My mouth gaped in a silent scream as he slammed Zylas into the pavement.

All sound and movement and magic died. Tahēsh was a dark, motionless shadow, crouched low with his wings arching off his back. Laughing gruffly, he straightened and raised his muscular arm.

Zylas hung from the long crimson claws impaling his stomach. The points protruded from his back, coated in blood. Panting wetly, he clutched Tahēsh’s wrist and crimson power shot across his hands.

Tahēsh roared. Magic exploded in a blinding flare.

A deafening crash boomed beside me. I flinched away as Zylas pitched forward, crumpling to the pavement a foot away. He’d struck the dumpster so violently the metal had split. Garbage fell through the fissure—beer bottles and fast food wrappers and stained cans of spray paint.

Dark, thick blood pooled under Zylas and flowed across his back from the five punctures. He didn’t move except for his rapid, rasping breaths. Tahēsh started toward us, his teeth exposed in a hungry grin.

My mind seized with panic. I had to do something. I had to help.

I grabbed a can of spray paint and shook it as I jumped in front of Zylas. Squeezing the nozzle, I prayed for some small blessing of luck—and blue paint spat from the can. I swept it across the pavement, drawing rushed lines.

Tahēsh stalked closer, taking his time, laughing quietly.

I threw the can aside, grabbed Zylas’s shoulder, and heaved. “Get up! He’s coming! We have to get away!”

Zylas groaned faintly and lifted his head. His eyes, tight with pain, gleamed dimly, and he pushed up on his elbows, blood running everywhere. His arms shook under his weight.

Tahēsh was almost on us.

“Zylas!” I yelled. “You have to protect me! Get up!”

His head turned in my direction, his teeth bared.

Ready? I mentally called to him. His eyes burned in answer and red light lit his hands and feet, veining across his limbs.

Tahēsh’s giant foot crunched on the pavement inches from the drying paint.

“Luce!” I screamed.

The two-foot-wide cantrip I’d painted on the ground blazed as bright as the sun. Tahēsh bellowed, recoiling from the blinding radiance.

Zylas’s arms caught me, crushing me against his chest. Red power flashed and a spell erupted beneath his feet.

We were blasted into the air. The incandescent cantrip and crumpled dumpster shrank as we rocketed five stories above the earth. At the apex of our ascent, we seemed to float on the icy wind—then we began to fall.

I clutched Zylas’s neck as we plummeted toward a rooftop. We slammed down, his feet smashing through concrete, legs bending to absorb the impact. A sound rasped from his throat—part agonized groan, part fierce snarl. Crimson power rippled over his lower legs, and he launched forward—unbelievably fast, his movements powered by magic.

As Tahēsh’s infuriated roar sounded behind us, Zylas leaped again. We soared across a wide road and hit another rooftop. Below were dark streets and brown train tracks. A rattling transit train snaked along the tracks like a silver serpent.

Zylas dashed across the roof and sprang one more time. We plunged downward as the Skytrain sped beneath us, streaking away. We hit the last car. Zylas slid wildly across the slick metal roof—we pitched off the back—

Metal screeched and we jarred to a halt. Zylas hung from the back car, his claws embedded in a steel edge, his other arm locked around my waist.

The train sped along the tracks, carrying us away from the Eastside and the demon king.

Chapter Twenty-Two

We hung off the back of the train for a few minutes. When a grassy bank replaced the buildings and streets, Zylas swung sideways and let go.

We dropped off the elevated track and fell fifteen feet. He landed on the grass and crumpled, his arms constricting around me as we rolled down the slope. We came to a halt beside a paved bike path, and the moment we’d stopped moving, he went limp.

I shoved onto my knees and touched his arm. His skin was cold. “Zylas?”

Sprawled on his back, he squinted at me. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth and his eyes had gone dark as night. The rest of him was a gory mess that my brain denied was real. A horror movie prop, not a hideously wounded living being.

“Are you safe here?” he rasped.

I dragged my horrified stare off him and looked around. Cars zipped along the street at the top of the knoll and distant pedestrians ambled along the wet sidewalks with umbrellas.

