A warm brown eye focused on my face, and his forehead wrinkled in confusion.

“Tori?” My name was a rough rasp in his throat, nothing like his usual silken voice—but it was him. It was him.

“Ezra!” A sob tore through me and I collapsed onto his chest, burying my face in his neck. “I thought you were gone. I thought you were gone!”

I clutched him, crying hoarsely and unable to stop. He wrapped his arms around me, his limbs trembling, devoid of strength.

“I thought you were dead,” he muttered into my hair, the words as unsteady as his arms. “I thought she killed you. I thought …”

My hands tightened on his shoulders, my whole body shaking.

Gravel crunched nearby. I jerked up with a gasp and my hysterical relief went cold.

Varvara bent down and pinched the Carapace between two fingers. She lifted a corner of the enchanted fabric. “So, this … is the Carapace of Valdurna.”

How? How had she survived that demonic unleashing? The ceiling was gone. All the yachts and equipment inside the building had been reduced to pebbles and scrap metal. Fissures zigzagged across the floor. Ezra’s magic had destroyed everything.

She lifted her hooded gaze to us. “Impressive, my darling demon mage. Now that you’ve been so thoroughly disarmed, I can find a better way to control all that power.”

Fury seared my innards—but my terror was stronger. I looked down at the hair elastic on my wrist where I’d tucked the Queen of Spades. The card was nestled exactly as I’d left it, but its rectangular face, where the regal Queen had sat with her scepter in hand and a mysterious smile on her lips … it was blank.

The Carapace had wiped it clean.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Varvara pointed her clawed fingers at me and Ezra. “Egeirai—”

The tiniest clink of a dislodged rock.

Her head snapped sideways, and she whipped her hand out, screaming, “Impello!”

Zak, leaping across the rubble with Lallakai’s wings sweeping out on either side of him, thrust his arm out, a black rune marking his palm. “Impello!”

The identical cantrips met with a boom. Zak soared through the rippling air and slammed into Varvara, his scarlet saber just missing her side. She hurled a potion to the floor and it erupted into a cloud of pink smoke. He reeled back, three crystals glowing on his chest, then charged into the opaque mist.

A clang of metal, Varvara shrieking an incantation, Zak’s furious snarl—but I wasn’t watching.

“Tori?” Ezra whispered.

Sprawled half on his chest, I stared at my Queen of Spades card.

Gone.

The card’s face was blank, the spell inside it gone, and I felt naked. The Queen had been my first artifact, my first ally in battle. She’d been with me for every fight, my ace in the hole, my literal trump card. She’d fended off mages, sorcerers, demons, golems. Every time I’d needed her, she’d been there to save my butt.

Now she was gone, erased by the Carapace’s magic.

I’d had no time to remove my artifacts before donning the cloak. A single second’s delay would’ve meant my death—and Ezra’s. I’d known what I was sacrificing when I pulled the Carapace from my pocket, but seeing it …

The crystals hanging from my wrist clinked together, dull and mundane. The brass knuckles were no more than brass. Even the potions in my paintball gun had been rendered impotent.

For the first time since I’d picked up the Queen of Spades in that back alley across from my brother’s apartment, I was magicless.

I wrapped my arms around Ezra and buried my face in his shoulder, shielding him as I hid from the bursts of power, the clang of weapons, the sizzle of magic. Strange odors singed my nose as Zak and Varvara unleashed spell after potion after spell. Their voices rang out with incantations.

Two dark-arts masters, nothing left to fight with but their own skills.

Varvara screamed, and I dragged my head up.

High above us, the full moon shone down through the shattered roof, silvery light streaking the smoke that hung over the battle arena. Colorful liquids splattered the broken floor and hunks of collapsed ceiling. One piece of concrete bubbled, the steam rising in bizarre corkscrews.

Still screaming, Varvara clutched her wrist to her chest—the bloody stump of her wrist, her hand gone. Scrabbling in the front of her coat, she flung a glittering artifact away from her, howling the incantation.

Zak braced his arm and his yellow fae shield popped outward, spanning his full height. Lances of shiny fuchsia power impaled his shield, their points inches from his body. He cast his arm out, banishing the shield and the spell it had halted, and leaped closer, blade swinging.

She spat an incantation, and a shimmer of darkness appeared in the path of his sword. The scarlet blade, able to cut through steel, bounced off. He recovered and slashed again, but more Latin fell from her lips. Over and over, as fast as he could strike, she called a spell to stop him.

