WE REACHED THE MASSIVE CLEARING OF THE LOGGING mill a few minutes to midnight. In the darkness, the decrepit building hulked like a beast surrounded by the bones of its victims. Stacked lumber and unprocessed logs had been left to rot under the rain and the sun, casualties of a failed business that had shut down a decade earlier. Crowe and his family owned this land now, but they’d never done anything with this part of it. The Sable River rushed along the eastern edge of the clearing, where the logs used to be sent downstream. The mill had been built right here on its banks, and the curve of the water hugged its edge, threatening to carry it away someday.

Light glowed from the windows on the second floor of the main structure. I pointed at it as Crowe crept in next to me. We were crouched behind a stack of damp, spongy wood. Killian stared up at the windows from his nearby hiding spot behind a rusted-out truck. “I tried to influence him when I realized what he was doing, but he’s been siphoning locant magic and using it to conjure shields against me.”

“Against all of us,” Crowe muttered.

“I might be able to take it down,” I said.

“He has other ways of defending himself. He can siphon any magic with a simple touch.”

I met Crowe’s gaze.

“I’ll be able to warn you about what he’s doing so you can defend yourself,” I whispered. “I can try to conjure a shield, but…” I looked down at my hands. Pulling barriers apart was one thing, but Darek had completely drained my locant magic just over an hour ago, and I wasn’t sure I could actually conjure one that would be effective.

“Hey, they’re over there!” someone shouted from our right. We’d been found. From between piles of lumber, a twist of green magic wafted into the sky.

“It might be a trick,” I whispered as footsteps sounded off nearby. “I can see inlusio.”

“Or it could be Flynn, under the influence of Killian’s stolen magic,” Crowe said, rising to his feet.

“Got ’em,” shouted another voice, from our left.

“We’re surrounded.” Crowe grabbed my hand and dragged me along first one aisle of lumber, then another. We ended up in a muddy area with piles of wooden disks, cross sections of trunks, some of which were large enough to serve as tabletops. Looking around wildly for a better hiding place, I headed between two enormous old metal saws, into a junkyard of abandoned trucks and other construction equipment. Crowe stayed behind me, maybe recognizing that I would have some warning if magic was coming our way.

And I did, but a moment too late. The bitter bite of ash and cinder hit me and brought me wheeling around. Darek stood with a gun to Killian’s head, crimson animus magic coiled around both of them. Darek’s other hand was wrapped around Killian’s neck, and streaks of ebony marred the red ribbons of Killian’s power. He was siphoning it and using it against his uncle yet again. “Thanks for bringing him back to me,” Darek said to me and Crowe.

“Go ahead and shoot him,” Crowe said.

Darek pulled the gun away from his uncle’s temple and pointed it at Crowe and me. “Nah. I’ve got a better use for him.”

Killian stared at him miserably while his own magic wrapped around his legs and his arms like the strings of a marionette. “You said you had someone else.”

“You’re the best, Killian. You’ve always been too weak to use your power, though. That’s why I need it. I’ll actually be able to put it to good use. Now, give me your knife.”

Stiffly, Killian reached beneath his shirt and pulled out a sturdy knife from a hidden holster. The blade glinted in the moonlight as he handed it over.

“Head inside with the others,” Darek ordered. “Use your power to make sure they stay put. I’ll be there in a few minutes, and we’ll get started.”

Without another word, Killian staggered up to the logging mill, disappearing inside, leaving us well and truly alone.

Knife in one hand, gun in the other, Darek circled us. “You never really cared about me, did you, Jemmie?” His gaze sought mine. “I just want to hear the truth of it.”

“Leave her out of this,” Crowe said. “You and I have plenty of other reasons to kill each other.”

“Quit trying to protect her,” Darek snarled. “It only proves my point.”

Slowly, I stepped in front of Crowe to face Darek, and Crowe let me. “I did care about you. I still do.”

Darek’s eyes flashed. “Once I do the cruori, I’ll be the most powerful kindled who’s ever lived. And you could have been by my side.” His lip curled into a sneer. “Except for the fact that you’re in love with him.”

He shifted the gun to aim directly at Crowe’s chest, and I instinctively stepped in front of it. “Don’t!”

Darek grimaced. “It’s true, then.” He nodded, as if to himself. “You chose this.” He tossed the knife to me. “Catch.”

My hand snatched the blade from the air, compelled by ribbons of black-striped crimson wrapped tight around my wrists.

Darek held the gun up and shook it. “This one is for you, Crowe.” Using Killian’s magic, Darek forced Crowe to hold out his hand. Crowe’s entire arm shook as he tried to resist the silent command. Darek set the weapon on his palm. “It’s better if you don’t fight it.”

