Zylas formed beside me, gasping. Blood spattered the ground.

A slice ran across his chest, parting his leather gear and scoring the plate on his chest—an impossible feat for blades made solely with abjuration Arcana. A matching slash across his lower back wept blood.

Panic squeezed my throat and I grabbed his arm.

“Ori quinque!”

A silvery blast hit our backs. Zylas hurtled forward and I was yanked with him, our arms tangled. He landed in a roll, pulling me against his chest, and we came to a stop with him poised protectively over me.

The concrete pad shivered as the pink glow of the array brightened. The heavy buzz of arcane power in the air was thickening, clogging my lungs. Saul wasn’t chanting anymore; he’d completed his job. The spell was active. The portal was opening.

Despair choked me more than the magic. We couldn’t defeat the sorcerers. We hadn’t stopped the spell. We’d failed.

Not yet, vayanin.

Zylas’s gleaming red eyes met mine. A crimson-and-shadow presence swept into my mind, sharp with wild ferocity and intense determination. He hadn’t survived by surrendering. He hadn’t lived this long by handing victory to his enemies.

If he still breathed, he could still fight. He could still win.

Vh’renith vē thāit, he whispered in my mind. Victory or death.

Alien warmth scorched my center as power flowed into my body. His determination infected me, and my doubts disappeared.

He rolled, sweeping me with him as he lunged onto his feet. I landed beside him, my fingers curling as heat burned through them. Crimson power snaked up Zylas’s arms, reforming his phantom talons.

The three sorcerers circled us, ready to cast their neutralizing or reflective spells. Nothing Zylas could cast would penetrate their defenses.

I stretched my arm out, fingers spread. Shock widened the brothers’ eyes at the sight of my hand—at the crimson power radiating from my fingers and veining my wrist.

His mind threading mine, Zylas steadied the image I was drawing forth, his experience in this form of casting bolstering my lack. A simple rune took shape in front of me, formed in an instant—and as tall as me. The crimson lines glowed eerily.

“Ventos!” I yelled.

“Ori tres!” the twin facing me roared.

My demonic cantrip flashed and a gale of wind exploded outward. Green sparkles formed in front of the sorcerer—the spell that could erase Zylas’s demonic attacks. The howling wind hit it.

The sorcerer was blasted off his feet. He flew ten yards and slammed down on his back.

“No!” the other twin shouted.

I grinned tightly. Abjuration was limited. It had to be tailored to the magic it was defending against—and my magic was neither demonic nor Arcana. It was both.

Zylas coiled his body, then sprang. I spun, already knowing where he was going, what he intended. The link between us was a bright line of instinct as he analyzed everything around him. The ground. The sky. The movements of his enemies. The subtle language of their bodies—darts of eyes, flares of nostrils, minute flexing of muscles.

He judged his targets, predicted their movements, and reacted without thought—following years of practice, of muscle memory, of experience.

As he closed in on the second twin, I stretched my hand out again. Another cantrip spanning five feet instantly appeared—right under the sorcerer’s feet.

Zylas slashed as the sorcerer barked an incantation. The demon’s claws raked the shield as he darted sideways.

“Rumpas!” I shouted.

The concrete under the twin shattered. He stumbled, arms pinwheeling. Zylas pivoted on one foot, grace and power. His crimson claws flashed.

The sorcerer fell.

“Braden!” the other twin screamed as his brother hit the ground, blood pooling in the fissured concrete. He flung a hand toward Zylas as his father shouted another spell.

“Ori quinque!”

“Ori novem!”

Daimon, hesychaze!

As Jaden’s and Saul’s incantations rang out, Zylas blurred into red power. It streaked to my chest and he reformed in front of me—but the sorcerers weren’t done.

“Ori septem!” they both shouted.

Blue rings flashed for him, and with a lithe twist, he evaded both. As they whipped past and struck the concrete, a thought flitted from Zylas to me, too fast for words, but I caught the meaning—his observation.

He sprang away from me, charging toward Jaden. I whirled in the opposite direction, toward Saul—just as Amalia crept up behind him, a long red scarf in her hands. She flung the cloth over Saul’s head and yanked it tight.

“Igniaris!” she cried.

The cantrip-embroidered scarf burst into flame. Amalia yanked her hands away as Saul howled in agony, clawing at the fabric.

I summoned a new cantrip, aiming it at the sorcerer as Amalia dove for the ground. “Impello!”

If anyone had asked me a few weeks ago if the simple “push” cantrip, the building block of all impello artifacts, could be terrifying, I would’ve laughed. It was worth a stumble, maybe a fall. After all, who could carry around a cantrip large enough to do real damage?

But who would’ve thought I could create massive cantrips in an instant?

The blast from the rune catapulted Saul into the air. Trailing flames like a rippling banner, he hurtled across the platform, out over open water, and splashed into the dark ocean.

“Ori unum! Ori duo! Ori unum!”

At the platform’s other end, Jaden spat incantations nonstop as Zylas darted around him, claws slashing. Voice rising with desperation, the sorcerer flung his hands out.

“Ori decem!”

Blue swords formed in both hands and he slashed at the demon.

A fatal mistake.

His abjuration was a nearly unassailable defense against a demon, fast and impenetrable. But in combat? No human could beat Zylas in direct combat.

With smooth grace, the demon ducked the wildly swinging blades. His phantom claws swept up, passing through flesh and bones. The abjuration blades spun away and disappeared.

The sorcerer staggered backward, gaping at his severed fingers, only his thumbs left. The crimson talons on Zylas’s left hand dissolved, and he grabbed the man by the throat. His other hand drew back for the killing strike.

Something midnight black and vicious burned through the link between me and Zylas, then the connection snapped off—the demon shoving me out of his head.

He rammed his claws into Jaden’s chest, bones crunching. Jaden’s agonized scream filled the air as Zylas twisted his hand, then ripped it back out. The man went limp, head lolling.