I wanted to scream in frustration, but I couldn’t even get the thing’s attention. To the Magh’Sceadu, I might as well not even exist.

It shot straight at Talon.

Chapter 6

Talon knew defensive magic, but none of it was going to work.

Everything slowed down to the speed that meant it was all over except the cleanup. Talon’s lips formed the first word of a shielding spell. All it’d do for the Magh’Sceadu was coat Talon in a magical powdered sugar topping.

And I couldn’t do a damned thing to stop him from being dragged inside of a nightmare.

I’d seen it before on the streets of Mermeia. I’d been trying to locate a missing elderly street magician. I’d found him through a seeker link, but a Magh’Sceadu had found him first. The old man had tried to fight back, his fists sinking into the Magh’Sceadu’s towering mass like black quicksand. The rest of him followed. The thing hadn’t taken him quickly. No one had been on that dark street corner that night. As the Magh’Sceadu had wrapped itself around the old man’s head, I could hear his muffled screams coming from inside.

I wouldn’t let that happen to Talon.

Tam lunged forward and threw Talon behind him, thrusting his hands palms out toward the Magh’Sceadu.

The thing stopped.

Tam and his power didn’t.

Black magic was about as close to the Saghred as mortals could get. However, the power of the strongest black mage was a grain of sand on the beach compared to what the fully fed Saghred could do, though the penalty for using that magic was the same. You used it, and it used you. The payback wasn’t immediate, but the magic would get what it wanted. Like borrowing money from loan sharks—when it came time to pay, you could run, but you couldn’t hide. They’d get back what they loaned you, with interest, and they’d be perfectly happy taking it out of your hide.

Black magic would gleefully carve it out of your soul.

Tam got the power boost now. He knew he’d pay later.

A dark shimmer, like morning mist rising off a harbor, formed around Tam’s extended hands. The Magh’Sceadu shifted uneasily. At least that was the way it looked to me. The air in the tunnel grew heavy, pressing down on us. Tam wasn’t immune to his own spell; his shoulders bowed under the strain of increasing its power. The tunnel got darker, even darker than it already was. Shadows spread like oil outward from Tam’s hands to coat the floor, walls, and ceiling. I shook with sudden cold, as if the darkness suffocated not only the light, but what little warmth the air held. Normally when a mage of Tam’s strength gathered their power, the air around them was charged with it, crackling with the intensity of magic about to be unleashed.

This was different. This was wrong.

Anti-magic.

I couldn’t imagine anything else that would work on a Magh’Sceadu.

Emptiness spread from Tam’s fingers, radiated from his body. In the sphere of his spell, in the spreading shadows was a void, an emptiness where magic was not, where life did not exist. Death was an absence of life; this was an absence of everything.

The Magh’Sceadu recoiled.

I wanted to.

“Run!” Tam’s voice was tight with the strain of holding the spell.

An oily, glistening fog spread up the tunnel walls, flowing with increasing speed toward the Magh’Sceadu. It lapped hungrily at the edge of the creature’s feet, base, whatever, sending it skittering backward a good ten feet. It stopped there, hovering.

It was too late to run.

From the tunnel where the first Magh’Sceadu had gone, more shadows separated from the dark. More Magh’Sceadu. Coming for us.

They charged. A roar of wordless fury ripped itself from Tam’s throat, taking with it every last bit of endurance, strength, and power that he possessed, channeling it through his body and slamming it into the oncoming Magh’Sceadu. The darkness of Tam’s black magic swallowed them in a wave. Magh’Sceadu didn’t have voices, but that didn’t stop them from screaming from inside that darkness, screaming like their countless victims had screamed. I didn’t hear it; I felt it. Their screams climbed to a fevered, panicked pitch that vibrated in my bones.

Then silence. Nothing moved in the shifting darkness where the Magh’Sceadu and Tam had been.

Imala shoved Carnades aside. “Tam!”

Tam staggered out of the dark. He managed one step toward Imala before he collapsed.

The darkness of Tam’s spell dissipated enough to see where the Magh’Sceadu had been.

Gone.

It’d taken the Saghred for me to destroy six Magh’Sceadu in The Ruins. Tam had taken out four by himself.

I didn’t know how he’d done it, and right now it didn’t matter. Getting out of here did. Black magic made just as much noise as, if not more than, the regular variety. Sarad Nukpana and his Khrynsani minions would be listening for any and all of it. Worse, Nukpana knew that Tam was a dark mage.

The residue from the spell clung to Tam, spreading up his arms and over his chest. Tam was finished with the spell, but the spell wasn’t finished with Tam. It had consumed four Magh’Sceadu, and it wanted more.

