Emery fired off more spells. I opened a guild casing, but nothing came out. With the clouds and waning light, my eyes started to play tricks on me, so it took me a moment to realize nothing had happened.

“Some you have to speak to life,” Emery yelled over the noise. Men and women in robes ran at us, fleeing my mother. “Try another.”

I cracked one of Darius’s casings and sent the spell flying at the mages coming up behind us. A fog emerged and spread. It would peel people like potatoes. Really nasty stuff. This battle would give me nightmares.

I cracked another, this one a spell for magical laughing gas, as Emery threw more spells at the mages boiling from Veronica’s house. The garage doors opened, and more poured out from there. Someone broke a window on the top floor and a surge of putrid evil came shooting toward us.

“Move!” I yelled, yanking Emery with me as I dove to the side.

He hit the ground and rolled, then jumped up like an action hero. I slid on my face and groaned before I climbed to my feet.

Mages surrounded us now, too many to fight. My mother couldn’t help, not if she wanted to keep from shooting us.

“We have to make a run for it,” I said, holding Emery’s arm.

“No. If we don’t stay here, you’ll die. I can see when you’re in danger, Penny.” He held a ball of black survival magic cupped between his hands. “I saw it last night, too. That was why I told Marie to carry you off. If she didn’t, you would’ve died. If we leave this circle, despite the horrible odds, you will die.”

“What about you?”

“I would die right along with you, but not physically.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Please trust me. Stop your magic, and let them advance.”

Shaking, desperate to make one last stand, I held it back. I held it all in. I took Emery’s hand and stilled, my back pressed to his.

“There, now.” The man in the blood-red robe stepped out, Veronica not with him this time. She must’ve been left behind in the house. A smile of triumph twisted his thin lips. “You see? Even naturals can be outdone. Emery, how nice to see you again. I heard you were back to get vengeance for your brother. Too bad you won’t get to see that day.”

“I will. Before I say goodbye to this world, I will see that day,” Emery said through clenched teeth. The clouds rolled and boiled above us. A streak of lightning cut through the sky.

The man spread his arms. “I am right here. So close. But alas, you’ll die just like your brother did.”

“He was going to take your job,” Emery said. “The Chancellor had all but signed the papers. I have copies to prove it.”

I sucked in a breath. Emery clearly had found his proof.

“Yes. But then he went on that fateful trip into dangerous lands. So sad.” The man, who could only be the Baron, put on a frowny face.

“You almost had me,” Emery said, his hand holding mine shaking. “I thought it was Grimshaw. But no, it was you all along. Trying to use Happerhust’s man. Trying to hide behind the other Barons.”

“Trying?” The Baron laughed. “Succeeding, you mean. The old fools have no ambition. If it were up to them, the guild would languish. We’d be no better than a social club. It’s me that has steered the ship. That has done away with all the bleeding-heart do-gooders and put this organization on the right track. Power, plenty, rewards—I have made all that possible.”

“Through torture, murder, and corruption,” Emery spat.

“You think power comes easy?” The Baron gave a rueful smile. “Such a dreamer, like your brother. Useless.” His gaze traveled the circle surrounding us. Another steak of lightning lit the quickly darkening sky, the day losing the battle to night unnaturally early. “But that’s enough chatter. You are sentenced to death, Emery Westbrook, for taking a guild member’s life. Several lives, actually.”

Emery stilled and his gaze drifted. He was having a premonition. “Do not avenge me,” he said to me in a deathly quiet tone. “Promise me.”

“No sweat, because you’re not going to die.”

“Penny, please. You need to stay alive. You’ll have a wonderful future. Live it. Find someone worthy of you.”

“I did. I found you. I will not let him kill you.”

Emery spun and grabbed my face in his hands. He crushed his lips to mine.

He was going to do something crazy.

But that was my role.

I pushed him back, dug into my belt, and grabbed a casing I’d prepared yesterday. His eyes widened and he grabbed my hand, stopping me from cracking it. “Not yet.”

“Ah look, so sweet,” the Baron said. “And if I could control you, Emery, I’d let you keep her in the hopes you’d become a dual-mage pair. But sadly, you’re as headstrong as your brother. Rest assured, though, I have high hopes for her. She’ll do just fine. Maybe I’ll even keep her for my own.”

Emery’s jaw clenched and his eyes lit on fire, but he didn’t turn away from me. He stared down into my eyes, like he was saying goodbye. Like the fool thought I would let that happen.

“Kill him and capture the girl,” the Baron ordered.

I ripped my hand out of Emery’s grasp and applied pressure to crack the casing.

“No—”

A bolt of lightning stabbed down from the nearly black sky. It hit the corner of the property, blasting us all with an electric shock wave. I felt my eyes widen as the natural urge to flee took hold of me.

Another cracked down, closer this time, right next to the porch on which the Baron stood. The circle of mages around us shifted and danced, looking at the sky with pale faces and eyes probably as wide as mine.

“How did—” Emery cut off. His eyes weren’t heavenward like everyone else’s—they were roaming the road.

A small tornado spun down the street, traveling a seemingly controlled path. It dipped in as it neared the front of the house, tearing up the grass and heading our way.

“What…is…happening?” I said in a series of terrified bleats, backing away with everyone else.

The circle of mages turned into an egg and then a haphazard cluster. The Baron yelled for them to follow his orders, but the wind ripped his words away, then shoved at us and pushed us toward the property line.

Another crack of lightning smacked down to my right, fifteen feet away. It fried the man standing there and blasted Emery and me into jogging away.

Panic choked me. Man-made horrors I could handle, but something about natural disasters of any kind had me ready to retreat like my butt was on fire. “We have to get to cover—”

Grisly shapes sped toward us, startling me into a frozen stupor for a moment. The monsters resembled Marie’s shifted form from last night, their swampy skin rendered even more frightful by the light burns marring it. They rushed forward in the near-darkness, wicked claws flashing through the air, cutting through mages. One picked a mage up, lifted him into the air, and then cracked him over a knee.

“Now you can fight,” Emery yelled over the din, launching forward toward the Baron. “Don’t worry about the weather. She has excellent control.”

A shock of evil stilled my heart, erasing my supreme confusion and terror. The Baron had a spell ready, and it was aimed for Emery.

“Watch out!” A jet of white burst from me as a stream of black tore from his fingers. Our magic slid against each other and twirled in the air, keeping its perfect colors, before merging into a plate in front of Emery. Unlike with other magic, my survival magic didn’t retaliate with Emery’s. It formed this perfect picture. The sizzle of the Baron’s aggressive magic drowned out the screams of the mages under attack by the vampires.

Emery dodged the warring spells, punched a mage, and raced to the porch of Veronica’s house. Another bolt of lightning cracked down, perfectly illuminating the fear crossing the Baron’s face. Emery reached him a moment later, smashing a fist into his face. The Baron was flung backward before being caught by Emery again. This time, Emery’s hands went to the Baron’s head. He twisted.

I grimaced and looked away as the Baron’s lifeless body slid to the ground.