“Kill her.”

Sabir’s emotionless command fired a bolt of panic straight into Clio’s heart. Her body tensed so much it hurt, but with a knife to her throat, she couldn’t move.

Lyre lunged up but the daemon beside him shoved him back onto his knees. Sabir smirked at the incubus, then glanced at her captor.

“What are you waiting for?”

“You sure?” her captor asked. “Seems like a waste.”

“She’s worthless. Just kill her. Unless you want me to do it?”

Her captor grunted, his arm around her shoulders tightening in preparation to slit her throat.

“Wait!” she cried. “You heard about the bounty, didn’t you? Are you planning to turn Lyre over to Hades?”

Sabir must have known Lyre was a spell weaver from the start; otherwise, he wouldn’t have had time to arrange this ambush. Her gaze flashed to Lyre. Shade Rune—a drug that numbed a daemon to their magic, making it impossible to cast spells. That was the bitter substance she’d smelled in their tea.

“You know, Clio, I sort of liked you when we first met.” Sabir pulled a long shining dagger from somewhere under his clothes. “If you’d only wanted me to take you to Irida—just you—I would have done it.”

“If the bounty is what you’re after,” she pressed desperately, “then turn me and Lyre over to the king of Irida instead.”

Sabir stepped toward her, a disparaging smile on his lips. “Why would I do that?”

“King Rouvin will pay you double the bounty.”

He paused, flicking a glance at his companions before refocusing on her. “He might buy the spell weaver, but why would the Iridian king pay for your life?”

“Because I … I’m his daughter.”

Silence.

Sabir threw his head back in a harsh laugh. “Do you think I’m an idiot? The Nereid princess is, what, nine years old? Ten?”

“Petrina is eleven, actually,” Clio said, struggling to keep her tone even. “She and Bastian are my half-siblings. I’m the king’s daughter, but not the queen’s.”

“Oh, a bastard princess, then.” He stepped closer and pressed the point of his dagger under her chin. “Why should I believe you, Clio?”

She held still, resisting the urge to lean away from the deadly point. “Because it’s true. The whole reason I’m with a spell weaver is because my father and brother sent me to Asphodel to spy on Chrysalis. When Lyre came back with me, Hades put a bounty out for our capture.”

Sabir’s gaze flicked back and forth between her eyes as though reading the truth in each one. He slowly stepped back. “Interesting. But then why do you need a guide to your own homeland?”

“My escort was killed in Asphodel and I’ve never traveled the ley lines on my own.”

Rocking back on his heels, Sabir nonchalantly tapped his dagger against his cheek. “Interesting.”

“King Rouvin will pay double the bounty for my safe return—and Lyre’s.” She looked into Sabir’s brown eyes and wondered why she’d never noticed their soulless emptiness before. “You don’t want to deal with Hades, do you?”

Sabir smirked. “I never intended to deal with Hades for their pitiful bounty. A spell weaver like him is worth far more on the auction block.”

“A-auction block?” she stammered.

Sabir sheathed his dagger. “And you, if you really are a Nereid, will be worth almost as much. Mimics are rare.”

“B-but the king—”

“He’d probably love for his illegitimate child to disappear forever, and either way, he won’t pay as much as I can make off the two of you.” Sabir gestured at his companions. “Bind her and put her over there with the incubus. I want to dose them before we move on.”

The daemon holding her lowered his dagger, grabbed her arms, and bound them behind her back with magic. Hauling her by the elbow, he shoved her onto her knees beside Lyre, then joined Sabir as he dug around in his pack for more Shade Rune.

She couldn’t let Sabir drug her, but what could she do? She couldn’t take on all three of them; she didn’t even know what caste they were. Blinking her asper into focus, she looked at the second daemon. Like Sabir, he had a mysterious sparkly silver aura.

She flexed her arms and glanced anxiously at Lyre. His dark eyes turned to her, his expression taut. If he was upset to learn about her lineage, he wasn’t showing it. They had more pressing matters to worry about. With a daemon standing right behind them, she couldn’t even whisper to Lyre. Fixing an intense stare on him, she mouthed two words.

His brow furrowed in confusion.

“Distract them,” she mouthed silently, exaggerating the shape of the words.

Understanding flashed across his face and he turned to Sabir and his pal, who was measuring water into a cup. Sabir held a small vial of dark powder.

“So, Sabir,” Lyre began mockingly, “are all jinns vile slave traders, or just you?”

Clio, waiting for the others to focus on Lyre, started in surprise. A jinn? Sabir? Had Lyre figured out something she hadn’t, or was he guessing?

