Clio pressed her back to the wall and breathed deeply.

Most of the bastille lay behind her, endless corridors with dark cells that stank of terror and machine-filled rooms that reeked of blood. The haunting sounds were worse than the smells—the broken whispers, the hoarse weeping, the piercing screams. It was a place of nightmares and death, and she wished she had the power to burn the entire building to the ground. It shouldn’t exist. It shouldn’t be allowed. But who could stop Hades from doing whatever they wanted?

Ahead of her, the halls changed. Clean steel walls inlaid with spelled crystals that emitted a soft white glow replaced the dank stone and smothering darkness she’d already passed. She could hear murmured conversations, far different from the weak, despairing cries in the rest of the bastille. These voices were conversational, sometimes jeering, sometimes laughing.

Not prisoners, but guards.

She’d already cast her best cloaking spell, but she wasn’t sure it would be enough. Her hand slid to Lyre’s chain of spells hanging around her neck. She’d checked each gemstone, figuring out what its weaving did in case she needed it. The spell he’d used to hide them from Dulcet was there, but that wouldn’t help her unless she was in a similar dead-end.

With one more deep breath, she crept down the hall. Ahead, one side of the corridor opened into a larger space, and that’s where the voices and light were coming from. Her path intersected the edge of the open room, then continued on.

Her back tight against the wall, she minced to the corner and peeked around it into the room.

Four large tables with stools, a counter along one side, and an icebox. A dozen uniformed guards lounged in the room, talking quietly, some with food, others just relaxing. A break room where guards could enjoy a respite from all the blood, torture, and death. Charming.

The room was well lit and she would be crossing it without cover. A cloaking spell made her difficult to notice, but it wasn’t foolproof. The chances they would spot her were too high. Should she backtrack and search for a different route to the exterior wall where Ash had promised she would find windows? How long would that take? She’d already taken too long, and it was so easy to get lost in the dark, winding halls.

Sliding her hand across Lyre’s chain, she considered her options. She could blast them and make a run for it, but that wouldn’t get her much of a head start. Her fingers dug into the front of her shirt as desperation clouded her thoughts.

A clink startled her. She jumped back, then saw the shining pink gemstone at her feet. She’d accidentally dislodged it from the pocket in her belt. She scooped up the mysterious illusion weaving. She still had no idea what it was, only that it was an area-affect spell—something that would involve everyone within its radius in the illusion.

She rolled it between her fingers—then a guard called a farewell to the others. Footsteps started toward her hiding spot. A guard was coming her way, and she had nowhere to hide.

With no better ideas, she crouched, activated the gem, and tossed it into the break room. It rolled across the floor with a skittering noise lost beneath the murmur of conversation. She peeked around the corner to find a guard standing three steps away, looking back over his shoulder at his comrades.

The gemstone stopped under a table and blinked three times, then golden light burst out of it. The glow raced across the floor and up the walls to the ceiling, coating everything. The guards launched to their feet, all shouting at once—then fell into speechless silence. Clio stared too, her mouth hanging open.

The room was gone. Instead, four tables and twelve guards stood in the middle of a sunny meadow. Gentle hills rolled toward the distant horizon, and the sky stretched even farther, dotted with fluffy clouds. Long grass swayed in waves, and a pair of songbirds flitted above the stalks, chasing each other. Everything was cast in a golden hue, the greens and blues awash in amber and tangerine shades.

Clio finally remembered to breathe. She inhaled sharply—and tasted the fresh, sweet air of a spring meadow. Lyre had made this? He had woven this spectacular vision of untouched nature, devoting what must have been countless hours to creating an illusion more complex and encompassing than anything she’d ever seen?

A spell hidden in his secret cache, but not a weapon. Not a defense. It was a weaving with no purpose other than a beautiful escape to a different place far from this town. Without Chrysalis demanding he weave weapons and death spells, was this the kind of magic he would create?

A guard swore quietly, the epithet hushed with either awe or fear. Urgency sparked through her and she scanned the meadow again, searching for a sign of the corridor. Her eyes were absolutely convinced that the illusion was real and there wasn’t a single wall within a hundred miles.

