My exuberant relief crashed and burned. I pushed back from his hug, gripping his arms. “What do you mean? You … aren’t …”

Of course he wasn’t back for good.

Varvara was dead, her rogue army—the survivors—arrested and in MagiPol lockup. But defeating the sorceress hadn’t magically changed Kai’s fate. He was still under orders to rejoin his family, and disobedience still meant death.

Aaron swore quietly.

“I came to get my things, but I have a few minutes.” Kai drew us toward the sofa again. “How are you doing, Tori?”

As I dropped onto the sofa, pulling Kai down with me, Hoshi raised her head. She flared her wings, then faded out of sight. With a quick glance at us, Twiggy muttered something, pressed pause on the remote, and vanished too. I frowned. Had he just taken a TV remote to faery land?

I scanned the floor for any sign of it. Huh.

“I’m fine,” I told Kai as Aaron sat on my other side. “Elisabetta fixed me up last night, then I slept until, like, three this afternoon.”

“How’s Ezra?”

“He’s sleeping upstairs. His aero magic is coming back, but he’s still wiped. The Carapace did a number on him.”

An anxious crease formed between his brows. “Have you talked to him?”

“A few times, but he hasn’t been very talkative.”

Aaron looked away, his jaw clenched. Kai rubbed a hand over his forehead, equally tense. In brief, whispered spurts last night, I’d told them how Varvara had tried to use her mind-control splat on Ezra, how he’d gone on a demon-magic rampage, and how I’d used the Carapace to stop him.

“We need to talk to him,” Kai whispered. “This is … He’s said all along …”

“That if he ever truly lost control,” Aaron finished gruffly, “he didn’t want to put others in danger.”

“Darius promised to do it.” Kai closed his eyes, haggard lines deepening around his mouth. “But I think … Aaron, I think we should do it. We should do that for him.”

Aaron’s hands balled into tight fists. “The demon may fight back. We’ll have to plan—”

I grasped their arms. “No.”

“Tori,” Aaron said heavily, “I know it’s hard, but this isn’t about us. It’s about Ezra and—”

“No.” Nerves danced through my gut. “We’re not giving up yet.”

Neither of them met my eyes, despair rolling off them. I gritted my teeth, debating whether this was the time to bring them in on my secrets—but no. They were too raw and too hopeless to handle the knowledge that Eterran already had the upper hand over Ezra. I couldn’t risk them taking drastic action.

Besides, I was due for an important discussion first.

“We all need to talk to Ezra,” I said bracingly. “Don’t jump the gun.”

Aaron let out a shaky breath. “Right. You’re right. We don’t need to rush.”

Kai nodded, not quite able to hide his relief. “How’s everyone at the guild? Elisabetta and Miles were working overtime when I left last night.”

“Left” was an awfully nice way of saying, “Makiko dragged me away while half my guildmates were still injured.” Then again, half their team had been injured too and she’d needed help getting them to their own healers.

Aaron leaned back on the sofa. “Everyone who was critically injured is out of danger except Zora, but Elisabetta and Miles think she’ll pull through.”

“Zora?” Kai’s expression darkened. “She was paired up with Robin Page.”

The two mages exchanged meaningful looks.

“I’ll have a word with her,” Aaron said. “Find out what really happened.”

Before I could ask if he meant he’d be having a word with Zora or with Robin, Kai slid his phone out of his pocket to check the time. “I need to go.”

I’d grabbed his arm before I realized I was moving. “Don’t leave. We need you here.”

He covered my hand with his. “I know, Tori, but I have to.”

“Kai …”

He lifted his gaze to Aaron, who stared back at him with blazing blue eyes.

“Are you running?” the pyromage asked. “Or are you fighting?”

“I’m done running.”

“Good.”

I frowned in anxious confusion.

Kai squeezed my hand, then rose to his feet. “I don’t know what I can do or how I can fix this, but I’m going to try.”

Nerves churned in my gut, but I smiled fiercely in answer to the determination in his face. Together, we traipsed upstairs, and Aaron and I helped—or rather, mostly got in the way—as Kai packed some clothes, gear, weapons, and electronics in a duffel bag. We waited in the hall as he ducked into Ezra’s bedroom, then we descended the stairs.

Kai hooked the duffel bag’s strap on his shoulder. “Take care of Ezra. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“You’d better.” I threw my arms around him. “And you’ll answer your phone?”

