Basil entered the sacred realm of the oracle, his eyes adjusting to the dimness of the room. Moss covered the circular walls as it did the stairs outside leading up to the entrance. Tree roots had broken through the stone here and there, and were growing up and down the walls, forming a hauntingly beautiful yet natural pattern. In the middle of the gym-sized room loomed a dais built of multiple slabs of slate. On top of it towered the larger-than-life statue of a man with a stag’s head, complete with antlers. The imposing stone figure radiated the same mood as the intimidating portraits and statues Basil had seen in the only Catholic church he ever set foot in, back when he was a child.

He stopped at the feet of the dais and cast a look over his shoulder. “What now?”

Calâr dragged Isa with him into the temple. Her convulsions had finally subsided, leaving her limp and unconscious in that damned fae’s arms. Anger boiled in Basil’s very cells, and he gritted his teeth. He had no right to touch her.

Still holding the dagger to Isa’s throat, Calâr said, “Your blood is needed to wake the oracle. Cut your palms on the sharp edge of the stone there, ascend the dais, and lay both hands at the statue’s feet. Close your eyes and loudly say, Yar nîm cata’or.”

“What’s that mean?”

“My true name reveal.”

“And then?”

Calâr lifted the dagger off Isa’s throat and waved with it. “And then…the Nornûn will show your true name to you, and you should see it in your mind.”

And because of that fucking mirror spell he’d done earlier, Calâr would see his true name as well.

His thoughts raced and spun again with the desperate need to find a way out of this. Endanger the whole of Faerie for a chance to save Isa, or watch her die… Nausea swamped him at the vision of her lifeless body sinking to the ground. Never.

Taking a deep breath, he rolled his shoulders and laid his hands on the serrated edge of the slate in front of him. He braced himself for the pain and slashed his palms open on the sharp slab. Son of a bitch. He steeled himself against the vicious sting shooting from his hands along all nerve endings in his body.

He’d just set one foot on the stair-like dais when Isa’s gasp caused him to freeze mid-step. He whirled around.

Her eyes fluttered open, and the glorious, luminous gray of her gaze locked onto him. “Basil…” She jerked in Calâr’s grasp. “Please, please don’t do this. I’m not worth it. My life is forfeit already. Don’t let him use me to manipulate you into—” Her sentence ended in a scream that curdled his blood.

He turned on Calâr. “Stop it! Don’t hurt her. I’m doing what you want, okay? Just stop it.”

Calâr frowned. “I’m not doing anything. She’s just—”

Isa’s convulsions were worse than any Basil had seen so far. Spittle frothed at her mouth, and she was shaking so hard Calâr had to lower the dagger so he wouldn’t accidentally slit her throat. The stone walls of the oracle rumbled, as if stirred in the deep. Her skin turned ashen, her chest rattled.

Instinctual premonition arrested his breath, spread tingling dizziness throughout his limbs. No. It couldn’t be…

Calâr lost his grip on Isa, and she crumpled to the ground. Her back bowed, and with a strangled gurgle that broke everything good inside Basil, she exhaled and then collapsed. Her chest ceased moving. Her head tilted to the side, her eyes open yet motionless, her face a mask of stillness. The rumbling of the stones stopped. Silence filled the temple.

His soul fractured. No. No, no, no. She couldn’t be—there had to be more time.

Basil’s thoughts were a mess, his mind unwilling to comprehend, to process what just happened, when a violent gust of wind slammed him down, hurled him up the dais. He hauled in a breath, grabbed a hold of one the edges of the slabs, pain piercing his cut palms.

“Well,” Calâr sneered from the foot of the dais, “now your pretty fae is dead, it seems I’ve lost my leverage over you. Which means we’ll have to do things a different way. It will be a bit harder, but I’m sure you’ll be just as willing to cooperate with enough incentive.” His voice dropped low, barely audible amid the whooshing of the wind. “It’s all a matter of how much pain you can tolerate.”

A tornado-strength torrent of air lifted Basil off the dais, broke his grasp on the slab, and catapulted him against the wall. Pain exploded in every nerve, the breath knocked out of him. He was still gasping for air when another violent gust hurled him across the room again, slammed him against the opposite wall. More fierce agony pierced his battered mind and body.

He sank down to the ground, caught sight of Isa’s still form as he struggled to breathe.

She’s not dead. The thought surfaced in his mind, buoyed by an impossible hope. Maybe, maybe she wasn’t gone yet, and he just had to get to her. If he unlocked his powers, he might be able to help her—after killing Calâr, of course. He couldn’t risk triggering the true name revelation with that bastard still alive, but once he was gone…

“Are you going to be a good sport and cooperate?” Calâr strolled toward him.

“Yes,” Basil croaked. “I just need…a hand. Not sure I can make it up the dais.”

If only he could get close enough to the fucker—the weight of the dagger he’d kept hidden in a sheath strapped to his calf felt damn good right about now. One well-timed strike, and he could incapacitate the asshole, then kill him.