But she knew where she was supposed to go. As the guards muttered in apprehensive bewilderment, she darted out of her hiding spot. Keeping low, she rushed through the grass, surprised she couldn’t feel the blades under her palms. Too absorbed in the illusion, no one even glanced her way.

Between one step and the next, it all vanished. The dark corridor reappeared just as her shoulder hit a wall—she’d been running at an angle. But she was past the room, and she broke into a sprint.

The corridor ended at a perpendicular junction, and another hall was lined with doors that hung open, waiting for occupants. The nearest room contained nothing but a table and two chairs—an interrogation room? High on the back wall, a square window with two bars across it glowed with faint yellow light.

Gasping in relief, she sped across the room, pushed the chair out of the way, and dragged the table to the wall. Climbing on top of it, she focused her asper and examined the wards on the glass and frame. She traced the arc of a construct, then tapped a thread. A spark of magic, and the ward dissolved.

She glanced back at the door she’d left mostly closed, then focused on the last weave, one that would paralyze anyone who tried to pass through the window. After a brief examination, she destroyed the weave, leaving just the bars with a pane of glass behind them.

Urgency spiraled through her head. The bars were fused right into the steel wall and though they weren’t thick, they were more than enough to stop her. With no other choice, she jumped off the table, backed up a few steps, and gathered her magic.

Her blast hit the bars and exploded with a sound like a gunshot. The glass and bars shattered. She leaped onto the table and heaved herself up. The window was tiny, and her petite frame almost didn’t fit. She jammed her shoulders in, the jagged stubs of the bars tearing at her clothes, and wiggled through. The ground outside was almost level with the bottom of the window, and she scrabbled at the damp moss carpet for purchase as she squeezed her hips through the frame.

A hand closed around her ankle and yanked her back.

The stubs of the bars scraped her torso and her chin hit the sill as she was pulled back into the room. She fell, landing on her stomach on the table amid shards of glass. Twisting around, she looked back and choked on a scream.

Three guards stood right behind her, one still holding her ankle.

In the instant she stared at them, her terror and despair vanished. Cold tranquility swept through her, and her mind cleared of emotion except for the ruthless, instinctive need to survive. To escape.

She slashed her hand out. The band of force struck the closest guard in the chest, flinging him back into his comrades.

They all pulled out black rods, the looped ends crackling with power—the same weapon Dulcet had used on Lyre and that Clio had slammed into the psycho incubus’s face. The guards lunged for her and she cast the shield she had learned from Viol.

Their weapons bounced off the barrier. Snarling, a guard raised his free hand and began to cast.

Clio raised her hand, mimicking his movements. Magic spun out from his fingers, and she followed. At the same time, she lifted her other hand and began a second, different cast.

He flung out his spell—an attack that would have blasted her back into the wall and bound her in place. She cast her identical spell and the two collided, exploding on contact. Then she snapped her other hand down, and the binding she’d created closed around the guard, locking his arms and legs together. He toppled over backward.

The other guards retreated toward the door, weapons raised and shields popping over them. Clio slid her fingers down Lyre’s chain, selected a gem by memory, and broke it off. A touch of magic activated it, and she tossed it at their feet.

A circle of light expanded from the stone, catching both guards in its radius. Soundless lightning erupted from the circle, raging across the guards’ bodies. They arched in agony, eyes bulging, and collapsed onto the floor, still in the circle. The paralyzing weave crackled over them, keeping them down.

Clio grabbed the window again. She squeezed into it, dragged her legs through, then scrambled free. Not wasting time glancing back, she bolted across the stretch of moss toward the wall surrounding the property. Darkness lay thick and heavy over the land, the long eclipse unbroken. The ground squished underfoot, wet with recent rain.

A flash of glowing light shot toward her.

She twisted to one side, and something grazed her upper arm. She hit the ground on her knees, and the arrow pierced the dirt behind her, the spell on its head sputtering out. Blood gushed down her arm where the arrow had cut across her bicep.

She scrabbled for the chain around her neck. Touching a gem, she activated the spell as she sprang to her feet. A thick cloud of darkness surrounded her, shadows that blended with the night. Another arrow whizzed through the air, missing her by a foot. She ran. Guards fired a few more bolts from the narrow towers interspersed along the wall, but they missed her by wider and wider margins, the illusory darkness hiding her movements.

