The peace that came with the acceptance of my fate was fleeting. It seeped away as if a threadbare blanket had been tugged from my shoulders and distress for my friend returned.

Beneath my boots the ground quaked as I chewed through the catacombs in single strides, thundering down tunnel after tunnel, my might washing outward like a shockwave to rattle and shudder and crack the very bowels of the earth. I cradled Mela to my chest as best I could, offering her shivering figure my body heat, but she was a rag doll in my arms.

Mela's breathing utterly terrified me. The shallow gasps for air were accompanied by the patternless beat of her heart. Where the bolt had seared her flesh, the skin was dying and curling like aged paint. The bubbling cesspit of pustules surrounding the wound was growing thicker and spreading wider. The black toxic spiderwebbing of veins that were thin shadows beneath her dark skin had now crept across the contours of her face.

Dread and panic slithered down my spine.

How much further?!—I barked at the Uzrek.

You're nearly there, death-dealer!

The world streaked by in a rush of darkness as I stepped from one place into another, the void folding distance in on itself. It was similar in a way to how Nelle had followed the river to the lakeside cottage in a series of short swifts. I could only travel in short bursts of straight lines. Nor navigate corners or move through objects.

Loose stones kicked beneath my boots as I careered wildly around a corner and erupted into a small, craggy chamber. Across the space was an entranceway and staircase. Several sets of silvery eyes peered at me from high above. Stale air and darting movement made the sweaty ends of my hair fly about my face as I wove, dodging around a chunky cluster of boulders, bounding toward the staircase.

Tiny fluttering pix trapped in glass orbs cast purplish light to pool upon the crudely hewn steps. The arched entrance had larkspur carved into the rock, and for a brief moment, it reminded me of one of my mother's arbors.

The Purveyor of Rarities is right up there—the Uzrek advised as I arrived at the bottom of the staircase arrowing upward. This is where I must take my leave—he said as a way of farewell—I can't follow you there, not with all the wards woven around the two separate paths that lead up and down the steps.

It's warded?—I hadn't realized it when Nelle and I had sought Florin.

In a way, Tamer. The entranceways are signposts too.

It was curiously weird information I tucked away to think upon later. Right now I had Mela to save. Thank you for all your help—I replied. And it was too shallow an expression for everything he'd done.

Ah, one day, thief, you'll return the favor—the whisper of a laugh in his voice sounded so much like Sirro's, for a moment I wondered if I'd been played. What the hells I'd gotten myself into with the ancient creature? Good luck, Tamer, I hope your friend survives Skalki's curse—the words waned like rising dawn vanquishing starlight as his presence inside my mind vanished when I hurtled up the steps.

One leggy stride I was at the bottom of the staircase, the next I was briefly stepping through a lavender haze, disappearing once more, only to reappear a third stride later upon the landing right outside the Purveyor of Rarities.

The enormous door stood before me, tall and stoic and weathered. The strange power surging through my veins felt like a weapon. It coiled tightly in my leg muscles, vibrating with exhilaration. I didn't bother knocking.

A wicked storm of might exploded outward as my boot connected with the door. It flew off its hinges, spinning across the room, and smashing into cabinetry. The silver bell tinkled as if it had been caught in the wind—tink-tink-tink. Display cabinets exploded into kindling and tables toppled over, their wares knocked off shelves or rocked and jittered where they sat. Wood splintered and glass shattered. Metal clattered and clay thudded.

I raced through the doorway—

And slammed into an invisible wall.

I rebounded, staggering back. Dusty stone gritted beneath my boots, as I quickly righted my balance.

What the actual fuck?!

I didn't stop to think. I charged forward like an enraged bull, attempting to cross the threshold again. Only to be shunted back by a hard wall of magic, much like the wild magic warding the Keep's tower and my personal quarters.

"Florin!" I roared, beyond frustrated. "FLORIN!"

My mind was a whirl of confusion. I hadn't experienced this earlier today with Nelle, we'd just walked right into his lair. Although, at the time Florin seemed like he was challenging Nelle in particular as if he'd been convinced she'd not be able to enter.

"FLORIN!" Mela was floppy and almost unresponsive in my arms. Her eyelids were papery-thin and so heavy I could barely see her eyes, and what I could see of them had a feverish sheen. "Hold on Mela, I got you," I whispered hoarsely, my fingers gently squeezing her in reassurance.