“Sure, I can help you with that.” Calâr’s smirk said he wasn’t fooled by Basil’s request for assistance.

With a flick of his hand, he called the wind again, hauled Basil up to his feet, and pushed him toward the slate slabs. Dammit. Against the force of the whipping wind, he managed to grab the dagger from his ankle sheath, twisted around and threw it at Calâr.

Its flight path changed by the wind, the blade rammed into the fae’s shoulder instead of his chest. Still, Calâr grunted from the impact, and his grip on the air slackened. Enough for Basil to charge down the dais and launch himself at him.

With a roar, he tackled the bastard, punched him in the jaw so hard, the fae’s head snapped back. Calâr retaliated with a strike to the side of Basil’s face, making stars burst in front of his eyes, and sharp pain shoot down his neck and spine. The next second, a line of fire slashed across his chest, followed by the cold kiss of a blade against his throat.

Calâr loomed over him, the dagger in his hand nicking the skin below Basil’s chin. Breath heavy, the fae snarled at him. “You leave me no choice, half-breed.”

A nasty, brutal force slammed into Basil’s mind. He wheezed from the impact, his weak mental shields assailed by Calâr’s powerful magic.

“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do this,” Calâr whispered, his face contorted as if struggling with lifting a heavy weight. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his eyelids twitched. “Cooperate with me, and I will refrain from causing you more pain.”

Whatever mind control Calâr was trying to achieve, it had to take one hell of a toll on him. Good.

Basil gritted his teeth. “Fuck…you.”

Trembling, he fought against the foreign force invading his mind. His vision flickered in and out, darkness closing in from the edges of his sight. He tried to pull up mental shields the way Lily and Hazel taught him, but each barrier he attempted to build shattered under the onslaught of Calâr’s growing power. The fae smashed through Basil’s fragile shields as if they were made of porcelain. Pain radiated through his limbs, flowed and ebbed in his blood. Calâr’s mental control was as cold as ice, penetrating Basil’s bones. He couldn’t shake him.

Crawl to the platform.

Calâr’s command echoed in the corners of Basil’s mind, hammering at him with an imperative that was so powerful, so overwhelming, his body moved without his conscious control. Screaming inside his head, he crawled up the dais toward the statue.

No. He struggled, gathered all of his force of will just to lock his muscles and remain still, disregarding Calâr’s booming command reverberating in his head.

Crawl to the top. Lay your hands at the statue’s feet.

Basil’s muscles trembled from the force it took to stay motionless, to disobey Calâr’s order. How much longer could he keep it up? The tenuous hold he had on his own body snapped when Calâr boomed another command in his head. With a gasp, Basil crawl-stumbled forward until he reached the top of the dais.

Sweat broke out all over his skin, and his jaw was clenched so hard the pain of it zinged throughout his entire body. Have…to…resist.

Lay your hands at the statue’s feet.

Shaking as hard as Isa used to do when caught in one of her seizures, Basil laid his hands on the platform at the feet of the statue.

Close your eyes.

His face hurt from the struggle to resist Calâr’s command to close his eyes. To no avail. His lids fluttered closed.

Say out loud, Yar nîm cata’or.

Basil gritted his teeth even harder. And yet, his mouth opened of its own accord and he ground out, “Yar…nîm…”

A blast of white-hot magic lit up the dark of the temple like lightning. Calâr’s brutal grip on Basil’s mind snapped like a wire being cut.

“Don't you dare touch my son,” an unfamiliar male voice growled.

Jerking back, Basil withdrew his hands from the feet of the statue. Fae magic sparked in the air as a dark shape slammed Calâr to the ground and began a merciless butchery.

Behind the struggle between Calâr and his attacker, a witch rushed into the temple. Black hair swept up in a ponytail, clad from neck to toe in dark combat gear, Hazel scanned the room—and then her brown eyes locked onto Basil. “My baby…”

She scrambled up the dais, knelt beside him, her hands on his shoulders, his face, his chest, checking him for wounds. “Are you injured? Are you okay?”

Basil shook his head, struggled to get to his feet. “Isa. We need to help her.”

Hazel followed his gaze to the crumpled shape of the female who held his heart. Together they ran down the dais, crouched next to Isa’s body. Hazel spread her hands over Isa’s chest, and a glow emanated from her palms. Golden light flowed down into Isa. Hazel closed her eyes, frowned. Her lips parted. Her face fell.

The glow faded, she balled her hands to fists and let them fall at her sides.

“What are you doing?” Basil grabbed Hazel’s hands, pulled them back over Isa. “Heal her. Please.”

“Basil…”

“Mom, please.”

“Baz.” She cupped his face, shook her head, her eyes shimmering. “She’s gone.”

“No. Bring her back.”

“Sweetie, no one can bring back the dead. Not even witches.”

His breath burned in his lungs, heat prickled behind his eyes, and his stomach cramped. He heaved, but nothing came.

