hesitated a fraction of a second. It was enough time for Leon to emerge from the ice barrier.

Evander’s gaze found Rufus and a frightened Cecillia as he sealed the doorway. “Stay in there!”

Shaw cursed near the door.

Rufus swallowed and nodded. “Go!”

Fire balls exploded into life around Evander as he marched across the laboratory, fury tightening his body. It wasn’t clear to him if they’d accidentally triggered a dark magic trap in the lab or whether this was the work of the people behind Whitley’s disappearance.

One thing he was certain of. No one attacked his friends and got away with it.

The shadow creatures shrieked and recoiled as he blasted them with his fire magic, Leon unravelling their ghastly forms with lassoes of biting wind and water at his side.

The monsters retreated near the ceiling before coming at them on a tidal wave of darkness, Shaw forgotten for a moment.

Evander shielded the forensic mage with a barrier of ice before grounding his and Leon’s legs with earth magic. They faced the horde of creatures from inside a storm of elemental power, their combined abilities rattling the windows and glassware.

One of the monsters lunged directly at the Frenchman, its form stretching impossibly as it reached for him with clawed appendages.

Leon reacted fast, his hands outlining a swift arc that summoned a wall of water between himself and the attacker.

The shadow creature hissed as it slipped through the insubstantial barrier, only to vanish to wisps as Leon carved through it with an ice spear.

Whips of fire unravelled from Evander’s hands, making the water in the air steam. He spun the elemental weapons above his head until they formed a ring of fire around him and Leon.

“Use your Nullification Magic !” Evander yelled as the shadow creatures shrieked and jerked back.

Leon glanced at him even as he sent a volley of ice spears through a couple of the creatures, pinning them momentarily to the wall before they dissolved and reformed.

“Are you certain that will work?!”

“Anything is worth a try right now,” Evander said grimly.

Leon nodded sharply. “Watch my back.”

Evander took up a defensive position behind his former lover.

The hairs rose on his nape when he sensed the Frenchman’s magic building around them. Movement ahead had his eyes widening. He cursed.

The shadow creatures were merging into a single towering, humanoid form that nearly brushed the ceiling.

“Bloody hell!” Rufus shouted.

“ Run, your Grace! ” Shaw yelled.

Bile rose in Evander’s throat as he gazed up at the monstrous apparition. A maw formed where its mouth should be, the gaping hole expanding as it dropped towards him and Leon, as if it meant to devour them whole.

“Now would be a good time!” Evander barked.

The Frenchman tsked, the sound amused. “As impatient as ever, I see.”

Evander’s ears popped when Leon released a powerful blast of Nullification Magic .

The void of deadly magical energy spread outward from where they stood, snuffing out every shadow creature it touched.

The giant monster descending upon them like a wall of judgement roiled violently before vanishing into wisps that faded to nothingness.

The room brightened, the silence around them so sudden and deep it made Evander’s ears ring. He startled when Shaw whooped behind her ice wall.

The forensic mage froze mid-fist pumping at the sight of the figure standing framed in the open doorway of the laboratory. Sweat beaded Rigley’s brow as he stood there, chest heaving and face pale, his robes and hair in disarray. His alarmed gaze found Cecillia.

“Cecillia!”

Evander dropped the ice barriers he’d erected while Rigley rushed past Shaw and hurried across the laboratory.

Cecillia fell into Rigley’s arms and shuddered with relief as he hugged her tightly to his chest.

“Uncle!” she mumbled hoarsely.