As he lunged furiously, his blade skidded across a patch of dark magic and he took a step too close.

She surged toward him and raked her steel claws down his forearm—tearing through his druid tattoos. His saber burst into shards of light and he stumbled backward.

“Ori tuum da mihi pectus,” she screamed triumphantly as she reached for him, a dark disc in her grip, “tuum iam—”

He pulled a serrated dagger from the sheath on his thigh and rammed the blade into her chest.

The air behind the sorceress shimmered. In a swirl of raven hair, Lallakai appeared, her full red lips smiling—and only then did I realize the feather tattoos were missing from Zak’s arms. She leaned over Varvara’s shoulder as the sorceress gaped at Zak, shock in her eyes.

“You lose,” the darkfae whispered into the silence.

Zak ripped the blade out of his enemy. As she fell back, he threw the dagger aside and grabbed her by the throat with both hands. Teeth bared, he lifted her, bringing her face close to his, her feet brushing the ground.

“I told you,” he rasped, “I would watch you die while you choked on your own blood.”

The muscles in his arms tautened, and a horrible crunch echoed through the demolished building. A spasm shook her body, a strangled whimper escaping her crushed throat.

“One death isn’t enough.” He stared into her eyes. “You could die a thousand times and it wouldn’t be enough.”

She scraped at his wrist with her remaining hand, wheezing with pain and terror, her legs thrashing. Zak didn’t move, his arms steady as he held her by the throat, the seconds dragging. Her movements grew more frantic, then slowed. Her arms fell to her sides, and with a final hoarse gurgle, she went still.

Even then, he didn’t move. Lallakai, standing a few steps away, smiled as she observed her druid.

A slow breath slid from him, then he opened his hands. The sorceress’s body hit the floor in a graceless heap. He studied his defeated enemy for a moment more, then walked into the rubble. Stooping, he searched through the crumbling concrete. After a minute, he straightened, brushed the dust off his grimoire, and tucked it into a pocket.

His green eyes, human and exhausted, turned to mine.

Evidence of the violent struggle he’d survived was written all over him. Blood ran down his face from a cut across his cheek. More slices raked his torso, his shirt in tatters. Burns singed one shoulder. His belt was nearly empty of vials, his spelled crystals dark. Only one fae rune remained on his left forearm, and his right was a mess, blood obscuring the remaining tattoos.

Ignoring Lallakai, he started toward me.

I looked down. Ezra watched me, his fatigue a thousand times worse than Zak’s—and made worse by the anguished despair lurking in the back of his gaze. Ezra knew he’d reached the precipice. Knew that, for a few minutes, he’d fallen into the madness he’d feared for almost a decade.

He had survived the night, but at what cost?

I touched his cheek. “Wait here.”

He smiled. It was faint, shallow, tinged with sorrow, but somehow, he still smiled for me. “I don’t think I can stand, so sure.”

Two more tears leaked from my eyes as I brushed a gentle kiss across his lips. Then I pushed myself up, rubbed the tears from my cheeks, and faced the druid.

He stopped five long steps from me, subtle wariness in his expression. I peered into his eyes, searching for the one thing I needed to see.

“You killed her.” I pointed at the sorceress’s body. “With your own two hands, just like you wanted.”

He flicked a glance at his slain foe, then looked back to me.

“Are you satisfied?” I fought to keep the words steady. “Was it worth it, Zak?”

“I avenged the lives I needed to avenge.”

A tremor ran through me from head to toe, and I searched his eyes one more time, but no matter how hard I looked, I saw no regret. My jaw quivered but I fought back the sob.

He rolled his shoulders. “Don’t give me that look. My plan all along was to kill Varvara before she could escape with Ezra. I had no idea he’d lose it like that.”

“I told you he was almost out of time,” I said hoarsely, the tremor condensing in my chest. “I told you he was losing control.”

“I still didn’t know that would happen.”

“What about the others? Aaron and Kai? My guild?” My hands clenched into fists. “You told Varvara our whole plan and let them walk into a trap.”

“I misled her about your numbers. She was expecting half their force. They could handle it.”

“Handle it?” My composure broke, my voice rising. “Handle it? You have no idea! No idea what Varvara set up, what they had to fight! You said yourself she could anticipate anything! You have no idea whether they’re still alive!”

His scowl deepened. “Tori—”

“Was it worth it?” The question burst out of me in a scream. “Was killing her with your bare hands worth everything you lost? Was avenging lives already gone worth destroying the ones still left? Was getting everything you wanted worth betraying me?”