A dark splotch, radiating a sickly green glow, covered his cheek.

I’d seen that splotch before. Seen that exact spell. Seen it stuck to Aaron’s face as he turned on Ezra and cut the aeromage down with a merciless stroke of his sword.

With her golems standing guard around her, the sorceress gestured at the druid. “Kill him.”

Ezra lurched away, shaking his head back and forth. His left eye glowed more brightly and a ring of frost formed around his feet.

Varvara frowned. “Kill the druid now.”

Arms falling to his side, Ezra stood unmoving, except for the rise and fall of his shoulders—and the crimson magic igniting over his hands.

With a bright flare, eight-inch talons of phantom power extended from his fingers. Veins twisted up his arms, and curved spines protruded from his shoulders. The temperature plunged below freezing.

He raised his head. Eerie light snaked up the left side of his face and over his glowing eye. Semi-transparent horns formed above his temples, and with a flare of red, the gel-like splat on his cheek burned away. The artifact fell off him and hit the floor with a clink.

“You cannot control me.”

His words were a guttural rasp, and I had no idea if it was Ezra or Eterran speaking.

Zak threw his head back in a harsh laugh. “Who’s the overconfident one, Varv—”

Ezra flung his hand up. Power surged down his arm and blasted out of his palm.

Zak sprang sideways and the spinning orb of demonic magic hit the pillar behind him. The concrete burst into shards. He reeled away, his vargs scattering as debris showered the floor.

“I’m not your tool,” Ezra snarled, sounding nothing like himself. Magic blazed across his forearms and snapped outward into complex circles filled with jagged runes. He extended both palms toward Varvara, mere feet away from him.

Terror blanked her face.

“I won’t be used!”

A beam of crimson exploded from his hands. Varvara threw herself onto the floor and the attack scarcely missed her as it screamed across the building, tearing through concrete pillars, thirty-foot boats, and heavy machinery like they were flimsy movie props. Crashes and booms pierced my ears like knives.

Shoving onto her hands and knees, Varvara shouted a command in Latin. Her golems charged the demon mage.

He raised his arms. Four spell circles appeared in the air, hovering above the golems—moving with them as they closed in. Four more circles appeared beneath them. Crimson power pulsed.

As the steel beasts leaped for him, he bared his teeth. “Evashvā vīsh.”

Light blazed between each pair of circles, forming cylinders of solid crimson. The four spells shrank inward and disappeared with a hiss. Torn scraps of metal clattered to the floor, all that was left of the golems.

“This …” Varvara stammered, backing away with her hands raised defensively. Her trembling breath puffed white in the arctic air. “This is … the power of … a demon mage?”

Crouched amidst the rubble with his vargs around him, Zak watched Ezra, his face pale and tense.

“I am not adh’vēthēs,” Ezra hissed, the words cracking and breaking. “Eshanā nul adh’vēthēs … Eshanā … nul …”

He jerked his head sideways, then lifted his hands again. As red circles ringed his arms, his left eye glowed even brighter—but his right eye was still dark. When Eterran was in control, both Ezra’s eyes glowed. What was happening?

The circles around his arms flared.

A spell coalesced underneath Varvara, fifteen feet across. Another one flashed beneath Zak. More appeared beneath his vargs. The frigid air shuddered as intangible power suffused the atmosphere, heavy and violent.

The spells exploded.

I screamed, my voice lost in the detonation. Pillars shattered, the floor split, chunks of the ceiling collapsed. As red light filled my vision, I ducked behind the thick post of the rig suspending the cruiser. Stinging debris whipped across my shoulders, tearing my leather sleeves, and the steel rig shook. The boat fell to the concrete with a bang.

The glare faded, and I looked around the post to find … rubble. Nothing but rubble and the four walls of the building. Moonlight streamed down through gaping holes in the ceiling.

With a faint clatter, Zak stumbled out of a cloud of dust, Lallakai’s wings curled around him. Blood ran down his face, his clothes half shredded from shrapnel.

Violet light gleamed, and a cube-shaped spell faded to reveal Varvara crouched inside it, unharmed. She clutched a pendant around her neck, breathing hard.

Ezra stood in the center of the destruction. Red magic surged over his body in writhing patterns. Horns rose from his head. Spines jutted from his shoulders. And … and …

And phantom red wings arched off his back, stiff ribs curving with deadly elegance. A long tail ending in barbs lashed behind him, semi-transparent—but solid enough to send bits of gravel rolling away from it. One eye glowed bright red, the other dark as night.

