In a blink we disappeared—sucked into a swirl of gray-coated wind and beating feathers, the catacombs disappearing as we entered a shadowy void, tossed and torn at by icy tendrils of power trying to trap us in that dark space forever—before reappearing inside a toilet stall.

I'd completely unhinged Graysen. His eyes were so round that they were mostly white. "Holy fucking hellsgate, Wychthorn!"

I had no time for this. "Sage!" I barked.

I'd swifted us to the restroom, I'd earlier entered for a quick toilet break before we started our day of subway riding. Shoving open the stall door, we ran, both of us ignoring the women's shrieks of outrage to see a male in their domain. Erupting from the restroom we sprinted through the busy terminal, weaving through the throng of people, to race outside. Along with bright sunshine, the smells of the city washed over me as we hurtled down the busy pavement to where Graysen's car was parked.

Graysen cradled Sage in his strong arms and followed right behind. I heard the tell-tale blip-blip and caught the brief flash of lights from the Mustang as he used the keyless system to unlock his vehicle.

Yanking open the front passenger door, I collapsed the seat and shoved it forward to give us more room. Graysen leaned in and placed Sage gently on the backseat. I climbed inside and shifted to the furthest side so Graysen could clamber in too. The wet rasping sound my wraith-wolf made cleaved my heart and fresh tears slipped down my ash-coated face. His misty, shadowed form scattered as I raked shaking fingers through his fur. He was unraveling and shifting to a less corporeal form.

"It's been poisoned. No, that's wrong...it is poison..." Graysen fiercely eyed the bolt thrust into Sage's chest. He rubbed his chin, quickly deliberating. "We need to get it out before he fades."

"Can't you pull it out?"

"The bolt head would cause more damage. We're going to have to push it right through him."

Graysen got out of the car, swiftly rounding the vehicle to pop open the trunk before reappearing with a black leather bag. He ducked back inside but bumped his head on the interior roof, cursing softly. He used his dagger to shear the fletching from the end of the bolt and took hold of the shaft. We were crammed into the small backseat space but we managed to shift Sage into a position to make this work. "Hold him. This is going to hurt like fuck and I don't want him biting my face off."

I wrapped my arm around Sage's neck and shoulder and used my strength to hold him in place. I nodded gravely to Graysen.

"Fuck. He's a wraith-wolf, nothing but a Horned God can bring him down. There shouldn't be anything in this world that could do this," he murmured, working on the bolt, grunting, pressing his weight into it. A wet squishing sound of flesh, followed by rasping bone filled the air. Sage whined and shuddered painfully as the bolt was worked right through his chest.

Graysen shot me a hard look, but his words were softly spoken. "Nothing living can swift."

I'd been waiting for this. Maybe that's all he'd think I could do, swift, but then of course he'd know that the Uzrek couldn't do what had just occurred in the cavern of the catacombs. "The rules don't apply to me," I said quietly, keeping my gaze on Sage.

"Don't I fucking know it," he muttered.

He tugged the bolt and it came free with a wet popping sound. Sage whimpered but released an easier breath.

Graysen dropped the bolt immediately. It fell to the floor, rolling, a slickness glistening along its length. "What the fuck is that?" His hand was blistered where he'd gripped the bolt.

Even without touching it, I could feel how wrong that bolt was. "What is it made from?" It looked like wood. Even the bolt-head.

"I don't know...at least...it shouldn't be possible..." I glanced at him, a look of expectation, waiting. "There was once a tree that had properties that could kill anything other," he explained. "Like a wraith-wolf. Like a Horned God."

My mind quickly rifled through everything I knew. I'd read about that tree. It wasn't quite a tree in the truest sense, but it resembled one. "The Gestelt Tree," I murmured, meeting his gaze.

He nodded. "But, millennia ago our ancestors wiped it from the earth." He swiped his brow with the back of his forearm, frowning. "I don't know. Maybe it's not the same tree. Whatever it is, it almost killed your dog."

Rifling through his bag, sifting through vials and potions and roots and modern-day medicine, he pulled out a syringe filled with purple liquid. His mouth tipped down. "I'm not sure if this will work on a wraith-wolf. It's an antidote for curses from House Simonis." He jabbed the needle into a spot just behind Sage's shoulder and pumped the potion into the wraith-wolf. He tossed the empty syringe back into his kit and threw me a poultice and bandages. "Rub this into the wound and bind him." He left me in the back and got behind the wheel of his Mustang. The engine roared to life.

