Zylas dropped him, then opened his hand. A fistful of gore landed beside the dead sorcerer with a wet thud.

My stomach heaved, but I stiffened my spine, remembering Yana Deneva, the aspiring actress, and the other young women Jaden and his family had destroyed. Kidnapped. Tormented. Raped. Killed.

Saul, Braden, and Jaden would never kill again.

The slosh of waves seemed so quiet after the cacophony of battle and death. Firelight from the four torches flickered across the platform and reflected off Zylas’s armor.

“Robin …”

Amalia’s whisper was almost lost to the breeze. Turning, I found her a dozen paces away, staring at a spot near my feet. Blinking, I looked in that direction.

Pink light glowed all around me, the spiraling lines and sharp geometric shapes of the array interspersed with foot-wide runes. The center of the spell, a few long steps away, wasn’t glowing. The core node, that eight-foot circle, had turned pitch black. So black it sucked in the light.

Or … was it lightless?

I inched closer, peering at the inky circle. Faint white sparkles dusted the black, glittering delicately in sweeping ribbons. An icy wind teased my face, blowing in the opposite direction of the cold sea breeze. Instead of salt water, the scent of dirt and sand and something wholly unfamiliar tickled my nose.

I stared at the starlike sparkles … and realized what I was looking at: a night sky, as perfect and crisp as a reflection in a mirror.

Except wisps of cloud streaked the familiar sky overhead, while that circle showed a clear but moonless night.

The scuff of a footstep. Zylas’s arm brushed mine as he stopped beside me.

“The scent,” he whispered. “It smells like …”

Cold deeper than the winter breeze, icier than the sand-scented wind emanating from that black circle, settled in my bones. Terror bubbled through my veins.

“It smells like home.”

My fingers closed compulsively around Zylas’s wrist, my stare locked on that circle of darkness three yards from my toes.

The portal was open.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The eerie pink glow of the array shimmered gently as terror hammered through me. Within the portal, stars of another realm dusted a foreign sky. Cold radiated from the darkness, the fitful wind far icier than this Vancouver winter night. The misty wetness clinging to the platform had turned to white frost around the edge of the circle.

Beside me, Zylas leaned forward, nostrils flaring as he drew in the familiar scent of his home.

A tremor ran through me. My mind was empty, devoid of his shadow-tinged presence. I’d barricaded my heart, wrapping it in bands of steel so it could survive what would come next.

With more effort than it had ever taken to move my fingers before, I unclamped my hand from his wrist. My arm fell limply to my side.

He dragged his stare off the portal and looked at me.

“Go.”

Someday, I might acknowledge how much it hurt to speak that word.

Zylas didn’t move.

“Go!” I cried, gasping back the tears stinging my eyes. “Before it’s too late!”

His head turned toward the ebony circle, then back to me.

“What are you waiting for?” Anger sparked in my chest, a welcome reprieve from the building grief. Why was he hesitating? Why was he making this harder? “Isn’t this what you want? To go home?”

He faced the portal. His tail slid slowly across the ground.

“Go,” I choked. “The portal won’t last.”

He took a slow step toward the starry sky of his home. I clenched my hands into fists, breathing fast through my nose. He didn’t belong in my world, I reminded myself. He had no place on Earth, where his very existence was a crime. This was what he wanted. What he needed.

What I needed didn’t matter—even if what I needed was him.

My demon, my protector, took another step toward the portal. His tail snapped again, more forcefully. He stepped again.

Now he stood at the portal’s edge. Now he was crouching, peering into the strange vision of an upside-down sky. Blood from his wounds dripped onto the concrete and froze in the arctic chill emanating from his world.

He stretched out his hand, reaching for the portal.

My throat closed, cutting off my air, and I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t form words. Couldn’t say goodbye.

Zylas.

A gleaming red eye tilted toward me.

Thank you … for everything.

He gazed at me, his face in shadow, eyes unreadable, then returned his attention to the portal. His hand dipped lower. He hesitated one more time, shoulders shifting as he inhaled the scent calling him back to his homeland.

His tail went still. Then he leaped up and backward.

“Vayanin, stop the vīsh!”

I took half a step away. “Wh-what?”

He retreated from the portal. “Close the circle! Hurry!”

“But—but don’t you want to—”

He froze again, fingers curling as his claws unsheathed. “It is coming!”

His tone confused me until I realized what it was. I’d never heard that kind of fear from him before.

The deep pink glow of the arcane array shuddered, and the vision of stars darkened, blocked by an opaque shadow. A strange rushing sound reached my ears, as though the wind were rising and falling with unnatural rhythm.

The array blazed and crackled. The edges of the portal rippled like a stone striking a pond—and the surface of darkness broke.

A—a shape pushed out of the portal. Dark, ridged, strangely shiny. My brain couldn’t make sense of it as it rose, then rotated. It split, bending apart. Opening.

Jaws opening.

The shape—it was a massive head on an equally thick neck. Vaguely salamander-like, but an endless row of spiky fangs protruded from its lipless snout at a forty-five-degree angle.

As it pushed up through the portal, the spell shuddered. Fuchsia sparks exploded from the glowing lines—and the monstrous creature lurched, jaws gaping.

It screeched.

The sound was a screaming jet engine and nails on a chalkboard amplified a thousand times. My knees hit the ground as a scream tore from my throat, my hands clamped over my ears.

Zylas fell to his knees beside me, hunching forward as he covered his ears. Light fizzled and flashed—and a loud crack shook the platform.

Another crack. Chips of concrete spat into the air. Crack crack crack. More flying debris, and I realized it was pieces of the helipad. The array was breaking apart, shattering under the magical forces flowing through it.