“Are you an Overworld caste expert now?” Sabir asked with a snort. He shook powder into the cup of water.

“Not an expert,” Lyre shot back. “And, just so you know, you’re not making a great impression on behalf of your caste.”

Sabir corked his vial. “Do you think knowing my caste will help you?”

“Who knows.”

“You have no idea what we can do, do you?” Sabir weighed the cup of drugged water in his hand. “Why don’t I demonstrate?”

Sabir’s silver aura sparked violently. Before Clio’s eyes, his body melted into dense, inky darkness. The black shape dispersed like smoke in the wind, disappearing entirely from her senses.

No, not smoke. Shadows. The jinn caste ability: shadow-step.

She frantically scanned the ridge but even his aura had vanished. Then light sparked in her peripheral vision and a shape bubbled out of the darkness behind Lyre. Sabir’s body solidified as the shadows fell away.

Holy shit, Sabir was a jinn. Three jinns had captured them. Clamping down on her rising panic, she focused on the binding around her wrists.

Sabir grabbed Lyre by the hair and bent his head back, and the other jinn forced his mouth open. Lyre snarled, jerking away, but the daemons were too strong. Sabir poured the drugged water into his mouth, spilling it over his face.

“Swallow or drown, incubus,” Sabir told him.

Clio contorted to see her wrists and bent her fingers painfully until she could touch a knot of glowing silver. A spark of her magic snapped the binding spell and she launched at Lyre and the jinns.

She crashed into Lyre, wrenching him out of the jinns’ grasp. Their auras sparked and they melted into shadows. Lyre hit the ground on his side and spat out the tainted water. She reached for his binding, but silver sparks flashed beside her. Out of instinct more than conscious thought, she sprang away.

Sabir reformed from the shadows, grabbing for the empty space where she’d been.

She leaped away as the second jinn materialized from the darkness. Bolting ten paces down the ridge, she cast a light spell. Luminescence blazed across the rocky terrain, illuminating the ground around her.

The three jinns backed away from the light. Shadow-step. The ability to take a shadow form and flow through the darkness around them. While shadow-stepping, they were invulnerable to attack. It was the ultimate defense, and all they needed was a single shadow in which to hide.

Sabir smiled and silver light glowed over his fingers. “What’s the plan now, Clio?”

She held her spell high above her head, ensuring no shadows touched hers. The cast forming in Sabir’s hand was a blast that would take out her light—and then all three would be on her.

She couldn’t take them all. She wasn’t sure she could fight even one, not when they had an unassailable defense ability, and Lyre was drugged, his magic inaccessible. With only a second to decide, she looked across the ridge, then down the steep slope to the river glinting under the planet’s light.

A faint blue glow shimmered in the water.

Sabir flung his cast. She dove out of the way as the magic javelin struck her light and shattered it. Darkness plunged back over the ridge and the three jinns melted into it.

She shot to her feet and froze, her heart hammering in her ears. She couldn’t see them. Where were they? Where had they gone?

A flicker behind her. She jumped forward, barely clearing the jinn’s reach. Whirling around, she raised her hands to cast but the moment after the jinn had missed her, he melted away again. She stumbled back a step. While the jinns were shadow-stepping, even her asper couldn’t discern them. But when they went in and out of their shadow form, that she could see. And with that moment of warning, maybe she could survive—if she was fast enough.

Baring her teeth, she cast away her glamour.

Tingles rushed over her skin and renewed strength filled her limbs. Her clothes disappeared, replaced by simple white shorts and a chest wrap. She rose onto the balls of her feet, her bare toes digging into the gritty rock, then darted toward Lyre.

Sparks flickered in her path, and a jinn coalesced from the shadows, a cast glowing in his hands—but she was already flinging a raw burst of power at his chest. He disappeared again.

Sparks flashed behind her.

Sabir hooked an arm around her neck and pulled her off her feet. He jammed his hand against her side, magic burning against her skin as he started to cast. She rammed her elbow into his stomach and he grunted, his spell faltering. Her fingers danced in a swift cast and the spell ignited: crackling electricity that ran over her body. Sabir recoiled, then melted away.

Whirling on her toes, she sprang in a different direction. Sparks erupted again and she dove into a roll, evading the materializing jinn to buy herself time to finish two casts.

The jinn disappeared and she slid to a stop, waiting. One heartbeat. Two. Three.

Sparks kindled—two sets on either side of her—and she hurled both spells before the shadows had completely solidified. Her casts hit Sabir and the other jinn, and both crashed to the rocks with shocked yelps.