“Darek, you don’t have to do this,” I said. “You can stop all of this, and we’ll forget it ever happened.”

Darek scowled. “Forget? I can’t forget. You used me, Jem.”

“I used you?”

He didn’t even have the good grace to acknowledge the irony, considering he was wearing my stolen magic. “You strung me along until Crowe Medici crooked his finger, and then you didn’t want anything to do with me.” Darek’s eyes were full of rage now. Here he was, facing off against one person with a gun and one with a knife, but he was controlling both of us. “I wanted to do everything for you, Jemmie. I would have, if you’d let me. But now I see that you never would have chosen me. It was always going to be him.”

I glanced at Crowe. He was glaring at Darek with unrestrained rage. His amber magic was lashing at the shield around Darek, trying to find a way in, but for now, the stolen locant barrier held and Crowe couldn’t touch him. Not with magic, at least.

Darek stepped between us. “Despite the heartless way you led me on, I’m going to respect your choice, Jemmie. It’s my final gift to you.”

“Please, don’t do this.”

“Sit,” he said.

Crowe and I each dropped onto a stack of tires, facing each other, close enough that our knees were touching.

“Please.” Tears welled in my eyes.

Darek sucked in a breath, and for a second I saw him, the old him, the one I thought was my friend. For a second, I believed that he’d end this entire thing and give me my parents back.

But that naïveté was what got me into this mess in the first place.

“I’m going to murder you,” Crowe said.

Darek snorted. “Crowe Medici, so fucking powerful. We’re gonna find out.”

“Darek! Please!” Fat tears streamed down my face. I couldn’t believe that I used to think he was a good person.

He turned to me and whispered something, and the black-and-crimson ribbons of stolen magic around him struck like snakes, burying themselves in my mind. Even through the chaos of magic around me, I could see that the same thing was happening to Crowe.

“Jemmie, if Crowe so much as moves, you slit his throat. Crowe, if Jemmie moves, you shoot her in the head.” Darek’s eyes met mine. “I really did love you.” He sighed and walked toward the mill.

“Darek!” I moved to stand and Crowe cocked the gun and put the barrel against my forehead.

“Don’t. Move,” he said.

I froze in place.

“We have to stop him. He’s about to do the spell.”

“I know.” Crowe’s voice shook. Sweat shone on his forehead. “Please don’t move. I’m really close to pulling the trigger, Jemmie.”

“I’m not moving.”

For a moment, we just stared at each other. Then Crowe spoke, as if every word was a struggle. “You have to undo this spell. You can see it. You can see how to break it down.”

“I don’t know if it works that way. I’ve only undone my own kind of magic. This is a whole other ball game.”

“Just try.”

I concentrated on the threads that bound us to Darek’s orders. I could see the magic when I squinted: thick red ribbons of it zigzagging between Crowe and me. But when I tried to pull on one thread, the knots only seemed to tighten.

“I don’t think I can undo this.”

“Yes, you can.”

“I can’t, Crowe. We are going to sit here forever until one of us moves.”

“Then I’m going to move,” he said. “And you do what you have to—and then you find a way to stop Darek.”

“What? Are you kidding me?”

“Listen to me. Jane said one of us would die tomorrow, but it’s just past midnight. It is tomorrow. And I think she meant me, Jemmie. So it’s okay.” He gave me a brave smile. “No guilt, all right?”

“It’s not you,” I whispered. I gave him an apologetic look as his smile faded. “I grabbed Jane’s hand as Hardy was dragging her away. She said it was going to be me.”

Even in the darkness, I could see the blood drain from Crowe’s face. “Tell me you’re lying,” he demanded, his voice breaking.

“If this is how I die, here with you, then I’m okay with that.”

“Goddamn it, Jemmie. I will not be the one to kill you.” His hand shook.

I closed my eyes, breathing deeply even as I felt the barrel of his weapon against my skin. “If that’s what it takes for you to get out of this and go save all those people, then you have to do it. Your sister. My parents. Our friends. They’re depending on you.”

“What about you?” he whispered.

I opened my eyes. “I guess my story might end right here. But it’ll be quick, right?” I sounded a lot braver than I felt. Hopelessness was tearing at my heart.

Crowe started to shake his head, then hissed as I brought the knife to his throat. He froze. “I can’t be the one,” he said in a low voice. “It would kill me anyway. I only ever wanted to keep you safe.”

I offered him a tremulous smile. “Is that why you told me to leave Hawthorne?”

“You really want to talk about this right now?”

“What better time? This is probably the last conversation we’ll ever have.”

“Yes,” he said quickly. “I thought you’d be better off far away from this place.”