She ran to the wall and pressed against it. The illusion weave moved with her, bound to the gem around her neck. While sheltered, she tore a strip off her skirt and bound it around her arm, tying it as tight as possible to staunch the flow of blood. Then she craned her neck to see the top of the stone barrier.

Too tall to jump. No rope or ladder.

She backed up a few steps to give herself a running start. Then, briefly closing her eyes, she let her glamour fall. It resisted as though this world was rejecting her true form, then tingles rushed over her body and strength filled her limbs.

She charged the wall and leaped, using a pulse of magic to launch her even higher. She grabbed the walls, hooking her claws into the rough stone. Her feet, bare without the shoes she’d been wearing in glamoured form, dug into the wall, and she climbed. Slipping and scrabbling for purchase, she hauled herself over the top, then dropped twelve feet to the cobblestones on the other side.

The moment her feet hit the ground she was sprinting, nearly flying, with the wind whipping over her skin and tugging at her hair. With the strength and agility of her true form, hidden by Lyre’s shadow illusion, she raced away from the bastille and into the dark streets of Asphodel.

* * *

Clio slowed from her breakneck run to an easy lope. Water sloshed in the canal beside her, and just ahead was a bridge spanning its width. Chrysalis was near. For the second time in one night—or rather, in one eclipse—she would break into the building.

She didn’t know for sure Lyre was in there. But if the Rysalis weavers hadn’t sent him to the bastille with her, where else would they be keeping him?

Lyre’s shadow illusion had sputtered out two blocks ago. She was sure there was a way to recharge it and reengage the illusion, but she didn’t have time to figure it out. Luckily, Asphodel was quiet, its streets empty. The darkness of the eclipse seemed to soothe the denizens of this world into a restful state, and so far, the bastille hadn’t raised any alarms over her escape—at least, not that she could tell.

She trotted onto the bridge. The cobblestones shone with moisture, and the air had the cool bite of a recent rainfall, its freshness clearing the bastille’s stench from her nose. As she rushed off the bridge, a pale flash in her peripheral vision had her spinning around, her hands raised defensively. But there was no one there—only her reflection in a large puddle.

She stared at herself—at her true face she’d rarely seen in the last two years. In Irida, she had never used glamour. In fact, she hadn’t learned how until two years ago. But on Earth, she’d rarely lifted it, binding herself in a human form so she could blend in.

Now her face looked like a stranger’s … or perhaps a long-lost friend’s. Her skin, already fair, was now a glistening ivory. Pale greenish-gold markings ran across her cheeks and around the edges of her face, across her arms, and down her legs, hugging her hips and waist. She could see it all because, as was traditional for nymphs, she was clad in a simple white hip wrap and a matching band of fabric to bind her breasts. Barefoot and weaponless, she wore only her minimal garments and the fine, sparkling chains of gemstones looped around her neck, waist, wrists, and ankles.

They jingled with every movement—not helpful for stealth. Unlike Lyre’s chain lying atop hers, her collection of lodestones was useless. None of them held magic or weavings—they were purely decorative, though not all nymphs failed to make use of theirs.

She focused on her face again, on the waist-length waves of hair falling down her back. Her hair was still a soft golden blond, but in this form, it shimmered silvery white like sunlight reflecting on ripples of water. With her fair skin and shimmering hair, she looked like a creature of light that had no place in the darkness of the night realm.

The only spot that wasn’t pale was the stained cloth tied around her arm and the lines of dark blood dribbling from the drenched fabric.

Closing her eyes, she pulled her glamour back over her body. Tingles raced across her skin, then weakness dragged at her and the pain in her arm increased tenfold. She tore another strip off her skirt and tied it over the first bandage, using her teeth to get a good, tight knot. Blood soaked through it.

Shaking off the woozy weakness she always felt when switching back to her human form, she started forward again. When she reached Chrysalis, she angled around the building in the opposite direction as last time, not daring to use the same door. She found a different entrance, destroyed its wards, and slipped inside. A voice in the back of her head kept reminding her Kassia wasn’t with her. Kassia should have been there.