All the candles in Florin's lair had been snuffed out and the shop had settled into darkness. The only light glowed from the ghostly stormbird feather floating overhead that faded in and out of existence. My ears pricked at the loud, rapid clack of cleaved hooves trotting across stone, and the horrified sucking in of breath that came from somewhere behind the mess of cabinetry. "WHAT THE HELLS HAPPENED HERE?!" Florin bellowed just before he made his appearance, stumbling into his shop. His blood-red goat's eyes were round in angered astonishment as he poked a hand through the armhole of a feathered robe, the emerald plumage ruffling as he put it on and the robe fell about his enormous figure. He edged around the debris, taking in all the rarities and curiosities for which the Witches would pay a fortune, and were now scattered and broken.

"Florin! I can't get in!"

He twisted around and found me on the landing. The fierce scowl he wore slipped away when he saw Mela cradled in my arms. Hastening toward me, he clambered over the destruction I'd wrought. "Of course not, it's been warded against mortals," he admonished.

My hair shivered around the back of my jacket's collar as I shook my head, frowning. I raised Mela a little, almost like an offering. "She's from our world of Houses."

"And still human," he answered, stomping toward me. "Whereas you are not. Not with your ancestors' blood blessing you and your siblings."

I realized then that Nelle being able to enter his domain was what had given away her secret. A memory arose of what he'd said to me at the end of our visit.

She's not what she appears to be—a mere girl.

Florin knew she wasn't entirely human, not with the beast lurking inside her. However, I didn't think that the Horned God knew precisely what she was, only that she was harboring a secret.

Mela spasmed in my arms. She hacked a wheezing breath of blood, the droplets speckling my armor, splashing up my neck. "Please," I begged him, terrified, warm blood dripping down my throat. "I need your help. She's dying."

Curls of smoke flickered around his long-furred ears as they twitched. He squinted and his blue-black eyebrows nudged together in concentration. With a flex of his taloned fingers, the magical wards parted with a brief iridescent shimmer of aether.

In a flash of speed, I shouldered through the threshold into his lair, brushing past and weaving through the mess to dash inside his office. Weak flames wavered from the remains of charred logs, throwing a red glow upon the soot-stained hearth. Tendrils of steam rose from the foul liquid simmering in the cauldron hanging above the fire, permeating the air with a rotten stench that scorched my nostrils. Florin quickly followed behind and swept a giant forearm across the workbench, sending the bits and pieces collected there flying. The sound of stone and bones and metal thudding upon the rugs and ricocheting off the ivy and larkspur chiseled walls filled the office. "Lay her down here," he urged. At a flutter of his fingers, candles abruptly burst into flames flooding the office with golden light.

I carefully placed Mela down on the worn work table.

Alarm pounded at my heart. Her breath wheezed from between dried and cracked lips gone a horrid gray color, as she stared up at me beneath heavily lidded eyes filled with pain. The Horned God moved in beside me, his forehead creased in intense concentration. "What happened?" He swiftly and carefully moved his hands around Mela's throat, tipping her chin up and over to assess the curse webbing her flesh. Long talon-tipped fingers pinched the zipper to her armor and he drew it downward, carefully pulling apart the jacket to see how far all those pustules and black veins ran.

My stomach lurched and a nauseous burn washed up my throat. They were everywhere. The messy tangle of veins and pustules covered every inch of her chest, disappearing beneath the white singlet that was stuck to her clammy body with cold sweat. The pustules were weeping and the foul pus was eating her flesh like battery acid.

I pushed off, hurrying toward the large Qing apothecary cupboard, and fumbled with the drawer handles with shaky hands. Silas had to have returned to the cavern and fired the crossbow at me. But it had burned Mela's neck as it arrowed past. This was all my fucking fault. I couldn't lose Mela, not my best friend, not now, not like this. The events tripped off my tongue fast, too fast, a harried rush of words. I knew I probably wasn't making any sense whatsoever but it couldn't be helped. I was panicking. Adrenaline jacked up my heart and slammed through my veins.

Florin jerked a hand up, silently requesting I stop. "Slow down. What did you say, something about Ges-what?"

"Mela got hit by a Gestelt bolt," I answered, rummaging through the series of tiny drawers, trying to remember where fuck the vial of Skalki's joyful tears was kept.

Think, think, think... Where the fuck is it?