I shivered, glancing over my shoulder at Graysen. "Who were they? What did they want?" My mind cast back to the last glimpse I'd had before unholy fire razed through the cavern. Tall, ivory-robed, and those masks. Those creepy masks of disproportional mortal faces. Could they have been their own faces, but more morbid and twisted caricatures of their own features?

Graysen's nostrils flared and his jaw clenched as he eased into traffic. His hand swiftly shifted through the gears as he blew past the speed limit. His eyes were hard and swimming with accusation when he looked back at me. "They wanted you, little bird."

***

Sage slept with his large head resting on my lap. My sooty dress had most of the skirt burned away and the rest of it was pockmarked and filthy. I gently stroked Sage's shadowy ear as he slept. Misty fur still scattered between my fingers, and at times the wraith-wolf shimmered into the wraith void, but his form had become more corporeal from the potion Graysen had injected into his body—thank Zrenyth and Skalki and Brangwene. I'd been praying to all the gods during the drive home. Sage had been my companion and my loyal friend for the past five years. My heart would shatter to lose him.

We'd made it back to the estate and Graysen was driving down the long winding driveway that cut through the dense forest. The gnarled line of trees cast us in bleak light. It comforted my black soul to be shrouded in shadows.

I am a monster.

A life ender.

We hadn't spoken since leaving the city. But now, I had to say something. I'd beg if I had to. I'd get down on my knees if he desired it.

Could I trust him?

He was a Crowther, so—no. However, I had no choice but to. He hadn't seen what I'd done in the cavern, but he'd felt it and witnessed the result. And I'd swifted with him.

My mouth was parched and the words were itchy in my dry throat. "Please, you can't say anything."

I had a side view of Graysen from where I sat. His jaw tightened, along with every other muscle in his body. His gaze flicked up to the rear-view mirror, catching my eye with his reflection. "How the fuck do you presume to keep this," he waved his hand at his and my appearances, at Sage too, "contained?"

Both of us were grimy and coated with ash, except I looked like I'd crawled through a chimney flue to freedom while a fire burned in the hearth.

We broke through the gloomy forest and plunged into brilliant sunlight. I flinched, jerking away. The windows of the car were tinted yet the light and heat still managed to scald my skin. I felt I might burn for my sins in the purity of the sun. I yearned for shadows. I could hide in shadows.

The mansion came into view, along with the guards that patrolled the perimeter, and servants tending to the immaculate front garden. A few Pelans were strolling along the path that skirted my massive home. "Park in my father's garage. I'll swift us to my room. No one will spot us then."

Graysen dropped his head back, and his knuckles gripped the steering wheel so hard they turned white. "Fuuuck." He straightened a moment later and cracked his neck with irritation. In the rear-view mirror, I saw the deep frown cutting across his forehead and the way he swiped his lower lip with a thumb. "I need to inform your father, and Novak too, about what happened."

"You can't." He couldn't. Just couldn't. "How do you explain where we were? What I was doing? The Uzrek...?" It pretty much screamed other. I rubbed the tension point of the headache building in my temple. "Besides, maybe I wiped them all out."

"Somehow, I doubt it," he said, his fingertips rapping a beat on the steering wheel. "There'll be more of them crawling about...there always are."

***

It was as easy as parking inside the cavernous garage. Graysen cradled Sage, while I wrapped a hand around his arm as a swirl of buffeting wind, gray-tipped and cool, the feathery breeze brushing up against us before we swifted—

And arrived in the middle of my living room.

Graysen took Sage from my arms, strode into my bedroom, and place him carefully on the end of my bed. Stepping back, he dug his fingers through his hair and tugged hard as a shudder rolled across his shoulders. "Fuuuck..." Twisting around he stared long and hard at me as if he wasn't sure who or what he was looking at. I met his stare with my own unblinking one. Eyes narrowing, he opened his mouth, then shut it again, giving a small shake of his head. His black hair ruffled as he growled in exasperation.

What was he going to say?

