Shade enters first, his body a streak of gray as he flies through the air with muscled, lupine grace. A moment later, a short yip sounds and River drops through the window, followed by Coal. Tye hands me down to Coal without a word, then climbs inside with a controlled grace that I remember well from the practice arena.

Looking around, I see further evidence that we’ve entered a saloon. The cellar around us is filled with barrels and grain sacks, tap handles and chairs too broken to be of use in the main room upstairs, and stacks of firewood and cleaning supplies. A staircase leads up to an opening in the ceiling, currently covered with a hinged door.

I frown, realizing that the room we stand in is much too small to be the full basement of the large building above—and yet, bar the pull-down exit by the ceiling, I see no doors or corridors leading from the space.

Shade’s nose points toward the far wall, hackles up, tail swaying like a pendulum. Right, left. Right, left. The wolf’s upper lip curls back to show glistening canines, which manage to reflect what passes for sunlight here.

“Trapdoor,” Tye whispers into my ear. “And our package likely behind it.”

Before we can move forward to confirm Shade’s prediction, the click, click, click of steps echoes from above us, the hinges of the ceiling door screeching their discontent. My heart stops. The door begins to open. My body wants to freeze but instinct has me ducking and sliding silently behind the piled grain sacks instead.

The others are there already, as calm as if sitting in our suite’s common room. Coal gives me a nod then finds River’s face, his hands flashing in quick motions, one of which draws a line across his throat.

River shakes his head.

“It’s past time,” a hissing voice says, the scent of rotten flesh throwing me back into Coal’s memories. A small shake comes over my body as the click, click, click starts up again, skittering down the steps. The qoru. Here. Even having seen one of them on the street, the knowledge that I’m sharing this building with one makes bile rise into my throat. Through a small crack between the grain sacks, I catch mottled gray legs heading for the wall that Shade just alerted us to. A second pair of legs. A third.

A long-fingered gray hand reaches for what must be a latch, because a moment later a whole slab of stone wall slides away on soundless hinges. One, two, three sets of legs disappear into the new opening.

A brief moment passes.

“Now.” River’s quiet order has the males moving right before Kora’s screams confirm our suspicions. Shade, Coal, and River vault over the grain sacks and rush silently for the door, Tye staying back to cover me.

When Tye’s hand grips my shoulder, I realize his magic is awake and engaged. Ready. A phantom thread of magic wakes inside me as well, crawling through my veins like a stretching tiger, the sensation leaving me both more secure and more vulnerable. Don’t touch it, I repeat to myself firmly. No bonfires in a cellar. Leave the tiger alone.

By the time Tye and I reach the hidden room, bodies face off in the dim light with grunts and clashes of swords, and the floor vibrates with River’s magic. I gasp as that too stirs in my blood, the coupling clearly having enhanced my ability to feel River’s power. Fortunately, he stops before the new sensation overwhelms me completely, and I can once more pay mind to my surroundings.

We are in a large room, its walls stone, its floor made of packed dirt soaked with blood and piss. Tiny slits along the ceiling provide slivers of light, showing Kora’s four quint mates chained to the wall. I stare at a fifth, empty set of shackles, my guts twisting as I turn to find Kora held in one of the qoru’s arms, the thing’s sharp teeth buried in a spot at the back of her neck, seemingly oblivious to the mayhem around it.

Coal is already moving toward it, a sword he obtained somewhere taking the feeding qoru’s head cleanly off its shoulders. Even as the detached body falls away, the qoru’s teeth cling to the back of Kora’s neck.

The female falls to her knees and pulls the qoru’s head off her with a panicked gasp, the skin around the wound a bloodless white-gray blotch.

River and Shade, the latter still in wolf form, square off against the two remaining qoru, while Tye turns to cover the door in case we’ve more visitors. I rush to Kora, sliding an arm around her quivering shoulders, brushing her ice-cold skin. Her green uniform is tattered, stained, barely recognizable. Her normally bright-blue eyes are dazed and bloodshot. “It’s all right. Look at me, Kora. You’re safe now.”

The clashing bodies and swords, the cries of pain and fury, are a blur around me. I focus only on helping Kora, fueled by Autumn’s wide gray eyes and panicked voice. We must not fail.

“You wouldn’t happen to have keys, would you?” Tye calls, darting a glance at Kora over his shoulder. “We need to free the others.”

Kora grabs my hand, her grip soul-wrenchingly weak. “You need to leave,” she says, her words coming raspily from a throat that’s clearly been screaming. “You need to leave. You can’t be here.”

I put my hands on either side of Kora’s face, forcing her blue eyes to meet mine. “You are safe now,” I repeat, the words tightening my chest. Despite everything, I’m glad to be here. To be doing something worthwhile. My voice strengthens. “We are going to get you and your quint out of here, Kora. We’re going home.”

Kora jerks away from me, reaching a pale arm toward River—who, having disposed of his opponent, now examines the prisoners’ shackles. “You need to leave, River—now. You are too valuable. If they capture you . . .” Now that she says it, I see the echo of her words reflected in all the females’ flesh. They weren’t kept here only as an afternoon snack; they were questioned.

“Not now, Kora,” River says soothingly, still examining the others’ shackles. “We’re going to get you out of here, and then you can tell us everything.”

Kora groans, panic in the whites of her eyes. “You’re not listening to me. There are several dozen qoru here,” she says, speaking quickly. “I don’t know how they got into Lunos, but something has been breached. They spoke of a gate. Something opened from Lunos’s side, not Mors’s. The Citadel needs to know. Between the qoru and the Night Guard, they’ve killed what’s left of the village in the Light. They—”

“They control the Light and the Gloom, both,” an unfamiliar voice says. My stomach turns. Around us, fifteen fae warriors—three quints of the Night Guard—step out of thin air. All of them, males dressed in black with blood-red accents, are grinning and armed.

Swords and crossbows pointing at us, the fifteen warriors herd us into the center of the room, just as a small pack of qoru stride in behind them.

The middle of the qoru looks larger than the others, his lidless eyes a deep shade of red with specks of rust. Unlike his scantily dressed entourage, this qoru wears a sash across his shoulder, the supple leather decorated with jewels so fine they manage to sparkle even in the Gloom. He turns to Coal. “Well, what a reunion.” His voice is like the low creak of a rusty gate opening in the dead of night. “Have you nothing to say to your emperor, buck?”

Emperor? My blood freezes. Emperor Jawrar.

The qoru’s attention shifts to River, his round mouth widening slowly into what must pass for a smile. “Jik.” Emperor Jawrar snaps his fingers at one of the Night Guard males. “Fetch Griorgi. Tell him his son has come for dinner.”