“You mean far away from you? From what you might have to do, now that you’re president of the club? Is that why you got with Katrina, too?”

His eyes slid away from me and he swallowed, his Adam’s apple sinking. “Yes.”

“I think that’s horseshit.”

He smiled. “Did you just say ‘horseshit’?”

“I’m serious.”

“I can tell.”

We fell into silence again. Crowe shifted his weight an inch on the woodpile, and without thinking, I pressed the blade to his skin. He pushed the gun harder into my forehead.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

The harder I fought Darek’s order, the less control I seemed to have over my body, the more compelled I felt to listen to my hand instead of my head. It was only a matter of time until one of us wouldn’t be able to hold back the urge to kill.

I didn’t want to die not knowing the truth.

“Did you ever love me?” I whispered. “Was I ever more than just a distraction?”

Crowe blinked. “Jemmie.”

“If I’m going to die, I want the truth.”

“Yes. I loved you. I love you. I’ve never stopped.”

My shoulders fell, and Crowe seemed able to ignore the shift in my posture, though his eyes squeezed shut and his gritted teeth were telling me it wasn’t easy. I’d been waiting over a year to hear him say those words. Now he had, and it was bittersweet. Because I was going to die today, one way or the other. I could feel the finality of it settling in. I didn’t need to have omnias blood in my veins to feel fate crushing down on me.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“I wanted to protect you,” he said. “From me, from what I might become, and from everything that came along with that.”

“And now?”

His gaze fell to my lips. “Now I just want you.”

A smile. A sigh. I had a gun to my head, but I was ridiculously happy in that instant. “I’m yours.”

His hand came up, like he meant to touch me. I dug the blade harder against his throat, leaving a small gash. Blood welled in the wound and spilled from it like melted wax over the edge of a candle.

The blood ran toward my hand, the one still clutching the knife. “I have an idea,” I said, inching my palm up the hilt, toward the blade. I forced myself not to move any other part of my body except my fingers and prayed I wouldn’t accidentally drop the weapon before I’d gotten what I needed.

When I felt the bite of the knife’s edge, I smiled. Crowe’s blood was streaming down the side of his neck, and mine was dripping from the pads of my fingers. I tried angling my hand a fraction of an inch to bring our essences together. Crowe’s finger slid back to the trigger.

“What are you doing?” he said.

“Saving us.”

“I can feel you moving. So you should either hurry up or stop it.”

I counted down in my head. Trying to propel myself into action, coiling the necessary energy I’d need to move fast enough to dodge a bullet.

One.

Two.

“Jemmie,” Crowe warned.

Three.

I pressed my right hand to the wound on Crowe’s neck where locant blood met venemon blood for the second time. As the power surged inside me, I threw my left hand up, grabbed Crowe’s arm and pushed it away. The gun went off inches from my face.

My ears ringing from the blast, I reached for the magic we’d just created together. It exploded out around us, gold and sapphire and the indefinable shimmer that was both of them together.

After this morning, I’d thought I knew what it felt like to work blood magic. But I didn’t. Crowe had been in control this morning, casting the spell he’d needed to survive—I’d mostly been an observer.

Casting the magic in a blood-powered spell was ten times more potent.

Time stood still as warmth ran through me. This tingly-all-over feeling. Like velvet. Like rose petals. Like smooth chocolate melting in your mouth. Breathing felt like freedom. The beating of my heart was the thundering of a storm electrifying the air. The ground vibrated beneath me. Colors became more vibrant. Sounds more refined. My magic surged inside me, with his wrapping around it, breathing life into it.

It was like I was seeing and hearing and feeling the world for the very first time. With a grin, I reached up and drew my finger through the crimson ribbons of animus magic imprisoning us. Blue and gold twined together and cut through the crimson power. The mind-control power Darek had stolen from Killian shattered all around us, crumbling like an afterthought.

I slid off the woodpile, my body melting with the magic, and collapsed to my knees. Crowe caught me, hugged me close.

“Jemmie. Talk to me.”

I looked up at him. Stupid, handsome Crowe. More handsome than ever before.

His eyes were black again, but so were mine. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it, the blackness of the magic bleeding into my eyes. It stung just as much as it thrilled. But I didn’t care. The good far outweighed the bad.

“Get up. We have to go,” Crowe said, letting me go quickly. “Darek is going to be doing the spell any minute now.”

The euphoria of our blood magic faded quickly, just like it had before, and I climbed to my feet, Crowe’s arm laced around my waist. I was here but not here, delighted and floating on the revelation of his love yet strangled by the certainty of my own impending death. But I was ready even though it was way too soon. I was part of this, and it was time.

Somewhere far away, I heard the whisper of the Undercurrent, where the blackness lived. And it was calling my name.