Ezra looked up at me, his features frozen in disbelief. “He … shit.”

“What?” I demanded.

“He told me how to disable the golems.”

“He did? Wait—I thought it required obscure Arcana knowledge.”

“That’s what he told Shane, but at the guild, while we were waiting to leave, he described the symbols to look for. I thought he was explaining it so I could make myself useful, but …” He bit off a curse. “Did he tell me because he wasn’t planning to show up?”

The blood drained out of my head, leaving me dizzy. “He wouldn’t. He … he wouldn’t do that.”

Ezra woke his phone. The clock ticked from 6:38 to 6:39. Time was running out.

“We’re going,” he growled, uncharacteristic fury darkening his features. “Whether he intended to show or not doesn’t matter. He isn’t here, so it’s up to us.”

“But—” Meeting his determined stare, I straightened my spine. “You’re right. He told you how to disable them, so we can do it ourselves. Then we’re going to find that asshole. In fact …”

I tapped the back pouch on my belt. Hoshi uncoiled in a swirl of glowing silver scales, and Ezra and I stepped shoulder to shoulder to block the faint light emanating from her.

“Hoshi,” I whispered, laying my hand on the pink crystal in the center of her forehead, “can you find Zak? Find him, then come get me, okay?”

She bumped me with her nose, then faded out of sight.

“Okay,” I said grimly, unholstering my paintball gun. “Let’s go.”

Ezra crept to the corner of the building we were using as shelter. “It’s about to get a little cold.”

“Huh?”

A faint red glow sparked in his left eye. The temperature plunged and the surrounding shadows thickened as though they were devouring the light. Aeromages couldn’t create darkness, but demon mages could.

He darted into the open space, and I followed on his heels, scarcely able to discern his outline. My breath puffed white. We raced toward the waiting warehouse. Five more identical ones butted up against it, available to be rented by any client or criminal.

As soon as we were in range, I stopped, set my feet, and raised my gun. Taking aim, I fired two shots.

One hit the smoking rogue in the head, and the other burst against his shoulder. He yipped in pain, then pitched sideways, falling on the interior side of the threshold.

At the doorway, Ezra let the icy darkness around him fade. I joined him, and we peered into the warehouse. I couldn’t see a thing—only unbroken black. He listened intently, then stepped over the downed rogue. I ducked in after him, swinging the door most of the way closed. It smacked against the sleeping man’s foot.

“I can’t sense any movement,” Ezra whispered.

He activated the light on his vest, leaving it on the lowest setting to preserve our night vision. The pale glow swept across the empty floor, the ceiling obscured in shadows. A steel catwalk ran around the perimeter of the echoing space, the only accessory on the blank walls.

“What …” he whispered with muted horror.

My limbs went numb, my brain buzzing with confusion.

The concrete floor, stretching over a hundred and fifty feet to the far wall, was marked with dozens of the most complex spell arrays I’d ever seen—not that I’d seen a ton of them. Each web of interconnecting geometric lines pierced a large hexagon, with three triangles pointing inward toward a small center circle. Hundreds of runes filled the arrays, and small bowls of spell ingredients sat in the inner circles.

But the arrays … they were empty.

The golems were gone.

I grabbed Ezra’s wrist, my fingers digging in. The golems had been here. What else could those spells be? But where were the steel beasts? Why weren’t they here? How could we disable them if they weren’t here!

He seized his vest light and snapped the button, switching it to full brightness. The white glare blazed across the warehouse interior.

My stomach dropped a second time. My hand ached from how tightly I was holding his wrist.

The golems weren’t all gone. There was one left.

At the back of the warehouse, in the center of the largest array, was a steel monstrosity. Similar to the super-golem that had attacked the Odin’s Eye guild, this one had gorilla-like arms and a thick bipedal body—but it was closer to twenty feet tall than twelve, and instead of fat fingers, its massive fists were solid blocks adorned with three sword-like claws, each one well over a foot long.

“Ezra,” I choked out. “We have to disable that thing. It’ll kill everyone.”

“Yes. As soon as we’re done with this one, we need to get back in signal range and warn the teams.”

Nodding shakily, I holstered my gun and together we rushed forward—but three steps from the doorway, Ezra yanked his wrist from my grasp.

As I stumbled, thrown off balance, he pivoted with deadly grace and whipped his two short swords from their sheaths. He sliced them through the air, blades crossing. A blast of wind tore across the warehouse and hit the catwalk with so much force the steel rattled.