“Yes, I think so.”

He let out a pained breath. Red light sparked over his limbs—and his arm disappeared from beneath my hand. His body dissolved into crimson radiance that swept into the infernus. Suddenly alone, I crouched beside a patch of dark blood on the grass, my hands hovering over a demon that was no longer there. All my limbs went weak and I slumped forward, trembling violently.

So stupid. I’d been so stupid.

I wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn’t stop staring at the blood-drenched grass. Zylas was badly wounded. Fatally wounded, if he’d been human. I wasn’t sure what a demon could survive. He had amazing healing magic … if he could use it. Could he heal himself? Or was it too late? The last time I’d seen his eyes dark like that, he’d been near death.

Fresh panic swept through me. I sprang to my feet and sprinted up the slope.

Zylas was dying. He needed help and I was the only one who could keep him alive—if I was fast enough.

I bounced impatiently on the balls of my feet as the cab driver held out my credit card and receipt. I snatched them from his hand and ran into the motel parking lot, not caring what he thought. With dirt and splattered stains—Zylas’s dark blood—all over me, I already looked like a freak.

It had taken me fifteen minutes to hail a cab, get a ride back to the motel, and pay. Had too much time passed? Was it already too late? I hadn’t seen any other options.

I fumbled in my coat pocket for the key card to my and Amalia’s room, jammed it through the lock, and shoved the door open. The drab room was dark and empty, the two beds unmade, our bags open against the wall, and the TV Zylas had dismantled shoved in a corner.

Kicking the door shut behind me, I ran into the bathroom and turned the shower on full blast. Icy water sprayed into the tub. The infernus chain tangled under my jacket when I tried to pull it out, so I unzipped my coat and threw it aside. Clutching the metal disc, I stuck my arm under the water. Warm. Getting hotter.

“Zylas.” I spoke and thought the words as intensely as possible. “Come out. I have something to help you.”

Nothing happened. No. I couldn’t be too late.

I kicked my shoes off, set my phone on the counter, and stepped into the tub. Scalding water soaked my socks. Flinching, I held the infernus under the spray. “Zylas, come out, please!”

Hot water flowed across the metal—and a red glow suffused it. Instead of leaping energetically toward the floor, the magic spilled straight down. Zylas took form almost on my toes, his back to me as he faced the showerhead. The water ran red with blood.

His legs buckled.

I grabbed his shoulders but his weight dragged me down too. I thumped onto my butt, the demon half in my lap, his head against my shoulder and his back between my legs. Water cascaded over his torso, blood running everywhere. Steam rose from the spray and wherever the blood-stained liquid touched me, it burned.

With effort, I propped him up to get his face out of the water. “Zylas?”

A muscle in his cheek twitched but he didn’t open his eyes. “It is hot.”

“Yes,” I whispered.

He lay limply as the water washed over him. My gaze darted across his torso, trying to assess the severity of his injuries, but I couldn’t begin to guess. Five punctures straight through his abdomen, four deep tears in his upper arm, and shallow slices across his chest, nearly cutting through the leather straps of his armor. And who knew how much internal damage from impacts? A terrifying amount of blood was swirling down the drain.

“Zylas …” I swallowed against the catch in my throat. “Will you survive?”

“You will not be rid of me this easily,” he growled.

“I’m not trying to get rid of you.” A sob built in my chest, fueled by guilt and furious regret. “I’m so sorry.”

He watched me through half-lidded eyes the color of cooling coals. “Sorry?”

“I thought you could beat him. I thought it would be easy for you. If I’d realized … I never would’ve tried to get you to fight him.”

“Easy?” His mouth contorted with disgust. “You are zh’ūltis. Can you not see?”

“See what?”

He twitched his hand to indicate his body. “Why would you think I am stronger?”

“But … but you said …”

He pulled himself upright and leaned against the shower wall, one leg hooked over the tub’s edge. Resting his head against the tiles, he fixed a cold, indecipherable stare on me. “Tahēsh is Dīnen of the First House. I am Dīnen of the Twelfth House. I am the weakest of them all.”