The binding spell dissolved. For a single heartbeat, Lyre’s abused muscles refused to respond. Then he surged to his feet and lunged at Bastian.

The prince backpedaled, magic flaring in his hand, and Lyre bared his teeth. A mimic against a master weaver.

Snapping his bow out, he hooked it over Bastian’s head and yanked him forward—right into his fist. The nymph’s head snapped back, and Lyre grinned fiercely. He might be a master weaver, but he knew better than to rely exclusively on magic.

Fifty seconds.

Hauling on the bow, Lyre grabbed for the clock. Bastian clutched it and ducked out of the bow. Lyre dropped the weapon to free his hands, light spiraling over his fingers and up his arms. Limbs wrapped in magic, he launched at the nymph.

Shimmers rushed over Bastian as he dropped glamour. Retreating with startling agility, the nymph cast. Lyre flicked his fingers and his spell pierced the nymph’s, shattering it before it finished forming.

Forty seconds.

Snarling, Lyre pressed close, magic blazing over his hands in a continuous cast as he blended one spell into another until Bastian was frantically shielding—too slow to keep up, mimic or not. Lyre couldn’t weave powerful spells at this speed, but against a nymph, he didn’t need power.

Bastian cast a bubble shield, and Lyre almost laughed aloud as he jammed his fist into it. Ripples rushed over the barrier and it burst apart. He’d invented that spell; of course he knew how to defeat it.

His other hand lashed out, and the swift blast of power knocked Bastian clean off his feet. He landed on his back, still clutching the clock.

Thirty seconds.

Bastian’s eyes flicked from the clock to Lyre. He rolled out of reach, then jumped to his feet. As Lyre sprang at him, he cocked his arm back and flung the clock away. It spun through the air and clattered to the ground somewhere behind Lyre.

A smug grin flashed across Bastian’s face. Then he turned and ran.

Twenty seconds.

Lyre swore and whipped around. Clio was leaning against the fountain with blood streaking her arm and face, and a few feet away, the last chimera was trussed up in her binding spell. Lyre scoured the uneven pavement, bodies and blood everywhere.

Where was it? Where was it?

Fifteen seconds.

He shot toward Clio. If he couldn’t find the clock, then they had to get clear of it. He skidded to a stop and pulled her to her feet.

“It’s there,” she gasped, pointing.

He whipped around. Twenty feet away in the shadow of an unmoving body was the glimmer of something reflective. Indecision chained him. Get away from the spell or grab it and try to get it into the water?

Ten seconds.

Green light erupted from back in the trees. A glowing line raced across the ground toward him and Clio. Lyre flung out a fast counter. His spell hit the prince’s attack and light exploded everywhere.

Six seconds.

Get away. They should get away. Without them, there was no magical fuel for the KLOC to consume. He clamped an arm around Clio, intending to sprint away from the spell.

Five.

Clio gasped and he looked back. The body beside the clock had moved—not a dead body. Eryx lifted his head and his hand stretched toward the clock.

Four.

He was alive! And now the clock would trigger on top of him, and his magic would fuel its expansion. It would catch Lyre and Clio, and uninhibited by water, it would burst outward—reaching the bound chimera and Bastian—and from there it would expand even farther.

Three.

His eyes met Eryx’s black stare. Blood ran from the chimera’s mouth. In that instant, a wordless understanding passed between them.

Two.

Grunting from the effort, Eryx threw the clock. It sailed twenty feet and Lyre snatched it out of the air. No time to get away.

One.

With the clock in one hand and his arm clamped around Clio, he turned and threw them both into the fountain’s black water.

Zero.

* * *

Breathing was almost too much effort.

Pain dug into his chin where it rested on the basin’s edge, his head leaning against his arm, the rest of his body still in the water. The clock, its gems quiet and dull until it was once again triggered, hung from his hand.

Beside him, Clio was slumped halfway out of the fountain. He must have pulled her out of the water, but he didn’t remember doing it. All he remembered was plunging into the cold liquid and desperately pulling glamour back over his form to protect his spelled arrows and lodestones just before the shadow weave ripped through his body.

His glamour was gone again, but he’d saved his spells. And since the earth wasn’t collapsing around him, he assumed the shadow weave hadn’t traveled far. Had it converted his entire arsenal of weaves, that might have been a different story.

Twenty feet away, Eryx lay on the pavement, his hand reaching for the fountain. His dead eyes stared blankly. Throwing the clock to Lyre had been his final act.

Lyre’s senses prickled and he laboriously lifted his head.

Bastian stopped a step away, smiling pleasantly. “It seems it works as promised. A successful test run, I would say.”

He reached down, and there was nothing Lyre could do to stop the prince from plucking the clock out of his hand. His magic was gone and his body was too exhausted to move. This time, he didn’t have Clio standing by with fully charged lodestones to replenish his strength, and it was all he could do to stay conscious.

Bastian examined the KLOC for damage, then held it up to the moonlight, watching the gems sparkle. With a groan and a clank of weapons, the last surviving chimera guard pushed to his feet and stumbled to his master’s side with blood splattered over his face.