In quick, leggy strides, he departed my bedroom and stalked straight past me, heading toward the adjoining door of our two rooms. Dragging the armoire aside, he entered his quarters. The door shut behind him with a soft snick and I remained standing where we'd swifted in staring at the door, wondering if he'd come back.

He didn't.

Finally, I roused myself and went straight for Sage. My wraith-wolf's bandaged chest rose up and down in a strong, steady pattern as he slept. He was a little faded. A few wisps of shadows dissipated at my touch. But he was whole, alive, and well. I collapsed on the mattress and curled up beside him. My face was blackened with soot. Ash dusted my limbs and darkened my hair to a dull gray, and the stench of burned flesh clung to my cold, sweaty skin.

My fingers are shaking.

My hand too. I suddenly realized, my heart was racing and that my entire body shivered as I lay on the clean lemon-colored quilt. The light spilling from the chandelier blanketed me in pure golden light.

Too clean. The linen. My bedroom. Too clean and pure and I am not.

My soul is black.

I ended them all.

Every single one, apart from the two the Uzrek had dragged into his lair.

Stop! Stop thinking!

But my mind...my mind kept turning over those last moments in the cavern with those things closing in all around me. The papier mâché masks, the blades angling for me—

That death-like pause that had come upon them all. They'd swung my way as one, expressionless masks staring at me and their silk robes snapping in the wind my power wrought, and then—

Then—

I'd unleashed.

Silence. Utter silence. And ash blowing on a phantom wind like falling snow. Looked like winter. Tasted like death. And as that unleashing came to an end, the silver fire flickered and then died out...leaving me in pitch-black darkness.

I'd ended them!

And it had been so, so easy to—

My fingers clenched into tight fists as a wave of despair crashed over me. It was one thing to expel the dark power residing inside me every morning and evening. But I did it in the cave below the waterfall. Sometimes in woodland clearings. Against stone. Up into the sky.

I'd never, ever used it against anything living, or not-quite living either.

What have I done? I extinguished their lives as easily as snuffing out a candle.

A strangled keening sound left my throat—

I'd killed them, killed them, killed them, killed them—

My stomach twisted with a painful sharpness and my mouth began to sweat.

Sick, I felt so sick at what I'd done. A dry retch squeezed my stomach.

I scrambled from the bed, only to fall into a heap of messy limbs, before rising on unsteady legs and hurtling for the bathroom. I didn't even make it to the toilet, instead, I only made it as far as the vanity. Slapping my palms on white marble veined with gold, I leaned over and dry-heaved into the vanity's basin. My stomach clenched as I dry-heaved again and again.

Oh my gods, I'd killed them.

Behind me, I heard a voice say, "Easy, Wychthorn." My gaze snapped up to the mirror to see Graysen standing beside me with worry shining in his black eyes. I felt his hand gently stroking up and down my spine. His hair was damp, the silky locks glistening in the light, and the smell of fresh soap clung to him. He'd obviously showered and changed.

I couldn't stop my body from trembling. Something wet splashed into the vanity basin, arresting my attention. I was crying, moisture streaking a clean path through my soot-stained cheeks.

Bending over, I rested my cheek on the vanity. The marble felt warm against my skin because I was ice-cold. Squeezing my eyes shut, the words were barely a whisper from my burning throat. "I ended them. Obliterated them into nothing but ash."

I heard the soft shift of fabric. Fluttering my eyes open, I saw that Graysen had come to crouch down beside me. He pushed a warm hand through my hair to sweep it from my forehead. There was a softness in his dark eyes as he regarded me, a stark contrast to the harsh way he spoke. "They were going to kill me. Kill Sage. And fucking steal you. You had no choice."

Hadn't I, though? If I'd not panicked, and thought it through, I could have just swifted us out.

Pushing upright to straighten, Graysen let go of my hair and it fell in a tangle of locks about my shoulders. The face that greeted me in the mirror...who was she? She stared back at me with wide gray eyes. The sharp cheekbones were grimy with soot, the freckles hidden behind a layer of ash. Her hair was a knotted mess. She looked weak and pathetic. She didn't look like a killer. But that's who she, I, was.

Bowing my head, my arms buckled on the vanity and my hands slipped, leaving behind a streak of dirty fingerprints on the pristine marble. Fat teardrops scored a path through my ashen cheeks and dripped over my bottom lip as I started sobbing. "I've n-never killed anyone b-before."