I gave up on the drawers and instead yanked open the set of cabinet doors to reveal a row of strange items in vivid gemlike hues contained in small glass vials. I wrapped my fingers around Skalki's joyful tears that had turned to salt and dusted the bottom of a vial. Bristly magic strummed the air and skittered across my calloused fingers, the remnants of Skalki's titanic might biting at my bones.

"A Gestelt bolt?" Florin hissed in astonishment. He stumbled back from the workbench, yanking his hands from Mela as if he was worried that by touching her he'd get infected by the poison ravaging her body. "I can't help her. She's been poisoned by Skalki herself." He gave a regretful trilling motion of his talons. "There's nothing I can do to save her. It's impossible. This is beyond my capabilities."

Fury, in a hail of blazing fire, slashed through my veins.

Like hells, he wouldn't! Horned God or not I'd force him to!

"YOU HAVE TO TRY!" It roared from deep within my chest and erupted through the office in an explosive shudder, shaking furnishings and unmoored curiosities and even Florin himself. Goopy liquid splashed over the blackened lip of the swinging cauldron, sizzling into steam as it was embraced by flames. I stormed forward and slapped the flat of my palm against his old-fashioned writing desk so hard it cracked right down the middle and collapsed in on itself. I thrust an arm upward to shove the glass vial near Florin's face, snarling, "You have this. Surely this could save her!"

The Horned God stared back at me in wide-eyed intrigue. Then blinked in bewilderment before it dawned on him what I was holding before him. "I don't know if it will save her or kill her."

"You said yourself that this could reverse the effect of the Gestelt tree!"

"What the hells do I know?" he gaped, one of his hands bunching into the silky feathers of his robe. "I'm not a true healer."

"No, but you're the only one we have." I pinched the bridge of my nose and blew out a lungful of furious air. I needed to dampen my temper. Pressing my hands together in a plea, I softened my voice and implored, "Please, Florin, we have to try."

He cast a reluctant glance toward Mela, before sucking in a deep contemplative breath, his probing gaze running across my pleading expression. His full lips pinched together firmly as he nodded, ethereal smoke wafting around his enormous ram's horns. But there was a slight hesitation, doubt that he could do it, when he plucked the vial from me.

Soft rugs muted my heavy footsteps when I moved quickly to my friend. I curled my fingers around Mela's limp hand and cradled it in both of my own. I swallowed my terror at the icy feel of her hand, the way she shook, the godsawful whimper she tried to stifle.

I brushed a comforting touch across her forehead, carefully and gently, the ash and dust rubbing off against my fingertips. "It's going to be okay," I promised her in a voice nearly breaking.

I'm sorry, Mela.

I shouldn't have asked her to help hunt down Yezekael. If I hadn't she would be home, safe and sound and alive.

In the corner of my eye, I glimpsed Florin working fast if somewhat clumsily as he riffled through the apothecary cabinet, gathering up a collection of medicinals. His fingers were surprisingly dexterous even with the talons. He pounded a peacock-blue piece of coral to dust in a mortar with a pestle, tipping it into a crystal beaker filled with liquid that swirled and roiled, changing colors like a rainbow. He added drops of this and drops of that. Cracked a tiny egg, its viscous black innards dripping into the potion. Clouds of amber steam puffed up from the beaker's neck. A burst of jade dust. A whorl of pink smoke. When he sprinkled the barest pinch, a few grains at most, of Skalki's joyful tears into the undulating potion, a punch of shivering power slammed outward like a gust of thorny power, making my hair stand on end with static electricity and my skin crawl as shadows and sinister darkness buffeted the office.

I heard Mela gasp for breath and try to say something. I tore my gaze from Florin, who was reaching for a dagger, to Mela. Her blood-tacky fingers tightened in mine as a spasm quaked her body. "It's okay, it's okay," I hushed, stroking my fingers along her sweaty temple.

"Elyse," she rasped.

"Don't... Save your strength." I knew what she was going to ask and it broke my heart. "I will find her, Mela," I whispered hoarsely. "I promise. But you'll be there with me too."

The shift of shadows drew my gaze back to Florin. He stepped closer, towering above me. He reached down, his calloused palm and fingertips brushing against the back of my hand as he peeled it away from Mela's. It was a sudden gleam of silver metal and a sting burning my fingertip as he pricked it with the pointy end of a dagger. He held my hand over the crystal beaker and a fat bead of blood dripped into the swirling liquid.

I shot him a silent query, raising an eyebrow.

