Runes lit up across the golem’s twenty-foot-tall body. With a final shouted phrase, Varvara lowered her arms. The golem creaked as it shifted its monstrous weight. Turning, she glided back to the amber spell and stopped in front of me a second time.

The fine lines around her eyes crinkled with her cruel smile. “I’d thought the druid a soft fool, but he is as pragmatic as his reputation suggests. Trading a demon mage for his grimoire’s return, certainly, but sacrificing you as well? Not what I expected.”

She stepped away, adding, “But he still thinks he can kill me once he’s reclaimed his grimoire. I will enjoy telling him of your demise.”

I wanted to scream at her, to call her every horrible insult I knew, but I couldn’t find my voice. I couldn’t even breathe through my spiking panic as she walked away, disappearing from my line of sight.

She murmured a command to her minions. Grunts of effort as they lifted a weight. Footsteps accompanied the scuff of limbs dragging on the floor as they hauled Ezra away.

Trading a demon mage for his grimoire’s return.

Varvara knew our plan. She’d already animated her golems. She’d been waiting here for Ezra, and now she would escape with him on her yacht while her golem army ambushed all my friends and guildmates.

And I …

The floor shook as the twenty-foot mega-golem took a long stride on thick steel legs, its blank face pointed at me.

And I would die right here, crushed flat by the golem before it joined the desperate battle about to commence outside—and massacred everyone I cared about.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The golem advanced on me. It wasn’t fast, but its huge stride covered a lot of ground, and all I could do was watch it come. Despite Varvara’s spell suspending my body in shimmering amber light, suffocating weight dragged at my lungs—frigid heaviness that had nothing to do with the magic.

It couldn’t be true. Zak hadn’t betrayed us to Varvara. He hadn’t traded Ezra to the sorceress to get his grimoire back.

He couldn’t have double-crossed us …

But if he hadn’t, why had Varvara been waiting for us, a trap already set? If he hadn’t, why were her golems gone? If he hadn’t, why wasn’t he here?

I’m here to kill Varvara.

He’d shut down his farm because of her. He’d sent away all his wards—the only nonhostile company he had aside from fae, who treated him like a “feast.” Then she’d destroyed his only refuge. Slaughtered his horses. Murdered the last loyal companion he had left. Killed the dryad and stole his grimoire.

I didn’t come back to enact justice or some noble shit like that.

He’d returned to commit murder. He wouldn’t make a deal with his nemesis, no matter how badly he wanted his grimoire back. And even if he did need the grimoire, he still wouldn’t knowingly hand one of my best friends over to the enemy. He wouldn’t disclose our entire plan to her, putting my entire guild in terrible danger.

What were you expecting, Tori?

Tears burned in my eyes as the golem stomped closer. I’d thought I more or less understood Zak, but how much did I really know about him? Could I be sure that the druid who’d unleashed a violent spell in a building full of people would care about the safety of a guild that had once hunted him? Could I be sure that the rogue who’d dropped a pleading, terrified man off a building would value the life of my demon-mage friend?

I didn’t know anymore—what Zak was capable of, where he was now, whether Varvara was lying—and I would never find out.

Tears slid down my cheeks as I fought to get my arm down to my belt, but I could no longer move my limbs. The magic had thickened so much I could scarcely breathe. The golem took another lumbering step, its foot landing a yard from the spell’s edge. The impact of steel on concrete reverberated through the warehouse.

The golem raised a gargantuan arm, its steel limbs shining gold in the light of the spell. My heart seized as its fist arced downward, blades sweeping for my torso.

The amber light of the spell blinked out.

I dropped to the ground in a heap. The blades whipped past, inches above my head, the wind of their passing turning the tears on my cheeks to ice.

All around me, small plants pushed up through the floor, breaking the lines of Varvara’s spell. They’d destroyed the array just in time to save me—but where the hell had they come from?

“Tori!”

The squeaking voice, shaking with fear, had me on my feet in an instant. As I bolted away from the golem, I spotted a tiny figure hunkered in the shadows by the door where the sleeping goon had collapsed.

Less than three feet tall, thin branches sticking off his head, Twiggy had an oversized hand pressed to the floor, his spindly fingers glowing with faint green magic. His huge green eyes were wide and glassy, but pride lit his face despite his terror.

“Twiggy!” I shrieked.

“Watch out!” he gasped.

I flung myself down as the golem’s fist swung over my head a second time. Its reach was insane. Scrambling up, I sprinted to Twiggy and scooped him off the floor, resisting the urge to crush him to my chest and weep incoherently. I had no idea why he was here but I wasn’t complaining.