The building was as quiet as it had been last time, and that made her extra nervous. She wandered the maze of halls until she found her way to the lobby. There she paused in the shadows, staring across the abandoned space.

Too quiet.

Where had they taken Lyre?

Her desire to save him wasn’t merely altruistic. She needed his help to escape. Without knowing where the ley lines near Asphodel were located, she was trapped here without a guide. Saving him was a crucial step in her survival—not that she would have left him behind either way. But how was she supposed to find him in here?

She rushed into motion—toward the back of the building, up the stairs, and into a familiar hallway. She didn’t know where to find Lyre, but while she figured that out, she would stock up on supplies. Lyre’s magic was severely depleted. He would want to arm himself—meaning he’d need everything from his hidden cache of emergency spells.

Reaching his workroom without encountering anyone, she found the door open. The room inside was empty, but it didn’t look the same as when she’d left it however many hours ago. All his weavings-in-progress were piled in the middle of the room. His tools and supplies were heaped next to them. His books had been ransacked, his sofa torn open, his cupboards emptied onto the floor. Someone had searched the room.

She hurried to the table and crouched, then breathed a sigh of relief. The untouched wards on his hidden nook glowed in her asper. He’d concealed the spot well.

Crawling under the table, she silenced his wards, opened the tile, and emptied it out. The quiver of arrows went over her shoulder, the chains went around her neck, and the pouch of charged lodestones went into the fabric belt around her waist.

She crawled out from under the table, adjusted the unfamiliar weight of the quiver—it was heavy, the leather case jammed with arrows—and frowned at the corner beside the bookshelves where two bows leaned—one taller than her and almost straight, the other shorter with elegant curves. How many bows did he have? And which should she take?

With a mental shrug, she grabbed the taller one, figuring that when it came to weapons, bigger was usually better. She hefted it in her hand. It wasn’t strung. That was bad, wasn’t it? He would need to string it. Chewing on her lip with worry, she turned around—and froze.

An incubus stood in the doorway. Silent, unmoving. Watching her.

For a second, she thought he was a stranger, but then she realized she’d seen him once before: the level-headed brother who’d joined Lyre in the spell shop back on Earth. His name was … Reed?

He stared at her, and she stared back, mentally preparing for another fight for her life. Protective weaves glowed over him, and they were as complex as Dulcet’s had been. Hitting him wouldn’t work, and she didn’t have a convenient box of powder to drug him with.

Reed’s gaze moved from Lyre’s chains around her neck, to the quiver on her shoulder, then to the bow she held.

“Not that one.”

She blinked, unsure if she’d heard him correctly. The words made no sense. “Huh?”

“Not that one,” he repeated.

He stepped into the room and she jerked back defensively, but he walked right past her. No aphrodesia hazed his aura, and he wasn’t prepping a cast. She backed up another step, confusion battling with suspicion.

He walked to the corner and picked up the shorter bow, then rooted around the nearby shelves until he found a cloth bag. Retrieving a smooth, heavy string from it, he braced the bow with his legs, bent it slowly with one hand, and hooked the string into place.

Finally, he turned to her and held up the newly strung bow. “This one. That’s a longbow. This is a recurve. Better for close quarters.”

Her heart pounded in the back of her throat. Watching with her asper for any tricks or deceptions, she cautiously approached. He extended the bow and she took it. Not knowing what else to do, she handed him the other one. He leaned the longbow back in its spot, then returned to the doorway.

He paused, glancing back. His amber eyes darkened, and emotion she couldn’t name ghosted across his features.

“They have him on the lower level,” he whispered.

Then he was gone, striding away from the room as though desperate to flee her presence.

She clutched Lyre’s bow. The lower level.

Was it a trap? An ambush? No, that didn’t make sense. Why waste time and effort on an elaborate ambush when any of the master weavers could easily best her in a confrontation?

The lower level. Reed could have been referring to the basement where Lyre had shown her Chrysalis’s offensive spell collection during her tour, but she knew that wasn’t what he’d meant.

She knew exactly what “lower level” the Rysalis weavers would have taken Lyre to for questioning.