“Excellent,” Bastian murmured, returning his attention to Lyre. “What to do with you now, master weaver? You’ve proven yourself both highly skilled and excessively troublesome.”

Lyre said nothing, unwilling to expend any effort on a reply.

“Should I kill you?” Bastian tapped a finger against the KLOC. “You invented a spell that can consume any magic and infinitely expand its own power. Killing you would be a waste of a brilliant mind.”

He slipped the KLOC into his pocket. “Perhaps you’d like to help me rework this spell into something more … containable. I’d be delighted to eradicate the magic of an entire daemon army but if it’s powerful enough to wipe out the ley lines, I’d rather avoid that.”

“There’s no way to control it,” Lyre snarled hoarsely. “It should be destroyed.”

“Hmm. A shame.”

Lyre couldn’t summon the strength to move. His body had given out.

“Well, I suppose in that case, I will—”

Bastian leaped sideways like a startled cat. A dark blur flashed by, then a sickening crunch. The chimera guard, standing a step behind where Bastian had been, toppled over with a knife hilt in his chest. The prince scrambled backward.

Red light flared. In a swirl of black fabric, a hooded reaper appeared with a curved scythe in his hand.

Another blaze of red and a second reaper materialized on Bastian’s other side. The prince’s eyes darkened as he skittered away, his gaze darting between the two Hades daemons cloaked in black with deep hoods pulled over their heads.

“Did you think you could throw around that much magic without drawing attention?” a reaper mocked in sibilant tones. He flicked his blade menacingly. “Surrender and we’ll spare your life.”

Bastian took another step back.

“Run and we’ll kill you,” the other daemon threatened. “No one can escape a reaper.”

Bastian stopped retreating, his gaze fixed on the reaper. Sudden concentration tightened his features.

Red light flashed over the nymph, then he vanished.

“What?” a reaper spat. “He’s gone!”

“Did he teleport? What caste is he?” the other snarled. He swore angrily. “We’ll catch up to him as soon as we’ve secured the weaver.”

The breath hissed out of Lyre’s lungs and he wished he had the power to stop his heart. He’d very much like to die now, but without the strength to lift his arm, he couldn’t even take his own life.

He should have realized their battle wouldn’t go unnoticed. The city was packed with bounty hunters, and the only reason no one had shown up sooner was that the park was otherwise deserted. But now that the reapers had arrived, there would be no escape. They would capture Lyre, take him back to Asphodel, and hand him over to Lyceus.

The closer daemon stepped in front of Lyre and knelt. His bony fingers grasped a fistful of Lyre’s hair and pulled his head up. Red eyes shone faintly within the darkness of the reaper’s hood.

“Ready to go home, weaver? Your father is waiting.” White teeth flashed as the daemon smiled. “But he’ll have to wait until Samael is finished with you. The warlord will want to hear all about this spell that can eradicate an entire army’s magic.”

Horror crushed Lyre’s lungs. They’d heard? Damn Bastian and his gloating. Hades’s warlord couldn’t know about the KLOC. His father couldn’t know about it. Bastian’s reckless ambition was nothing compared to that of Samael and Lyceus, and with the shadow weave, they would destroy the realms.

The reaper pulled Lyre’s head farther back until pain shot through his neck.

“You can’t resist at all, can you? Is this what the spell does?” He laughed softly. “Most intriguing.”

He let go of Lyre’s hair. His chin hit the basin’s edge and the taste of blood filled his mouth. Swirls of light and dark swam across his vision but he clung desperately to awareness. Sickening, defeated lethargy sucked at his mind. It was over. This was the beginning of the end.

The reaper rose to his full height and looked across the park. “What’s taking him so long?”

“Hey!” the second daemon shouted to the empty park. “Hurry up before that other one gets too far!”

A chill whispered through the air, a hint of terror carried on the breeze.

From the darkness behind the memorial, the shadows coiled and shifted. A figure melted out of the night, unhurriedly walking toward the fountain, his steps silent on the cracked pavement. Shuddering cold swept through Lyre, pulling him back from the brink.

Ash.

The draconian stopped a few long paces away from the reapers, his dark eyes lingering on Lyre. A multitude of weapons were strapped over his armored clothing and his wrap once again covered his lower face. He rested one hand on the hilt of the short sword belted to his thigh.

“Finally,” a reaper snapped. “Secure the weaver and the nymph girl.”

Lyre stared at Ash, a cocktail of emotions twisting through him. Ignoring the Hades daemons, Ash held his stare as though prying into Lyre’s mind with nothing but his eyes.

Lyre’s vision blurred. He struggled to hold on to Ash’s face but his sight fractured and darkened. As the world spun and he felt himself falling, Ash turned his attention to the reapers. His deep, rumbling voice shuddered through Lyre’s bones as he finally answered.

“My orders are to kill.”

Lyre’s breath escaped in a shuddering exhale, and as he lost consciousness, he didn’t know whether he felt terror … or relief.