An almost indiscernible shimmer ran across the cloak, the faint sparkles dancing like midnight stars.

I lowered the Carapace—and blinked as a thick smear of shadows condensed in front of me.

Zak stepped out of the dark nothingness. His leather jacket was tattered, tears in the fabric wet with blood. His face was pale but his eyes glowed with fierce fae power.

Alarm pricked me. “MPD agents are here. You need to leave.”

“I know,” he said in a low rasp. “I just had to make sure you weren’t dead.”

“I’m not dead.”

“Yes, I noticed.” His eyes flicked over my face. “I’ll see you again.”

It wasn’t quite a question, but his inflection lifted on the last syllable, revealing his uncertainty.

I wanted to ask him what he’d offered Lallakai in exchange for the power to defend my guild. I wanted to demand that she release his body and soul from her heartless talons this very moment. I wanted to beg him to cut ties with the toxic fae forever.

But not only did I have no time to broach those questions, but his problems weren’t mine to solve. As much as I wanted to help him, some burdens couldn’t be shared. Lallakai was deeply entrenched in his life, his past, and his magic, and he was the only one who could change that.

I swept the draping fabric of the Carapace together and rapidly folded it. It compacted into an unnaturally small, heavy square like it usually did.

Grabbing his wrist, I pressed the fae artifact into his palm. “I know you told me to keep this, but you need it more.”

“I already told you I can’t use it without sacrificing—”

I tightened my grip on his wrist. “The day is coming when you’ll need it, Zak.”

His eyes narrowed, and I wondered if I was imagining the flash of anger in them that could only belong to Lallakai. He considered me for a moment longer, then curled his fingers over the artifact.

Releasing his wrist, I threw my arms around him, ignoring the flare of pain in my injured shoulder.

“Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you for protecting my friends.”

His arms wrapped around me and, for two long heartbeats, he crushed me to his chest.

“Come visit me soon,” I added, my throat tight. “Hoshi and I will need a new familiar bond and I want you to do it this time.”

“All right,” he murmured.

I stepped back, a hand on his shoulder as I stared up at his face, hoping Lallakai would hear my next words. “If you need help, I’m always here.”

He nodded. The shadows swirled around him, and Lallakai’s transparent wings lifted off his arms. They swept around him and he vanished.

I gulped my heart down, my hand curled around the purple crystal resting on my chest. I needed to find my ruby fall spells—but first, I needed to locate my three mages.

I turned—and there they were. Ezra, striding toward me through the smoke and rain. Aaron followed him, Kai’s arm over his shoulder as the electramage limped. Scorched, scuffed, bloody, hurting, exhausted. But alive.

My knees weakened with relief. I stumbled forward.

Ezra caught me, sweeping me into him. I buried my face in his shoulder, shaking. Aaron and Kai joined us, standing close, and none of us spoke. We didn’t need to.

We were alive. We were together. That’s all that mattered right now.

A quiet disorder filled the intersection. Bits of debris crumbled off the surrounding buildings, their windows shattered, walls smashed, and burst pipes spewing water onto the already drenched streets. The light rain continued to pepper everything, keeping the merrily dancing flames of many small infernos in check.

Mythics from the Pandora Knights, Odin’s Eye, and the SeaDevils hurried among the injured and fallen, calling for healers or helping battered combatants clamber painfully to their feet. Among the rubble, a handful of Crow and Hammer members who’d waited out the battle inside the guild assisted them.

The surviving Keys clustered up, and small groups moved among their fallen, searching for survivors. Another group sat along a cracked, scorched wall, their arms bound and weapons confiscated. Blake and Tyrone stood side by side in front of the captured men, conferring together and calling orders.

Reluctantly, I lifted my cheek from Ezra’s shoulder. As much as I wanted to collapse in a corner somewhere and pass out for ten or twelve hours, we had one more loose end to sort out: Xever.

We split up. Ezra, whose stamina had yet to recover after his recent injuries, supported Kai, who was limping even worse, and together they headed back toward the guild. Aaron and I briefly scoured the intersection, then ventured down the street where I’d last seen Zylas chasing Nazhivēr.

My tired feet dragged as we headed farther from the intersection, the noise and bustle of people fading until the only sound was the falling rain. There was no doubt we were heading the right way. Fissures split the pavement. Shattered walls. Gaping holes in buildings. The battle between demons had been intense and violent.

“Up ahead,” Aaron murmured.

Squinting, I spotted them. Two figures stood beside a third who seemed to be sitting on the ground, hunched over.

