“NO!” KILLIAN SHOUTED. THE SOUND OF THRASHING and unsteady footsteps followed, but I was powered by pure terror. I practically flew through the forest, dodging trees, branches scraping against my arms and cheeks. I ran, blundering through the darkness with my hands out, my breath squeaking from me in desperate bursts, until my head spun and my side ached. Finally, I had the wherewithal to pull out my cell phone and use the flashlight app to light my way. But the farther I went, the more confused I was.

Killian, who had been nowhere to be found for most of the day, had just ambushed me while pretending to be Flynn. He’d told me that Crowe was going to destroy everything.

He’d also seemed completely unstable and insane. He’d beaten Boone and left him bleeding and unconscious. He’d hit himself in the face, too, for God’s sake. All while exuding animus magic streaked with black. It definitely hadn’t looked that way last night.

A chime from my phone brought me to a stop just as lights in the distance told me I was about to reach the festival grounds.

It was a text from my mom: Come home. I need you.

With trembling fingers, I replied. What’s wrong? Are you okay?

Just come home.

I frowned. Mom was no alarmist, and if she needed me, it was probably serious.

But so was what had just happened. Either Killian was convinced Crowe was up to something terrible, or Killian himself was using other kindled powers, just like his brother had.

I recalled the scent of ash in the air. A kind of magic I’d never before sensed—until this morning when Katrina had been surrounded by it as she hurled a terrible curse at Crowe. Had Killian been behind that, too?

Nothing was making sense.

Using my cell phone light, I made my way back to the spot where Killian had attacked Boone, but Boone wasn’t there. Blood on the leaves told me I was at the right spot, though. He must have gotten up and gone back to the festival, maybe to get Crowe. But a shaky mistrust filled my head when I thought of seeing Crowe, so I texted the one person who might be able to shed some light on what I’d just experienced with the president of the Deathstalkers—Darek.

Hey. Just saw your pres in the woods and he was acting super weird. Can we talk?

I had just hit Send when I remembered that Darek’s phone had been destroyed. With a groan, I pulled my keys from my pocket and staggered to my car. Confusion ruled my thoughts, and all I wanted to do was make sure Mom was okay. Then I’d decide who to talk to first and figure out what the hell was happening. Dad was at the top of that list, considering figuring this out was literally his job, but I was too frazzled to deal with him at the moment.

Gravel popped under my tires as I sped down the road. I was home in less than ten minutes. Mom’s car was there—but so was another, parked right next to it. Darek was leaning on its trunk as I pulled the car into the driveway.

“What are you doing here?” I asked as I got out, realizing as I did that there was a blue thread of magic wound around me, spiraling up into the sky like a beacon.

I knew immediately what that meant.

Darek was talking, his head hung, his eyes hidden behind aviator sunglasses despite the heaviness of the night. “I came to say good-bye and—”

“Someone is tracking me with a locator spell,” I said, cutting him off. His words barely registered. “Have you seen my mom?” I peered behind him, at the house. Warm light glowed in the windows. “She just texted—”

A roar of motorcycle engines hit our ears.

“Shit. That must be Crowe.” I couldn’t see the riders yet, but I was guessing Crowe was at the front, leading the pack.

“When he catches me with you…” Darek started.

“I know. I know.” I sighed and scrubbed at my face. Crowe had already done enough damage. I wasn’t going to allow him to do more. “Come on,” I said, and grabbed Darek by the hand, the minty scent of my magic immediately hitting my nose.

The drone of the engines grew louder, and headlights shone up the road toward my house. I yanked Darek toward the front door, fumbled at the doorknob for what seemed like too many minutes, and finally got the door open enough for us to slip inside.

Two Harleys swerved onto the front lawn as I ran into the living room, wondering if I could get away with hiding Darek in the coat closet.

Footsteps crashed through the garden, and the kitchen door banged open a bare second before Hardy charged into the living room and saw Darek and me frozen on the other side of the couch.

“Jemmie…” he and Darek said at the same time.

Footsteps in the kitchen and the smell of honey and smoke told me who was about to join us.