Talon darted around Piaras to get to his father. Piaras made a grab and missed. Nath didn’t.

“It’s not safe,” Nath said through clenched teeth. He was finding out the hard way that Talon was stronger than he looked. It took both arms and all of his weight to hold Talon back.

“Safe?” Talon snarled. “He wouldn’t hurt—”

“He wouldn’t hurt you; his magic would,” Nath said.

Jash and Mychael had sprinted down the tunnel toward Tam, stopping just out of arm’s reach.

I saw why.

Tam was smeared with the gelatinous residue of his own black magic. He’d put everything he had into destroying those Magh’Sceadu. The monsters were gone, but the spell was still here. Tam collapsed before he could contain it, and the spell turned on him. If Mychael couldn’t stop it from spreading, the spell would consume Tam as it had the Magh’Sceadu.

With a word and gesture, Mychael’s hands glowed blindingly white, like twin suns. The spell covering Tam recoiled. Mychael quickly knelt and laid his hands on Tam’s shoulders. With a sizzling hiss, the gel scuttled away from his glowing hands. Mychael’s incantation came quickly, the words sharp, the tone commanding. He wasn’t asking that black magic goop to leave; he was ordering it. The spell wasn’t going without a fight, but it was going.

Everyone’s attention was on Mychael and Tam.

Except one.

The only warning I got was the scuff of boots.

Carnades’s shoulder rammed into my ribs, expelling what air I had, and we both went down. He landed on top of me, clawing at my neck with his fingers, desperate to get his hands around my throat.

“Filthy, lying bitch!” he spat.

This wasn’t a straight-up fight. Neither one of us could use magic. Yeah, he was bigger than me, but those chains were just going to keep him from frying me and my throat like he had that Khrynsani in the mirror room. He could choke me the old-fashioned way just fine.

Carnades Silvanus had been directly or indirectly responsible for every attack and near fatality that either myself or the people I loved had endured since this whole crapfest started. Now Tam had almost died and worse to protect all of us—including Carnades.

I’d kept my temper and fists to myself.

No more.

I wanted to scream every murderous thought I’d ever had about Carnades Silvanus. But I didn’t need words; my knees and fists and feet did it all for me. My torso was pinned under him, but my legs weren’t. I couldn’t ram my knee into his nuts, but all other options were wide open. I twisted hard toward Carnades, and pounded my right knee up into the base of his ribs. Once. Twice. Hard and harder. It felt good.

Carnades grunted with each blow, and his weight shifted off me for a fraction of a second. It was an opening, and I took it. I snarled and twisted again, landing a left hook to the side of Carnades’s head. I was aiming for his temple, but hit closer to his eye. I wasn’t picky. Any punch that landed on Carnades felt good.

A leather-armored forearm wrapped around Carnades’s throat in a choke hold, jerking the elf mage off of me in one smooth move.

Piaras.

Oddly, Carnades wasn’t trying to get his hands up high enough to dislodge Piaras’s arm, and I caught a quick glimpse as to why.

He had a knife.

One of mine that had been tucked into my belt.

Piaras saw and acted. He snapped Carnades’s wrist up and away from his body. The mage screamed. Piaras didn’t break Carnades’s wrist; that was up to Carnades. He could either drop the knife or kiss his wrist good-bye. I could have kicked that knife out of Carnades’s hand, but Piaras had the situation well in hand. He had nearly as much reason to hate Carnades as I did, and I wasn’t going to deny him some much-earned payback. The pressure of Piaras’s arm locked around Carnades’s throat was turning the elf mage’s face a lovely shade of blue.

Carnades cut his losses and dropped the knife. Piaras dropped Carnades—on his face. His boot lodged firmly in the elf mage’s back would keep him from getting any more bright ideas.

The entire fight happened too fast for anyone to jump in, though everyone knew I’d wanted that fight for a long time and that I didn’t want any help.

Nath started toward me. I held out a hand, stopping him. “I’m fine, take care of Tam.”

Nath glanced at Carnades’s face. The elf mage had the beginnings of a beauty of a black eye.

“Nice,” he said.

I panted and gave him a winded smile. “I take pride and joy in my work.”

Mychael was on his feet, supporting a mostly conscious and all intact Tam. Mychael gave Piaras a quick nod of approval. Piaras tried not to smile. That wouldn’t have been Guardianly.

Carnades spit out a mouthful of dirt, and if looks could have killed, we all would’ve dropped dead.

“Nath, where we’re going, is there a place secure enough for our prisoner?” Mychael asked.