As Aaron and I approached, one of the upright mythics—Amalia—turned toward us. Beside her was Zora, the petite blond sorceress smudged with blood and two huge swords sheathed in an X on her back.

Their comrade on the ground pushed to his feet, and I realized it wasn’t one person but two: Zylas with Robin cradled in his arms, her face tucked against the side of his hood.

“You’re alive,” Amalia observed as Aaron and I walked into earshot.

“For the most part,” I agreed, my gaze flicking across Zylas and Robin. “Is she okay?”

Robin lifted her head from the demon’s shoulder. “I’m fine. Just … unsteady.”

Zylas lowered her feet to the ground and she leaned against him, one hand hooked on his shoulder. The hood of his black jacket-like top shadowed his face, his telltale magma eyes dimmer than usual.

“Xever and Nazhivēr?” I asked quietly.

Robin pushed her tangled hair off her forehead, her eyes even larger without her glasses. “Escaped. Nazhivēr flew off with him.”

My jaw clenched with dismay.

“They are not the hunters any longer.” Zylas’s husky growl sent a shiver down my spine. “Now I will hunt them.”

Robin’s hand tightened on his shoulder, her gaze rising to his face. “We will hunt them.”

The demon’s lips curved in a savage smile that revealed his predatory canines. She slid her hand down his arm and took his hand. Turning, she glanced back at me—and her stare was almost as fierce as her demon’s smile.

“Leave Xever to us.”

With Amalia on one side and Zylas on the other, she walked away. Zora arched an eyebrow at me and Aaron, completely unruffled by Zylas’s obvious free will, then turned and followed the trio.

I watched them go, my heart pounding in my throat. How they would find Xever and his demon, I didn’t know.

But I had no doubt they would.

The good news: by some inexplicable miracle, no one from the Crow and Hammer had died yet. I wasn’t celebrating—the list of injuries was terrifying, from broken bones to concussions to lacerations to burns to internal bleeding—but the outlook was decent, especially with extra healers on loan from other guilds.

The bad news: we were back in the MPD precinct.

I would’ve been delighted to never set foot in a precinct again, but that wasn’t possible—not when I’d been charged with serious crimes, taken into custody, charged with a dozen more crimes, then mysteriously vanished from lockup.

Standing between Aaron and Kai, I observed in silence.

A long, plain table filled one end of the long, plain room. Four elderly men and women in suits sat behind it, as did a not-quite-elderly man with shoulder-length auburn hair tied back in a ponytail and an ancient woman who wore a patterned knit sweater instead of a suit. They also observed wordlessly.

Across the table from them, Ezra held his hand against a carefully drawn sorcery circle as a wave of pale light rushed over his body and infused the crystal placed in the array. The portly sorcerer who’d prepared the ritual picked up the now ivory-white gem and held it close to his nose, examining it carefully.

“Negative,” he announced in a nasal voice. “No demonic contamination.”

Ezra lifted his hand off the spell. “Am I cleared of charges?”

The elderly man in the middle nodded slowly and made a note on a paper. “Cleared of demon magery, but your behavior merits further investigation.”

Ponytail Man leaned back in his chair. “Based on what, Everett? He was fleeing for his life with a DOD bounty on his head—a bounty you authorized.”

“We can examine him more closely after we investigate the circumstances of the indictments and sentencing procedure,” Sweater Woman added serenely, hands folded on the table as though she missed her knitting needles.

The centermost man frowned at his paper. “In that case … Ezra Rowe, all charges against you are dismissed. You’re free to go.”

The aeromage didn’t show any relief, but he also didn’t waste any time striding over to me, Aaron, and Kai and joining our line.

“Excellent,” Darius murmured. “All charges against my guild are dismissed, then?”

I flicked a hopeful glance at the GM, who stood at one end of the table beside the sternly beautiful Captain Blythe.

“Hm,” the old man croaked, glancing at his outspoken colleagues. At a glacial pace, he riffled through the papers on his desk. “That may be … ah … but …”

I shifted my feet, resisting the urge to shout at him to hurry. It’d been just over eight hours since our guild had nearly been obliterated. I was aching, exhausted, and my abused shoulder burned fiercely despite my arm resting in a sling.

Unfortunately, shouting at the MPD’s Emergency Judiciary Council would be counterproductive to my goal of leaving ASAP.

“The only charges remaining,” the wrinkled old relic wheezed, “are those against Miss Robin Page. The accusations of an illegal contract are serious, very serious.”