“Go!” I yelled, and pushed Darek down the hall.

Hardy leapt over the couch behind us.

Darek and I stumbled into my room, and I slammed the door shut. Locant magic burst from my palms in frenzied waves—a weak barrier spell.

“What now?” Darek asked.

“Window,” I said, but as I turned toward it, more headlights flashed outside.

Darek chuckled. “Hell is empty and all the Devils are here.”

I spun on him as Hardy pounded a fist against my door, threatening to shatter the reflexive barrier I’d covered it with. “Come here.” I held out my hand. Darek took it, and I gritted my teeth, calling on all my power and muttering an incantation my dad had made me practice all those years ago, when he still had hope for me.

The protective shield burst out in an orb around us, cascading down around Darek and me like glittering rain. Mint stung my throat, my eyes, but I stood firm as Hardy tore my door off its hinges.

By the time he reached us, though, the bubble had closed. The hair on my arms rose on end, the air suddenly charged with electricity.

“Where is she?” Crowe yelled as he stormed down the hall. “Jemmie!”

Hardy stared at me through the fractured light of the barrier. “She’s in here,” he called, keeping his eyes locked on me, nostrils flaring.

Crowe barged into my room and froze when he caught sight of me, standing there inside a barrier bubble, Darek safely beside me.

“What the fuck is this?” shouted Crowe.

“I win,” Darek said simply. “And you lose.”

The calm, cold sound of his voice chilled me. I looked up at him as he slid the sunglasses off his face.

His perfect, unbruised face. He gave me a smile. “A little of your friend Flynn’s inlusio goes a long way. And when you cloak it under locant? You don’t even know it’s there.”

“Boone’s gone,” Hardy said to me. “We had your dad do a locator to find you. He said you were here.”

“She came here because I asked her to,” Darek said.

“Where’s my mom?” My voice was so thin I’m surprised he heard me.

“Snug as a bug in a rug,” he said with a wink.

“You’re helping him,” Crowe said to Darek, amber ropes of magic sliding over my barrier, looking for a way in. “You’re helping Killian gather kindled to do the cruori.”

Darek laughed. “Nah, you big idiot. You’ve got it all wrong.” He set his hand on the back of my neck, his fingers curling around my throat. “Let me make it all perfectly clear.”

A lance of pain shot up my spine. I cried out. Darek squeezed harder as the air left my lungs. Smoke and honey and ash filled my nose. Gold and black streaked my vision. Venemon. This was Alex’s magic! Mixed with…

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

Darek Delacroix wasn’t powerless. Not at all.

My knees buckled. “Killian,” Darek explained as he guided me to the floor, “is helping me.”

“Don’t hurt her,” Crowe pleaded, slamming his hands against the barrier.

“Then don’t make me,” said Darek.

I couldn’t feel my feet. Not my arms. Or my hands. Not even the breath in my lungs. My mind felt fractured from the rest of me, separate from my body.

Hardy beat his fist against the shield. It held firm. No one except another locant kindled could break through it, I knew. I had put this one up with intention, and I was stronger than I’d believed. Maybe even as strong as Dad. Too bad I had discovered it at exactly the wrong time.

“I’ll liquefy her insides if you don’t back the hell up,” Darek said.

I retched, and blood splattered on the floor. Whatever Darek was doing, I couldn’t feel it, and I was suddenly grateful for the disconnect.

Crowe grabbed Hardy and the two of them backed away, holding up their hands. “Okay. Okay,” said Crowe. “Please stop hurting her.”

I reached for my magic, trying to pull the barrier down, but the more I tried to sense it inside me, the farther away it seemed, until I felt abandoned by it entirely. My pulse thumped wildly beneath Darek’s fingers. He squeezed harder, and ashy black skeins of magic filled the barrier bubble, magic only I could see and smell.

“What are you doing to her?” Crowe said.