“Yes.”

Good. Because very soon, I would need them both.

The guys embraced, then Kai left Aaron and I standing side by side behind the screen door as he crossed the front lawn to the black sedan idling at the curb. He slid into the backseat, his pale face turning toward us before he closed the door.

As the car pulled away, Aaron put his arm over my shoulder, holding me close. I slid an arm around his waist, my fingers gripping his shirt.

“He’ll be back,” Aaron whispered. “He’ll figure it out.”

If anyone could find a way out of that mess, Kai could. In the meantime, I had my own mess to figure out.

I shooed Aaron back to the sofa, knowing he’d drift off again within five minutes—and did a double take when I saw that Twiggy had reappeared in front of the TV, the movie playing again. Shaking my head, I ascended the stairs.

For a long moment, I stood outside Ezra’s bedroom, staring at the door. Then I pushed it open. The room was dark, his guitar a silhouette in the corner. Ezra was an unmoving shape under the blankets, but as I approached the bed, the shadow of his head turned.

“Tori?” he murmured.

“Hey.” I sat on the edge of the mattress. “How are you feeling?”

“Exhausted,” he admitted. “I’m not sure I’ve ever been this tired in my life.”

“The Carapace is pretty crazy, huh?”

A quiet pause. “Tori, you … What you did …”

I pulled my feet onto the bed and scooched closer. “I did what I did to keep you alive, Ezra. I don’t regret a thing.”

Again, he was silent, and I could guess what he was thinking. I’d known him long enough now to read his silences.

I’d kept him alive, but it was all futile. His time was up. He’d lost control, and he couldn’t continue pretending to live a normal life while his emotions—and sanity—were so volatile. He was a danger to everyone around him. Soon, he would ask Aaron, Kai, or Darius to end his life before he hurt someone.

But he didn’t say any of that, and I was glad.

I found his face in the darkness and slid my fingertips across his cheek. My thumb traced his lower lip, then I leaned down and kissed him softly. His hand ran across my shoulder, slid up my neck, and tangled in my hair.

Lifting my mouth, I let my lips brush across his. “Don’t give up yet, Ezra.”

“How can I fight this?” he whispered. “How can I stop it?”

“Trust me.” I touched our foreheads together. “Hold on a bit longer.”

He sighed tiredly. I settled beside him, our hands entwined. For a few minutes, I could feel his gaze on my face, though it was too dark to see much. Gradually, his breathing evened out, his chest rising and falling in the slow rhythm of sleep.

I stayed where I was, caressing the back of his hand, tracing each knuckle and finding the callouses from years of weapons training. My gaze lingered on the window, but I couldn’t see the sky where, behind the thick winter cloud cover, the full moon glowed.

Ezra’s chest rose in a deeper breath. The air slid from his lungs. His fingers tightened around mine, then relaxed.

Faint red sparked in the darkness.

I looked into those crimson eyes. “Eterran.”

“Tori.”

I tightened my grip on Ezra’s hand. Eterran’s hand. The difference between the two had shrunk, their fates bound, their time almost up.

Fear slid through me—but my determination was stronger.

“Eterran, we need to talk.”

Looking at the blank face of my Queen of Spades card, yellowed with age and tattered at the edges, hurt like an open wound. Two days had done nothing to numb the sting.

My other artifacts lay across the table: the fall-spell ruby, the interrogation spell, the brass knuckles. Replacing the sleep potions and smoke bombs had been as simple as asking Sin for more, but these … these were a different case.

At the table with me were four of my guildmates. Lim and Jia, bent with age and their hair snowy white, sat quietly. Weldon, wearing a greasy cowboy hat, frowned at the line of former artifacts. Ramsey, his black hair falling across one dark-lined eye, watched me with subdued sympathy.

“This one.” Jia tapped her wrinkled forefinger against the poisonous green crystal. “Arcana that unduly influences the mind is illegal and harshly punished.”

“You’ll be lucky to find anyone who can make a spell like that,” Weldon added in his rural drawl. “Though if you do … worth a lot.”

Ramsey shot the older sorcerer an irritated glare. “Tori doesn’t want spells to sell on the black market. She wants to replace the magic she lost.”

“I don’t need that one,” I said. “Even if you could do it, I won’t ask anyone to make illegal magic.” I slid the green crystal aside. “What about the fall spell?”