Ignoring the slumbering mythic on the floor, I whipped the building’s door open—and hesitated. I glanced back, my heart hammering as a cowardly voice in the back of my head howled at me to run run run.

The golem stomped after me, shaking the ground with each step. Ezra’s dropped swords were no more than shattered bits of steel, crushed under its foot. It could smash right through the flimsy overhead door, and once outside, it would find the battle between the smaller golems, the rogues, and my guildmates. This thing alone would obliterate the already slim odds that my friends would survive the night.

And I was the only one who had a chance in hell of stopping it. Only I carried an artifact that could suck the animation magic right out of it.

The golem stomped closer, bringing me in reach of its swing. Instead of jumping through the door to relative safety, I sprang sideways and ran along the wall. The floor shook as the golem turned to follow me. The warehouse was a dark, echoing cavern, the only light coming from the pinkish runes glowing all over the golem’s body.

When I reached the corner, I gulped back my panic and set Twiggy on the ground. “Thanks, bud. You saved my butt. Now I need to stop this thing.”

“Stop it?” He straightened to his full, unimpressive height. “We will stop it!”

“No, you—”

“I saved you! I can help!”

The faery wasn’t exactly a powerhouse, but my list of allies was so damn thin I could see through it.

I pulled the Queen of Spades card from its pouch, then unbuckled my belt and tossed it into the corner. Nothing else in it was of any use against a golem. This would all come down to me, Twiggy, and the Carapace of Valdurna—except this time, I didn’t have an agile demon to get me on top of the golem’s head. I’d have to find out how far the Carapace’s power could stretch.

“Okay, Twiggy.” I plucked the folded fabric from my pocket. “You distract it while I use my secret weapon.”

Face lighting up, Twiggy charged straight for the approaching steel monstrosity. Eyes bugging with fear for the reckless twig-head, I dashed away at an angle so I could loop around the golem, Carapace in one hand and Queen in the other.

Twiggy closed half the distance, set his green feet, and threw his hands up. His body shimmered as he cast illusion magic over himself. Darkness rippled upward and solidified into a ten-foot-tall King Kong. Rearing back, he drummed his fists on his chest and loosed a surprisingly convincing roar.

I ran wide, then cut toward the golem’s heels as I shook out the Carapace one-handed.

The golem took a thundering step toward King Kong Faery, then swung its huge fist. Its whole torso rotated in a way no human’s could, and its bladed fist slashed toward me.

The angle of the swing—even if I dove for the floor, it wouldn’t save me. I was mincemeat.

“Ori repercutio!” I screamed desperately.

The air rippled and the golem’s steel fist bounced off nothing. As its arm was flung away, the momentum forced the mega-golem’s whole torso to rotate 180 degrees, metal grinding loudly. It wobbled, off balance.

Holy crap. The golem was more magic than steel, so the Queen had deflected its blow. Damn, I loved this card.

Stuffing it in my back pocket to recharge, I pulled the Carapace open and prayed that the fae artifact’s proximity wouldn’t wipe the magic out of my card. As the sparkling, rippling fabric unfurled, I flipped it over the golem’s lower leg—the only part I could reach.

The glowing runes under the fabric dimmed and faded. The runes just above the artifact faded too. The effect spread, the runes dying out one by one—but not fast enough.

“Tori!”

At Twiggy’s shrieked cry, I dove for the floor and another deadly strike missed me by inches. The Carapace fluttered off its leg and the golem lifted its foot. A terrifying shadow fell over me. I rolled away, too slow to escape that crushing steel boot.

A cracking sound, followed by the creak of metal.

Thin, tough vines had erupted from the floor and wound around the golem’s foot, holding it back. The steel beast pulled its leg forward and the vines snapped, but the few seconds allowed me to leap up and sprint away. Its foot stomped down, shattering bits of floor under it.

Twiggy, back to his twiggy self, darted in and snatched the Carapace. As I ran across the width of the warehouse, the golem stamping along in my wake, Twiggy rushed to join me with the cloak streaming after him like an amethyst banner.

He thrust the fabric at me. “Take it, take it!”

I pulled it from his hands, cringing as my fingers went numb from its power. I got why he didn’t like it.

Breathing hard and aching from too many ungraceful dives to the floor, I watched the golem come, slow but unstoppable. The Carapace’s magic wasn’t fast enough to immobilize it, not from the feet upward. I needed to get the artifact on its head or torso.