"Your mother had many curious qualities about her," he murmured as he placed the beaker on the bench, clasped a hypodermic needle, and dipped it into the liquid, drawing the potion into the syringe's barrel. "It can't hurt to add a boost of her life's essence into this." He straightened and flicked me a small yet serious smile that faded into worry as his gaze grazed over my shoulder.

An awful sound of flesh hitting wood suddenly arose.

I half-twisted to where he was staring—Mela.

Oh gods...

Bloodied spittle foamed from Mela's mouth as a seizure took hold of her body. She shook and spasmed and thrust about on the table, her limbs flailing, eyes rolling back into her head. Her spine arched off the table, held, held, held, muscles locked taut—

And then she collapsed flat.

A whistling breath left her lungs and her chest fell as it was expelled. Her hand went limp and then fell away, thumping dully upon the table.

She wasn't breathing.

The blood rushed inside my ears.

I waited to see if her chest would rise... But it didn't... I couldn't hear anything but that last breath she'd uttered, repeating itself over and over inside my head.

Her heart had stopped!

Mela lay lifelessly on the table.

No. No. No!

Florin hollered, "Out of my way!" I stumbled sideways as the Horned God knocked into me with his elbow. "I need your help!"

But I was frozen, staring helplessly at my friend.

"Now, young Crowther!" Florin bellowed. I jolted as he thrust the hypodermic needle into my hands. "Inject it into her thigh muscle! On my count!"

I tucked the needle into my palm while I fumbled to undo the buckle to Mela's armored pants, yanking them down and exposing one of her thighs.

Florin had something else clenched in a hand. He rubbed it between his palms, closing his eyes as it did so, his lips silently murmuring. I felt his power stretching outward. It teased my hair and stirred the elemental wisps of smoke wavering from his figure as he drew a storm of aether from the room, pulling it inward and into the scarlet stone between his hands that glowed red hot. Ethereal dark magic built and built and built like a charge of electricity that prickled my skin. He drew his fists upward. And surrounding his taloned hands, way up high in the vault of the ceiling, it was as if shadowy darkness was alive with writhing bolts of energy crackling and sizzling and fizzing.

"DO IT NOW!"

I stabbed the needle into Mela's outer thigh, injecting the potion into a meaty muscle, just as the mortals did with a hit of adrenaline. I emptied the syringe and I watched the roiling rainbow liquid pour into her body.

My heart was in my throat as I prayed to mother Skalki to save her life.

Florin slammed his fists down, right on Mela's chest. A charge of power erupted, a deafening boom, a tremendous strike of dark electricity. Blinding light exploded through the room. A sonic wave of energy sliced outward, shoving me off my feet.

Mela's body bounced at the strike of pure energy.

Her spine bowed off the table.

Florin's power and Skalki's too, restarted her heart.

And she sucked in a deep breath.

Then another.

And one more.

Mela slid her eyes to mine, blowing a slow, steady breath as her spine eased back to the flat surface. She blinked groggily before her gaze sharpened, and gave me a small, weak smile.

Mela—I mouthed silently, returning a watery smile.

Florin had already gone to work. He had a scalpel in a hand and was about to tend to her wounds when I heard him whisper, "Crowther."

I angled my gaze to where he was staring, and we watched in astonishment as the dead skin on Mela's neck regenerated. The black pustules began to dry up and the venomous spiderwebbed veins faded. Florin clasped my shoulder and squeezed. "She's going to be alright, Sticky Fingers."

"Thank you," I rasped, dragging over a nearby footstool and collapsing onto it.

I sat there quietly, holding Mela's hand, rubbing the heel of my palm into my misty eyes while hers fluttered shut and she fell into a deep sleep.

In the background, I heard Florin shuffling around. A moment later he placed a large cup in front of me, steam rising in tendrils. "Here, have a cup of tea, it'll settle your nerves."

I burst out into a rusty, broken laugh at the fucking gross stinky shit floating around in the mug, the dead flies and bits of chopped-up rat. "Thanks, but no thanks."

He shrugged."You have no idea what you're missing out on." He took a big slurping swill of his and then Aaaaahed as he eased into an armchair, giving a pleasurable sigh of comfort. He eyed me shrewdly over the rim of his mug. And in his deep, grainy voice said, "So tell me, Sticky Fingers, you left me this afternoon as one thing and returned as something else."

I hitched a shoulder, shooting him a lopsided grin. "Yeah, I guess I did."