Green light blazed over her hands again. She had only a moment to strike with lethal force before—

A silvery flicker behind her and she threw herself forward. A gleaming blade whipped through the spot where she’d been. The third jinn held a long dagger in each hand. He wasn’t trying to capture her anymore. He was trying to kill her.

Throwing an uncontrolled burst of power in his direction, she bolted for Lyre. The jinn disappeared—and Sabir and the other one had melted into nothing too. It was just her and Lyre on the ridge, trapped by the rock wall on one side and the dangerously steep slope on the other side. The jinns were invisible and invincible, and she’d be lucky to hit them a second time now that they were expecting it.

With no better options, she grabbed Lyre’s arm and broke the binding on his wrists. Pulling him with her, she took two running steps and leaped off the ridge into the steep valley.

She and Lyre hit the slope feet first and slid on the scree. They careened downward as though riding a rocky slide. The water rushed up to meet them and she scrabbled desperately for purchase but there was no way to slow down.

They plunged into the cold shallows and hit the sandy bottom, jarring to a painful stop. Leaping to her feet in the waist-deep water, she clutched Lyre’s arm as her gaze flashed across the river, sprawling fifty feet wide with its serene surface reflecting the planet’s light.

“Uh,” Lyre whispered breathlessly. “Isn’t water bad?”

She didn’t answer as her stare stopped forty yards upstream where blue light glimmered beneath the surface. The spot of light glided into motion.

With silver sparkles, a jinn appeared on the dark bank, smirking. “And what are you planning to do now, little nymph?”

She stood in the water, breathing hard. Her hands were underwater, obscured from view, and she curled her fingers, prepping two casts. The light reflecting off the river was enough to prevent the jinn from shadow-stepping any closer to her, but the safety the water offered was an illusion.

Upstream, the surface rippled as something passed beneath it, drawing closer.

She pulled her fist out of the water and flung her first cast into the air. The jinn started to melt away, but her spell erupted into a blinding flare that banished the shadows. He solidified with a garbled curse, and she unleashed her second cast.

A green band of power whipped out from her hand. It snapped around his waist and she yanked her end of the spell. With a crackling burst, he was flung into the air. He soared fifteen feet before crashing into the river with a splash—landing halfway between her and the underwater blue aura.

The jinn lurched to his feet and spat out a mouthful of water. “Damn nymph!”

Sparks flickered on the shore as the other two jinns arrived, but Clio ignored them. She grabbed Lyre’s arm and yanked him forward. “Swim, Lyre! Across the river!”

His eyes widened but he obeyed, diving forward into a swift breaststroke. She plunged after him.

Behind them, Sabir’s urgent shout rang out, his voice echoing off the water. “Get out of the river, you fool!”

The jinn in the water started to respond, then broke off. A moment of quiet.

The daemon screamed. Water exploded upward and Clio twisted to look back as a frothing wave enveloped the jinn. He vanished under the surface and bubbles erupted—red bubbles. A cloud of bloody water expanded from the spot, drifting downstream.

Fear clamped around her chest. She swam harder, glancing back with each stroke.

Sabir shouted furiously, then her light spell vanished in a burst as he shot it out of the sky. Darkness plunged over the valley again, broken only by the reflection on the water that the jinns couldn’t cross.

But it wasn’t the jinns that frightened her now.

The glowing aura under the water slid into motion—speeding toward her and Lyre. She swam as fast as she could, the water dragging at her limbs. She felt like she was barely moving. Lyre cut through the water ahead of her, swimming at an angle to the shore. It was too far. The blue aura was closing in, swift and deadly.

Then she saw it—the trunk of a gargantuan tree that had fallen into the river, its curved side protruding from the surface. That’s where Lyre was heading: a natural bridge that extended almost halfway across the river.

They could reach it. They had to.

The blue aura swept in behind them. Lyre reached the colossal log and lunged out of the water. Right behind him, she grabbed the rough bark and hauled herself up. The moment she was on her feet, she whipped around with her hands raised.

The glowing light shot toward the log, then a splashing wave erupted. A huge creature burst from the water, jaws gaping wide.

She flung a wild blast of power into its face. Most of the magic rolled off its scales, but it jerked back and aborted its charge. It clung to the side of the log, long claws hooked into the bark a few feet from Clio and Lyre.

Its scales gleamed blue and green in the moonlight, its body long and sinuous with a dorsal fin running the full length of its back. Its reptilian head was small and elegant, with long appendages like a catfish’s whiskers protruding from its snout and the top of its head. Three teardrop scales in the shape of a triangle glowed on its wide forehead.

It was a dragon. A silver dragon.

And it was about to kill them.