“Ori septem!”

The blue ring flashed across the distance and caught Ezra’s left wrist. The demon magic veining his arm extinguished.

“Ori duo!”

Zylas flew backward, hurled away before his claws could touch the sorcerer.

“Ori unum! Ori duo! Ori tres!”

Breathing hard, the demon and demon mage backed away from their opponents, unable to break through the sorcerers’ impregnable defenses. Standing in the gap between them, I clenched my hands, limbs shivering with cold and mind spinning.

Unum. It meant “one,” and the spell was a shield that Zylas’s fists couldn’t break.

Duo. “Two.” A rippling reflection that threw Zylas back with the same force he attacked with. A reflector spell.

Tres. “Three.” Green magic that voided Zylas’s power. A negation spell.

Rare sorcery. Powerful. Difficult. And I finally knew what kind of magic it was: abjuration.

Shields and defenses. Undoing magic. Erasing magic. But abjuration wasn’t as simple as making a shield that could block everything. It was complicated, I’d read. The most complicated branch of Arcana, more intricate even than healing.

Zylas! I mentally shouted. Let me in your head! We can beat them together!

His gaze jerked to me, eyes wide, but the dark, fierce touch of his mind didn’t reach me. He couldn’t do it. His mistrust was stronger than his drive to win.

I yanked my infernus off my neck. Then distract him!

As I launched into a sprint, Zylas slashed at the sorcerer’s knees.

“Ori unum!” the man barked.

As Zylas’s strike bounced off the shield, I sprang straight for the sorcerer. He whirled toward me, spitting an incantation.

“Ori duo!”

“Ori eruptum impello!”

A silver dome burst out from my artifact as the reflector spell formed in front of the sorcerer. My spell met his—and kept going right through the rippling barrier. It struck him full force. He hurtled backward as though he’d been shot out of a cannon and hit a stack of tires. The pile toppled and the sorcerer crumpled to the ground.

Zylas leaped after him. He landed on the man’s chest, hand clamping over his mouth to prevent further incantations. I whirled around, searching for Ezra and the second sorcerer.

A man flew out of the darkness.

The twin sorcerer slammed down with a breathless grunt. Ezra stalked out of the shadows after him. His left eye glowed crimson, but no other sign of demonic magic touched him, those blue rings glowing on his arms. Wind swirled around his feet, carrying dust and debris.

He extended a hand and his fingers formed a fist. The sorcerer writhed in the dirt, clutching his throat, his eyes bulging. My mouth hung open in confusion as the man’s face turned purple.

Ezra glanced at me, one eyebrow arched. “His spells don’t work on aero magic.”

Cold plunged through my gut. “You can … pull the air … from a person’s lungs?”

Ezra opened his fist and the sorcerer gasped wildly, his chest heaving. The aeromage let him breathe for a few seconds, then curled his fingers again. The sorcerer went silent, clawing helplessly at his neck.

“A few minutes of this,” Ezra said quietly, “and he’ll tell us everything.”

I nodded numbly. “Should we—”

The roar of traffic on the bridge. The cold breeze tugging at my hair. A shiver of warning down my spine.

“Ori novem.”

Purple light blazed. The winter wind flashed hot with magic, the gust flinging grit into my eyes. With the light came dull thuds. Sickening crunches. The sound of bodies hitting the earth.

My heart had taken up residence in my skull, beating so loudly I couldn’t hear anything else. I jerked around.

Thrown ten feet from the half-suffocated sorcerer, Ezra was sprawled on his back, limbs convulsing. Sticking from his lower chest, glowing with violet light, was a harpoon. Its thick shaft pinned the aeromage to the ground.

On my other side, Zylas was no longer crouched over the twin sorcerer. He was ten feet away too, facedown as his claws tore furrows in the ground. An identical harpoon stuck out of his lower back. He shuddered against it, tail lashing and elbows digging into the earth as he tried to push himself up.

“Zylas!”

His name burst from me in a scream. I sprinted to his side and dropped to my knees. My shaking hands passed right through the glowing shaft. I couldn’t touch it.

Abjuration. A spell made to harm demons. To me, it was nothing more than light.

Zylas turned his head, cheek grinding against the dirt as his wide eyes sought mine. “Vayanin!”

I sensed it more than heard it—someone approaching from behind. I started to turn.

The blow struck the side of my head. Pain cleaved my skull, stars bursting across my vision. I crumpled beside Zylas as the world dissolved.

“Just wait. I think she’s coming around.”

The smooth voice trickled into my ears, prodding me toward consciousness. The muscles in my face twitched as I tried to remember how to open my eyes.

“Robin.”

That husky growl was far more familiar than the first voice, but I wasn’t used to hearing my name in his tones.

I cracked my eyes open. Zylas leaned over me, red eyes glowing. My head and shoulders were in his lap, his hands gripping my upper arms. The roar of traffic hadn’t changed—we were still beneath the overpass—but the air had warmed slightly.

Beside him, Ezra sat on his heels, watching me with concern. Only the faintest red gleam touched his pale left eye.

I drew in a shaky breath. “What happened?”

“A third sorcerer, I think,” Ezra said, rubbing his scruffy jaw. “He hit Zylas and me with the same spell, then knocked you out. He dragged the other two sorcerers off. I heard a car drive away.”

“He left?” I looked between him and Zylas. “But they had us beat. Why didn’t they … do anything to us?”

“I was almost free,” Zylas growled. “I got the vīsh out but he had left.”

Ezra nodded. “I couldn’t get that harpoon out of me, but it disappeared a couple minutes later.” He raised his hands. “Those blue rings wore off too. I think he knew he was about to lose his advantage.”

I gingerly sat up and touched the side of my head.

“I healed you,” Zylas said. “You are not hurt.”