A crunch, a strangled scream, followed by sudden silence, and the sounds of struggle close to them abruptly ceased. The shadowy attacker who had launched himself at Calâr now rose from what remained of the male fae he had all but ripped to shreds. When he looked over his shoulder at them, the resemblance struck Basil like a blow to his guts. Uncanny, unsettling—undeniable in its implication.

Even if he hadn’t heard him yell something about my son earlier, Basil would have known. From the blond hair, its shade and nuance exactly like his own, to the facial features that were an eerie mirror image of Basil’s face, the family relation was indisputable.

Power poured off the demon like steam. His breath heavy, he stood there over the body of the slain fae and stared at Basil.

But Basil’s mind was too preoccupied with something else to even begin to acknowledge the emotional consequences of this. Calâr was dead. His threat to Basil eliminated.

I can unlock my powers.

His eyes flicked to Isa’s still form, then to the statue atop the dais.

He ran.

Breath coming in quick bursts, he scaled the slab stairs, slammed his hands at the feet of the statue. Eyes closed, he murmured, “Yar nîm cata’or.”

A blinding flash of light in his mind, a force that nearly made him stumble down the dais. His lungs seized, his muscles spasmed.

Sarômtanhâr.

The name whispered through his thoughts, burned itself into his soul—and unlocked a thousand seals within him. Magic blossomed in his cells, fused and merged and surged until it rolled into every last atom of his body, his mind. The hum he’d heard before grew to a deafening crescendo, in sync with the rising melody of the earth.

He gasped for air, half staggered, half slid down the dais, buzzing with a heady rush of power. With his eyes on Isa, he swayed forward.

Only to freeze in place, his muscles locking against his will.

Along the pathway forged by Calâr shortly before, a new presence sneaked into Basil’s mind. This one dark, much darker than the fae’s had been. It tasted familiar and yet strange, full of hot, age-old wrath.

Basil glanced toward the source of the new mind control, to that face which bore an uncanny resemblance to his own. His father’s eyes glowed amber in the dim of the room as he stared at Basil.

So much power, whispered his voice inside Basil’s mind. I’ve seen it in the fae’s thoughts. What you can do.

Basil grunted, struggled against the control.

I’ve seen what he planned. You could kill them all. They deserve it.

“No,” Basil ground out.

In his peripheral vision, he saw Hazel rise from her crouch, magic vibrating around her. “What’s going on?”

If you won’t do it, I will. A terrifying smile stole across the demon’s face. Sarômtanhâr.

Basil gasped, jerked as if hit with an electric charge. Shit. Somehow, his father had taken over Calâr’s mind mirror after he killed him, and now he knew Basil’s true name.

Basil struggled, pushed against the control to get to Isa.

Stop.

He froze as if paralyzed.

“Don’t do this,” Basil choked out. “Let me help her.”

His father tilted his head forward, his gaze never leaving Basil’s face. She’s dead. You can’t help her. He spit on the ground and added, She deserves her fate, after what she did to Roana. She deserves to die. His mental voice dropped to a tortured whisper. They all do.

“No!” Basil struggled against the invisible force holding him in place, against the insidious demand to use his powers to connect to, to find, to touch all living fae’s minds…

Witch magic rose in the air, its buzz like that of an enormous swarm of bees. “Basil? What is he doing?”

“He’s accessing my mind.” Basil panted. “He’s got a lock on me, on my powers. He’s trying to use them to slaughter every fae in Faerie.”

He’d barely finished his sentence when Hazel lashed out with her power, and slammed his father against the wall, holding him there in a magical vise grip. She advanced on the demon, stopped a few feet away from him. The air around her cracked and sparked with electricity, her face as harsh as Basil had never seen her before.

“Let. Go. Of. My. Son.” She bared her teeth at him. “If you want to have any kind of meaningful relationship with him—and I know you do—then release him. Do not use him this way. He will never forgive you.”

His father tensed, looking daggers at Hazel. Then, with a shuddering breath, he relaxed, closed his eyes.

Basil gasped as his father’s influence receded. With a start, he raced to Isa’s side and pulled her into his arms, cradling her lifeless body against his chest.

Maybe, just maybe, if there was a spark of life left for him to grasp, he could pull her back… On instinct, not really knowing what he was doing, and yet knowing, he closed his eyes, dove in, deep into his new powers, into the humming, swirling, iridescent darkness within him. It grew, stretched and rolled out, spread into a black field as far as his mind could reach.

Blips of light in the dark velvet surrounding him, blinking, sparking, moving… So many minds, so many thoughts and sensations, memories and images in a cacophony of light and darkness. And there…the fading ember of a flame that touched his soul. Isa.

He grasped at it with his mental fingers, and it almost, almost held—before her light slipped away, ran through his hands like softly glowing sand. He had to keep her. He knew he had to grab on to her to…what?

An idea brushed his mind, and on an impulse, he followed it.

Again, he reached for that elusive, fading light—and spoke into the darkness.

Isannarî.