“Taking what I need,” Darek replied. “It’s kinda my thing.” He crouched over me, bending low to kiss my cheek, his smug tone softening. “I didn’t want to hurt you, but they made me do it. I love you, Jemmie. You never thought you had much magic, but you are so wrong. It’s the reason I’m going to succeed.” He set his forehead on mine. “I wanted to tell you. So many times. And I’m going to give you one last chance.” His eyes glittered with emotion as he stroked my hair. “When this is finished, come to me. I’ll give you everything. I’ll never hurt you again—and I’ll make sure no one else touches you.” His gaze flicked to Crowe and back to me. “Just choose me. That’s all I ask.”

He stood up and reached out, tearing down my barrier as if it were a spiderweb. Crowe lunged for him, only to be blown off his feet by a stinging, blue-tinged wind. When Darek shifted, the light caught him and I saw the telltale sign of an impenetrable barrier hugging him close, like a second skin.

I’d never seen anything like it, even though it was my magic that had created it.

“I’m going to walk out of here,” Darek said. “And you’re going to let me.”

“Where’s my sister?” Crowe growled.

“You can have what’s left of her back when I’m done with her.” Darek stepped toward the door. “You Medicis. So tough. Think you run things in the kindled world. Your dad was the same.” He rolled his eyes. “I gotta say, he really set me on this path when he came after me.”

Crowe went very still. “You…”

“A life for a life,” Darek said casually. “He killed my father. And I killed him.”

We all stared at Darek, who was glowing with a swirl of blue and amber clouded only by an acrid stench of black magic.

His magic. Tollat magic. Power he’d been cloaking ever since we met by slowly siphoning my power and using it to hide—it was why no one at the festival could remember his name, why no one thought of him as a threat, why I had only detected my own magic and only hints of his. And he’d done it all with the magic he must have inherited from his father.

“You’re Henry Delacroix’s son, aren’t you?”

“Uncle Killian hid me away as best he could,” Darek said. “At first I was a good boy and did as he said. But the more I learned about who I was, the more I knew I was never meant to hide.”

“My father found you,” Crowe said. “He knew who you were.”

Darek shrugged. “He figured he’d take me out and that would be that. A preemptive strike—no justice, no fairness. So I gave him what he deserved.” He smiled. “He was pretty surprised when I carved my initials on his heart using his own magic.”

Crowe let out a wrenching sound and dove for Darek again, only to be slammed against the wall by the power of Darek’s locant barrier.

“It was a messy job, I admit. I mean, I was just borrowing his power, after all. It never lasts as long as I want it to.” He looked down at me. “It’s why I have to recharge, Jemmie. But I’m working on a more permanent solution. I won’t need to take your magic ever again.”

“I won’t let you do this,” Crowe said, grimacing and bleeding from a cut on his cheek. He was on his hands and knees, trying to push himself off the floor.

Darek’s smile was so bright, so beautiful. “Come at me, Crowe Medici. I want you to. Let’s see who comes out on top.”

He turned and walked for the doorway. Hardy stepped back, reluctantly allowing him through. There was no point fighting him anyway. He’d drained all the magic I had inside me, so for now, with a barrier like the one he’d conjured around himself, he was nearly invincible.

Hardy followed him out at a distance as Crowe scooped me off the floor and into his arms. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I was so stupid.”

He squeezed me. “Shut up. Focus on breathing.” His fingers scrabbled at my shirt, pulling it up at the hem until his fingertips touched my skin. Warmth spread from that point of contact. I leaned my head on his shoulder as the healing spell wound along my limbs. A sigh escaped me. This felt better than I wanted it to.

“Good?” he asked, and I nodded. “On your feet.” With his help, I managed to stand upright, feeling a little woozy but otherwise all right.

“He’s got Flynn,” I said, pulling my thoughts back to our current problems. “I’m sure of it. Killian was covered in inlusio magic when he was impersonating Flynn, then he tried to convince me.…” I frowned. “Actually there was something wrong with him. I’m not sure he’s helping Darek willingly. Killian had traces of Darek’s tollat magic all over him—maybe Darek had siphoned Killian’s omnias power and turned it against him, like he did to Michael.”

“You heard Darek—Killian’s the one who hid him away so no one would know the kid had the same power as his father.”

