“I told you—”

“You put everyone I love at risk!” My voice, my scream, was so loud it hurt my ears. “My guild, my friends, Aaron, Kai, Ezra! You lied to us and tricked us! You put us all in danger so you could kill someone who’d have died anyway when MagiPol executed her!”

“If they ex—”

“Aaron and Kai could be dead! Sin is out there too! Everyone—”

“If Aaron and Kai are dead, then they weren’t half the mages they pretended to be.”

His words hit me like blows, interrupting my burning fury. No regret. No apology. Was he that determined to feel no remorse? Was he that certain everything he’d done had been necessary … or did he just not care about the lives he’d endangered?

I looked down at my wrist and the blank face of my Queen of Spades artifact. I’d run into an explosion of demonic power to save Ezra, sacrificing my only magic to reach him. I had put my life on the line again and again to save my friends, because that’s what friends did.

“We were never friends,” I whispered.

“I know.”

Instead of the annoyance I’d expected, his words were quiet and bitter.

“We could’ve been friends. If you’d opened up even a little. If you’d trusted me.”

He gazed at me, expressionless. Silence stretched between us.

Turning, I walked through the debris to the Carapace. I carefully folded the material, then returned to the druid. Taking his hand, his skin streaked with blood and dirt, I pressed the fabric square into his cantrip-marked palm and held it there.

His fingers closed tight around the artifact. “Tori—”

“I risked my life for you, Zak.” I held on to his hand, unable to look up and see his remorseless eyes again. “I trusted you with everything that mattered to me, with everyone I love, and they trusted you because I did. I would’ve been your loyal friend, even if you’re a mean dickhead and kind of scary sometimes.”

Releasing his hand, I stepped back. “But you chose your revenge instead. I hope it was worth it.”

His eyes widened at my tone. My fury was gone, and I’d whispered the words with miserable resignation.

It didn’t matter if grief and fury had clouded his judgment. It didn’t matter if he’d had a plan. It didn’t matter if he’d thought everything would work out just fine in the end. I wouldn’t allow someone in my life who was willing to risk my loved ones for his own goals. Someone who would hurt us, betray us, for selfish ambitions.

“Don’t come back,” I whispered, my voice breaking, “until … or unless … you decide it wasn’t worth it.”

As I turned away from him, my eyes met Lallakai’s. Standing nearby, with her arms folded and a hip cocked, she ran the tip of her pink tongue across her lips.

My breath shuddered out as I walked back to Ezra. He’d managed to sit up, but his shoulders were hunched, his eyes closed and his normally bronze skin pale with exhaustion so deep it was closer to an illness. The Carapace had drained every iota of his magic—and his strength.

Kneeling beside him, I put my arm around his shoulders. His eyelids fluttered.

Silence. I could feel Zak’s attention on me. Unable to stop myself, I looked back.

He stood where I’d left him, hands fisted at his sides. His chest heaved, his eyes burning—but not with rage. Behind him, Lallakai uncrossed her arms, her face hardening with displeasure.

Opening his mouth to speak, Zak took a step toward me.

Fire exploded out of the shadows.

Lallakai sprang forward. Her arms swept around Zak, and with a flick of her slender hand, she sent a wave of shadow crashing into the oncoming fire. Another flick of her fingers and the bolt of lightning leaping for Zak’s chest burst apart, the branching electricity diving for the ground.

Shadowy wings unfurled from her back. Green eyes glowing, she looked straight into my face, mouthed a single word, and folded her wings around Zak. The last thing I saw before he disappeared in a shimmer of fading shadows was the intensity in his eyes dousing with bitter resignation. He and the fae vanished.

“No!” His shout echoing off the walls, Aaron charged out of the darkness. Fire sparked off his hands. “Where did he go? Damn it!”

A few steps behind him, Kai jogged into view. Twiggy hung from his shoulders, crystalline eyes wide. Katana in hand, the electramage turned in a circle, then gave his head a sharp shake. “They’re gone.”

Aaron swore furiously.

Sheathing his sword, Kai turned to me. So did Aaron. Smudged with soot. Torn, dirty clothes and scuffed gear. Splattered with blood, marred with scrapes.

But alive. Unhurt. Mostly unhurt. Good enough.

As I heaved myself to my feet, they rushed to meet me. Aaron scooped me against his chest, and Kai brushed a hand over my hair before kneeling beside Ezra. Arms banded around my shoulders, Aaron gave me a comforting squeeze—and I yelped as a truckload of pain hit me all at once, every part of my body in sudden agony.

