“Lienna!”

Quentin reached for the door, and out of desperation, I conjured a snake on top of the handle. Quentin couldn’t stand snakes. It was literally his only weakness, the asshole.

He jerked his hand back from my hissing serpent, then laughed—though I didn’t miss the terse edge to the sound. Ignoring Maggie’s surprised gasp at the hallucination, he looked up at me.

“Nice try, Kit.”

He stuck his hand through the vision and grasped the handle. He heaved, and with a pneumatic puff, the door swung open on a silent hinge.

“Here!” Lienna leaped to her feet and slapped her paper against the bronze barrier blocking the doorway. “Ori impero corrumpatur!”

Azure light blazed over her arcane drawing, and the barrier collapsed like a waterfall. The substance was still splashing over the floor as Lienna and I leaped across the threshold.

Maggie scrambled backward, but Quentin’s face split into a cold grin. With one hand reaching for the vault, he pulled the other from under his jacket. A black pistol glinted as he pointed it straight at me.

Without the slightest hesitation, he pulled the trigger.

The ear-splitting impact of the gunshot and the diaphragm-locking impact of the bullet hit me simultaneously, and an instant later, Lienna tackled me around the waist.

I slammed into the floor, and the third impact in as many seconds sent a burst of agony into my chest as if a red-hot steel rod had been rammed straight through my ribs. My left hand clamped against the burning hole in my torso and warm wetness squished between my fingers.

Lienna pressed both hands on top of mine, pushing down to slow the gush of blood.

“Kit!” Maggie gasped. “You—Quentin, you shot him.”

Smiling coldly, he took aim for my head.

“Quentin!” Maggie grabbed his sleeve. “Kit isn’t—”

He tore his arm free—then smashed the butt of the gun into the side of her face. She crumpled with a high-pitched cry.

“Don’t interfere!” His feverish stare snapped back to me. “And you two, don’t move.”

Keeping the gun trained on me and Lienna, he reached into the dark interior of the vault. When he withdrew his hand, he held a simple silver wand, its twelve-inch length etched with minuscule runes.

“Finally,” he breathed, rising to his full height. “Blue Smoke wasn’t just a plan to steal an artifact, you know. That was just the first part. Steal the artifact—then give it to me. And with my amplified power, we would have …” He glanced at me with a condescending sneer. “Ah, but that’s way above your pay grade, Kit.”

As much as I would’ve loved to make a cutting, witty retort, I couldn’t get enough air to speak. Inhaling burned like hell, and the pain radiated across my body like a miniature nuclear bomb exploding inside my chest. Lienna pressed down on the bullet hole, unable to do anything else with that gun aimed at us.

“Tell you what, Kit,” Quentin murmured. “I’ll let you experience it before you die. Maybe the emotional overload will stop your heart.” He raised the wand. “I’ve wondered, you know, if emotion can kill. Time to find out.”

“Lienna!” I gasped soundlessly.

She shoved her hand into her satchel, fumbling for a weapon.

“Ori meam incendo mentem.” The words rushed off Quentin’s tongue. “Meam augeo potestatem, meum cor crescat!”

A faint shimmer ran across the wand. For one naïve moment, I hoped the artifact had failed to activate.

Then my mind imploded.

Every emotion Quentin was experiencing hit me with impossible force, like an entire cargo ship of feelings cramming inside my skull—vindictive glee, burning triumph, and cold loathing for the weak, pathetic minds all around him that he could manipulate so easily.

Halfway through leaping toward him with an artifact from her satchel, Lienna collapsed, clutching her head. She was screaming. Maggie writhed on the floor, a shriek rising from her throat. I might’ve screamed too, if there’d been any air in my lungs.

Quentin watched them fall, laughing. An explosion of manic elation hit an instant later and a spasm shook my body, jarring the wound in my chest.

If there’s one thing more powerful than emotion, it’s pain.

My head cleared enough for conscious thought to pop back into gear. I dug my fingers into the bullet hole in my chest, and a fresh blade of agony pushed out the empath’s supercharged emotions.

Lienna and Maggie gasped and shuddered on the floor. Quentin stood over them, laughing like a madman. I had to act, to do something, but I could barely breathe, let alone stand.

So, I did the only thing my emotion-logged, pain-hazed brain could think of. I created another snake.

The wand in Quentin’s hand transformed into a thin, footlong silver serpent. It opened its tiny mouth, fangs extended, and hissed—the sound drowned out by Lienna’s and Maggie’s cries.

Quentin’s fear slammed into me, followed by a wave of furious determination.

“Illusions!” he roared. “Hallucinations, Kit! Nothing you can do is real!”

“They’re …” I gasped weakly. “… called … warps.”

The silver snake spun around Quentin’s wrist. With every ounce of concentration I possessed, I imagined its smooth, cool scales sliding over his skin. Imagined its thin, muscular body coiling around his forearm and constricting. I imagined the needle-like pierce of its fangs as it struck.

He screeched, panic exploding from him, and flung his arm out. The snake-wand flew across the office and clattered behind the sofa.

The emotional assault cut off like a pulled plug. I sagged against the floor, wheezing.

Quentin stared at his arm where the fake snake had bitten him, fear spilling out from his regular-strength empath abilities.

“No,” he panted. “Impossible. You—”

He swung his gun toward me, and Lienna tackled him around the waist.

They slammed down and the pistol skidded across the floor. She drove her fist into his jaw, then tried to pin him, but he had at least fifty pounds of muscle on her. He threw Lienna off, lurched up, and kicked her in the stomach as she tried to roll away.

He lifted his foot to stomp on her head—and a blast of sound exploded in my ears.

Quentin staggered back. Two more gunshots tore through the room, and two more bloody holes appeared in his chest. He stumbled another step, hit the wall, and slid down, leaving a streak of blood across the paint.

Maggie knelt beside the desk, clutching his dropped gun in shaking hands. Her face was white as a ghost, but her jaw was clenched and her normally gentle eyes burned.

My vision doubled and blurred. I was gasping frantically but getting no air, and I realized vaguely that my lung had collapsed.

“Kit!”

Lienna leaned over me. Maggie appeared on my other side, tears in her eyes.

Their mouths moved, but I couldn’t hear them over my desperate attempts to breathe. Their faces seemed to be descending into darkness. The room faded.

I slid into unconsciousness.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Doom.

That’s what I felt.

Pure, unfiltered, one hundred percent naturally sourced, pulp-free doom. Raw, organic, free of antibiotics and pesticides. Freshly squeezed by the claw of the devil himself and served to me by the angel of death.