“I get that, but it doesn’t mean Killian wanted history to repeat itself.”

“Crowe!” shouted Hardy from outside.

Crowe and I rushed to the front door. Using the magic he’d been born with, Hardy sprinted after Darek’s car as it tore down the road. His fingers scrabbled at the trunk. “Gina!” he shouted.

A massive blue barrier exploded around the car, and Hardy collided with it at top speed. He crumpled to the ground as Darek’s car sped away. Crowe and I ran across the lawn to reach his injured best friend.

“I’m sorry, Jemmie,” Hardy muttered, climbing back to his feet. “I’m really sorry.”

My heartbeat was hollow as I took in the tortured look on his face. “What?”

“I heard thumping as he drove away,” he said, gesturing to his ears to indicate his uber-sensitive hearing. “He has your mom in the trunk.”

Crowe picked up a rock and hurled it down the street. It bounced off the shimmering blue barrier that spread so wide I couldn’t see around it.

“Oh God.” I covered my mouth with my hands. “He’s going to try to use her for the spell,” I said weakly.

Crowe’s brows lowered. “I thought Gina had no dominant magic.”

“She doesn’t, not really, but she definitely has traces of merata in her blood. She never gets sick.…”

“Remember when Owen had that accident while she was riding on the back?” Hardy asked Crowe. “Your dad had to heal Owen’s broken leg and cracked ribs, but Gina—”

“Had only a few scratches despite hitting the pavement at thirty miles an hour,” Crowe finished for him.

“Merata magic is rare. She’s the only person in this area who has even a little bit of it,” I said. Tears filled my eyes. “God, Crowe, we have to do something. He’s going to kill them all.”

“We will,” he said, squeezing my hand.

“I’m so sorry I doubted you.”

“I’ve given you more than enough reason to doubt me.” His thumb slid over the back of my hand. “We’ll stop him, Jem, and we’ll get our people back and then we’ll figure this out.”

I shivered, feeling the heaviness of his words, the promise that came with it. I didn’t know what the outcome of figuring it out would be, but I understood that we weren’t done. We hadn’t ever been done.

He let me go and said, “How long do you think it’ll take you to get your magic back?”

“No idea,” I said. My eyes skimmed the barrier Darek had created. “That thing is huge. I can’t believe it came from me. There’s a lot of magic there.”

Hardy squinted. “Wait. You can actually see it?”

I blinked, realizing I’d just revealed a secret I’d been trying to keep for years. But somehow, it just felt right. It was time to stop hiding. “Yeah.” Resolve filled the empty cavern inside me, the one that had been filled with my magic. “And I’m going to try to take it down.”

Hardy looked back and forth between me and Crowe. “She can see her own magic?”

Crowe’s eyes flicked to meet mine, and in them was something that I hadn’t felt in a long time—respect. “She can see everybody’s magic.”

“Whoa,” Hardy said. “And that wasn’t drained when Darek stole your locant?”

I frowned, realizing that was true. “I don’t think he knew it was there, so he didn’t know to take it. I’ve never really told anyone about it. It’s not a kind of magic anyway, or a power.”

“The hell it isn’t,” said Crowe.

I smiled at the awe in his voice, realizing he was right. I’d been so focused on avoiding magic for so long that I hadn’t really understood what I could do, or how useful it could be. I could see the magic people had. I could see when they were preparing to attack, or when a spell was wrapped around another person or thing. I could see all of it.

“Oh my God,” I whispered as another realization struck. “We have to get back to the festival. We were looking for the wrong thing.”

Crowe frowned. “What do you mean?”

“We were trying to locate the people who were missing, but Darek must have cloaked them using the magic he’s been siphoning from me. That’s why Alex disappeared from my radar, and why we couldn’t find Katrina or anyone else. He’s shielded them.”

Hardy dusted himself off. “So, what do we do?”

“What do I do, you mean,” I said, walking up to the barrier and placing my hands against it. “I’m going to take this down, and then we go back to the grounds.” I looked over at Crowe. “And then I’m going to look for my own magic.”