“Sorry.” Hands on my shoulders, Aaron took a step back. “Are you hurt? Where …” His gaze zoomed down me, and his face went white. “Holy shit! Kai!”

Kai was at our side in an instant. “What?”

“She’s covered in blood!”

My eyebrows scrunched confusedly. Blood? Was I hurt?

Aaron tugged my zipper down and Kai peeled my jacket off. Punctures across my torso leaked blood all down my shirt.

Oh. Right.

“Do you have a blood replenisher?” Aaron demanded. “We need to get her to Elisabetta.”

Kai pulled a vial with one of Sin’s handwritten labels from a pocket in his vest. “Tori? Stay with us.”

“I’m okay. I used a bleeding … stopper … potion thing on my arm.”

“Your arm?” Aaron found my sliced limb and swore under his breath. “Drink the potion, Tori.”

They dosed me with an icky brown liquid, bandaged my arm so tightly my hand went numb, then Aaron scooped me into his arms. Kai helped Ezra to his feet, then pulled the unsteady aeromage over his shoulder in a fireman carry.

“Why,” he grunted breathlessly as he braced against Ezra’s weight, “do you get the girl and I get a guy who’s taller than me?”

“Luck of the draw.”

“You’re an ass.”

A giggle scraped my throat—and the next thing I knew, I was crying. Aaron’s arms tightened, and he whispered reassurances as he strode to the overhead door. Neither mage commented on the destruction—or on Varvara’s body.

Through tear-blurred vision, I peered over Aaron’s shoulder at the spot where Zak had disappeared. Lallakai’s smug smile flashed in my mind, along with the single-word message she’d delivered to me alone.

One word.

Mine.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I tossed a kernel of popcorn in the air and caught it in my mouth. Score! Was I awesome or what?

Too bad no one was watching.

Beside me, Aaron’s head was slumped back against the cushions, his bowl of popcorn sliding sideways off his lap and his mouth gaping as he snored. Scooping up his bowl, I set it on the coffee table and curled up again, munching through another handful of buttery deliciousness.

Dramatic music poured from the surround-sound speakers as our action hero—Jason Statham, this time—ran across the screen. Or what I could see of the screen. A spindly bush blocked a portion of my view.

“Twiggy,” I called quietly. “Don’t sit so close.”

Not looking away from the flawless LCD before him, the faery backed up maybe three inches. Rolling my eyes, I let him enjoy it. His reaction to Aaron’s monstrous flat screen had been priceless. The poor, sheltered fae hadn’t realized TVs came that large, and he quivered with excitement as Jason punched his way through a pack of goons—losing his shirt in the process. I fully approved.

Silently laughing, I glanced at Aaron, wishing he was awake to see Twiggy’s newfound love for his tech, but less than twenty-four hours had passed since he’d battled for his life—and the lives of his guildmates—and he was still exhausted. Elementaria took a heavy toll on the mage’s body.

As he gargled through a snore, I got out my phone and opened the camera. Leaning close, I pulled a funny face, Aaron’s sleeping countenance framed over my shoulder. The phone made a fake shutter noise as I snapped the pic.

Perfect. Maybe I’d print the photo and hang it above the bar.

Tucking my phone away, I settled down again. On my other side, a silver head lifted and fuchsia eyes blinked drowsily. Another sleepy survivor of last night’s chaos. Hoshi yawned widely, flashing her scary little teeth, then tucked her nose under her tail.

I stroked her warm neck, missing the reassuring flickers of color she’d normally send me. Our connection, like my artifacts, was gone. I could no longer communicate with the fae.

My throat tried to close, and I hurriedly stuffed more popcorn in my mouth. I was determined not to wallow. It didn’t matter how shitty everything was. My friends were alive and unharmed, and that’s what mattered.

Finishing my popcorn, I started on Aaron’s bowl as Jason Statham, fully clothed again, parachuted onto the back of a fast-moving semi-truck. Yeah, that was cool and all, but I knew three mages who were way more badass.

A quiet clatter brought my head around. Twiggy tore his stare off the TV and squinted toward the entryway.

The front door thudded and Aaron woke with a snort, his head lifting off the cushions. His bleary blue eyes scrunched with confusion.

A man stepped into the doorway between the living room and front hall.

“Kai!” I half shrieked, almost dumping popcorn all over the sofa as I leaped to my feet. I flew across the room and grabbed him in a crushing hug. He wrapped his arms around me, holding just as tight.

“Dude,” Aaron exclaimed right behind me. He clapped his best friend on the shoulder. “Finally!”

Kai smiled wanly, paler than usual. “I can’t stay long.”