An answering swirl of pink magic danced above the catwalk, illuminating the silhouettes of three people.

As Ezra drew his swords back for another strike and I reached for my paintball gun, magic tingled over my feet. I looked down and saw what I hadn’t noticed before, my attention on the new mega-golem.

A spell array on the floor under us, drawn in gray, almost invisible against the dingy concrete.

Its lines blazed with amber light. The radiant beam shot upward, and my body lifted off the ground. Gravity had vanished and I hung suspended in the glow, my feet kicking helplessly. The air felt thicker than mud and I could hardly move.

Caught in the spell with me, Ezra fought to raise his arms, sword blades shining in the spell’s light.

A new color snaked through the amber array. Ugly blue lines lit up—a second array scribed inside the first. The dark magic twisted off the floor like dense smoke, then shot upward. Two bands coiled around Ezra’s wrists, growing darker and denser, and more magic wrapped around his lower face. His hands snapped together as though drawn by magnets, and his swords fell from his grasp. They plunged to the floor, unaffected by the amber light.

The dark power flashed, and when the glow faded, black manacles bound his wrists together. A dark muzzle covered his lower face, a sizzling cord of power running from it to the manacles.

Red flashed in his pale left eye—then both eyes rolled up in his head.

“Ezra!” I screamed. My voice sounded wrong in my ears, muffled and deadened. I wasn’t sure whether I was making any noise at all. “Ezra!”

Quiet footsteps tapped against metal stairs. Three figures descended from the catwalk and approached us. Terror and hatred fought for dominance as I looked into Varvara’s deep-set eyes.

She smiled, lips painted a vivid red. Just like the last time I’d faced her, she looked ready for an exclusive dinner party with the world’s most rich and powerful. Her silver hair was pulled into an elegant bun, a scarlet blouse and dark slacks clothing her slim figure, her chic coat hanging to her knees.

Strolling to the edge of the amber spell, she reached into the beam of light and caressed Ezra’s cheek. His eyelids fluttered and focus briefly returned to his gaze, left eye still glowing, but he didn’t otherwise react.

“More talented than I expected,” she sighed in a thick Russian accent. “He sensed the shifting air as soon as I began an incantation. And it appears he is still conscious? I am rather impressed.” She gestured to her companions—more henchman, these ones tall and muscular. “Pull him out.”

The two men, their brutish faces impassive, stepped closer. Varvara moved aside for them—and turned to me.

“I was not expecting you,” she mused. “How intriguing. I had assumed he liked you.”

“What did you do to Ezra, you bitch!” I yelled, fighting against the spell as though I could swim through the thickened air and strangle her with my bare hands.

“You’re wasting your breath, darling. I can’t hear you—though I recognize one of those words.”

The two brutes dragged Ezra out of the glowing beam. His knees hit the floor, head lolling forward then backward as he struggled to straighten. The men seized his arms and lifted him, his manacled wrists jerking taut. His unfocused gaze found me still trapped in the light—and I saw terror in his eyes.

Terror for me.

“Let me go!” I dragged my arm toward my belt of artifacts, but the farther my limb moved, the thicker the magic became. It was like trying to wade through hardening cement.

Varvara smiled, no doubt reading the words on my lips since she couldn’t hear them. She raised her hands. Delicate metal claws and multiple rings adorned each finger. A fine net of chains connected the claws and rings to a disc on the back of her hand. According to Zak, each piece was a dark-magic artifact.

I expected her to utter an incantation. I expected magic to spear my body while I was caught helpless in her spell.

Her clawed fingers closed around my arms and she turned me to face the opposite direction, as easily as if I were suspended on invisible chains. I stared across the warehouse at the gargantuan golem, unable to look anywhere else—unable to see Ezra or the men who held him.

Varvara walked past the spell toward the monster golem. Stopping at the edge of the array, she glanced over her shoulder. “My other steel beasts are already animated and lying in wait for your guild friends. This one, however, was too large to hide—but it seems a shame to leave it here to rust.”

She raised her arms and began to chant. I could do nothing but hang in her spell as she recited the incantation, each word of Latin flowing into the next with perfect rhythm. The array on the floor lit up with pale reddish light.

Her chant went on and on. I did nothing. I couldn’t turn to see Ezra. Couldn’t reach for a weapon. Couldn’t even scream for help. No one would hear me.