He thrust his hands out, mouth moving, unintelligible words snarling from his throat. Power flashed—spell circles. More spell circles. They popped into existence all around him, blazing, expanding. More. And more. A dozen circles, then two.

“Ezra!” Zak roared, staggering upright. “Stop it before you destroy everything!”

His demonic wings flared wide, mismatched eyes staring. “I will not be used!”

Zak’s face blanked, and I knew he’d heard the same thing in those five words as I had.

Madness.

Ezra’s face contorted with uncontrollable rage, with mindless fear, with soul-destroying torment. He stretched his arms out and his arsenal of spell circles swelled with building power.

Madness.

The word hammered in my skull.

Ezra’s fear of what Varvara would do to him. Eterran’s fury at her attempt to control him. Ezra’s grief over my supposed death. Eterran’s rage at being a tool trapped in a human body. Ezra’s despair over his impending death.

Fear, fury, grief, rage, despair, terror, torment. Ezra’s emotions feeding Eterran’s feeding Ezra’s. The feedback loop. The unstoppable spiral into madness and death.

I shoved away from my hiding spot and ran for him.

The spell circles were flaring brighter. Varvara was rushing away, but there was no escaping the spells—they were everywhere. Zak shouted my name but I didn’t stop, my pain and fatigue forgotten.

“Ezra!” I screamed.

His head turned. Mismatched eyes fixed on me, one burning with manic power, one dark and empty. His lips peeled back.

Blind hatred and rage and anguish—and no sign of the man I loved.

He extended his hand toward me. Power blazed over his fingers, a final spell circle taking form across his palm and spreading outward, aimed square at my chest. The magic pulsed one more time, the tainted air poison in my lungs, my breath puffing white, the ground coated in ice.

I wrenched the Carapace of Valdurna from my pocket, and the demonic spells detonated.

The world turned to howling crimson. What remained of the ceiling tore away. The floor shattered into chasms. Water pipes burst, spouting liquid that instantly froze. Hunks of concrete and rebar slammed down like cannonballs.

And none of it touched me.

The Carapace clung to me in draping folds, the hood resting on my head. My whole body was numb, all sight and sound and sensation muted, but I could feel the quaking ground under my feet as I ran.

The magic spilling through the room melted out of my path. Ezra’s hand was still stretched toward me, phantom wings spread, teeth bared. I didn’t slow.

I dove for the floor and slid full tilt into his legs. He pitched forward, catching himself on his hands. As he shoved up onto his knees, I threw myself at his chest, knocking him over backward.

With a sweep of my arms, I pulled the Carapace over us both.

He thudded into the ground and the amethyst fabric, shimmering with unfathomable power, settled gently over us. His crimson wings and horns dissolved into glittering specks that swirled into the sparkling fabric. The veins crawling over him faded as they too were drawn into the Carapace. Last of all, the glow in his left eye dimmed from burning red to the palest pink, then finally to ice white.

“Ezra?”

He didn’t react to my whisper, gazing blankly upward.

“Ezra?” I shook him gently, then with more force. “Ezra? Say something.”

Reaching over my shoulder, I grabbed the Carapace and flung it away. The fabric soared three feet and pooled gracefully amidst the rubble. I shook him again, his stare terrifyingly empty.

“Ezra, please answer me!” My voice broke. “Say something. Anything!”

His eyelids flickered. The faintest gleam in his left eye, and the pale pupil contracted in the dim light. His gaze turned to my face, and I knew. I knew at a glance it wasn’t Ezra looking at me.

He’d told me. Warned me. Eterran might survive it, but I won’t.

“Where is Ezra?” I demanded shrilly. “Give him back, Eterran!”

His mouth twisted.

“Give him back!” Tears spilled down my cheeks. “Give Ezra back right now! He’s there! You’re suppressing him again, but he’s still—he’s still there.”

For the first time in any of our interactions, Eterran broke eye contact with me. He looked away, but I’d already seen his pity.

“No!” I seized his face and forced his gaze back to mine. “If you want out of that body, Eterran, you’ll bring Ezra back! Right now! Bring him back and I swear I’ll free you!”

He considered me in silence, pain and exhaustion and things I couldn’t name swirling in that pale eye.

“I want freedom,” he whispered, a guttural accent tinging his words, “more than I want this body. I will try.”

He closed his eyes. His jaw tightened, muscles tensing beneath me, and he drew in a deep breath. Released it. Breathed in again. I couldn’t breathe at all, still holding his cheeks, his skin icy under my chilled fingers.

His chest rose again—and his eyes cracked open.

My fingers dug into his face. I didn’t dare to hope. Couldn’t stop myself from hoping anyway. “Ezra?”