Spring

I grab her hand just as we hit the first floor, and we spill out into the hallway.

Somewhere in the struggle, I lose Kyler.

“Where should we go?” Jace asks. All the blood seems to have drained from his face. He’s dressed in striped blue satin pajamas and loafers.

“I don’t know.” I look around, trying to formulate a plan. “I don’t understand. Why are they here? They should be attracted to the Evermore, not mortals.”

Oh, God. Valerian. Where is he tonight? At the bonfire? Please, please let Asher and Eclipsa be with him.

Real Guardians rush by us, their guns out. Panic is hewn into their breathy voices as they order us to hide.

“Holy crap,” Mack breathes, her hand crushing mine. “This is real.”

We find out how real when we pass by the body of a boy clutching a flagpole turned makeshift club. He must have tried to fight them. His head rests at an odd angle, his neck broken, and there’s no blood—which again, is strange.

“Weapons,” I pant. “We need weapons.”

Mack nods solemnly. “The gym’s armory is too far away, but we can reach the underground vaults.”

Now that we have a plan, my fear gives way to purpose. Our Guardian oath echoes in my mind. The one we pledged at the beginning of school to fight darklings and protect our Keepers no matter the personal risk.

I might not be a true shadow yet, but I refuse to hide while Valerian and his friends are out there, unprotected.

When we’re nearing the final landing to the vault, my phone buzzes in the front pouch of my onesie where Ruby sleeps like the dead.

Valerian! A wave of emotion fills me as I press the phone to my ear.

“Summer?” The connection is breaking up, but I can hear the worry he tries to hide beneath his calm, controlled tone. “Where are you?”

“Inside the main hall on campus,” I whisper. The final doorway to the first vault appears in front of us. Class one and two weapons wait on the other side. “We’re grabbing weapons. Tell me you’re safe.”

We all hold our breath as Mack slides the massive double doors open.

“I’m fine, but you need to get out of the building. Something’s not right. The darklings only attacked the main hall, nowhere else. I think they’re being controlled like before.”

Sweat slicks my palms, and I grip the phone harder, afraid it will slip out of my hand. “Why? What could they possibly want here?”

The phone falls away from my ear as I duck into the weapon’s room.

Mack is turned to me, motioning for me to—

“Run!” she hisses.

My heart slams into my throat as I glance behind her to the countless darklings swarming the walls. They’re sniffing, their heads jerking in animalistic movements. A few shriek, but it’s almost like they’re calling out to one another. Communicating somehow.

This whole nightmarish experience keeps getting weirder and weirder.

I pivot to flee back up the stairs but darklings are filling the stairwell, blocking our path.

“We’re screwed,” Richard whispers.

There’s no choice but to race to the back of the large weapon’s room, the only spot where the darklings aren’t yet concentrated.

“Summer!” Valerian bellows into the phone. “What’s happening?”

I can’t speak for fear of drawing the attention of the darklings. Hardly breathing, I hang up and quickly text him. Can’t talk. Darklings everywhere. In weapons’ vault below the main hall.

My sweat smears the screen. His response is immediate. I’m coming for you.

No! My fingers hammer the words. Don’t you dare.

Nothing. Crap. Fear wraps around my chest, tightening with every labored breath.

Valerian around this many darklings—he wouldn’t stand a chance.

Praying Eclipsa has the good sense to stop him, I duck low with the others, hiding behind a row of magic armor.

Mack’s eyes are glassy with barely constrained terror as she mouths, What are they doing?

I shake my head with a look that screams, Frick if I know.

The way they’re positioned as if on a grid, spread out equally, sniffing the air at measured turns . . . it’s almost as if they’re methodically searching for something.

Only darklings don’t search for things, and they aren’t capable of setting up a refined search grid. They mindlessly attack and munch on the Fae like crazed zombies.

At least, that’s what we’ve been taught. But if Valerian is right, if this is like the attack on Starfall Island, and the attack last year . . . someone is controlling them.

I check my phone but the signal is gone. Don’t panic. Don’t think about how you’re trapped, alone in a room full of flesh-eating zombies, sweating like a sinner in church.

I. Need. To. Get. A. Grip. Wetting my bone-dry lips, I whisper, “They know we’re down

here. We just need to stay quiet and wait until they come for us.”

All at once, the darklings grow frenzied. Somehow, they’ve broken through the vault doors leading to the forbidden weapon side, and they funnel through the iron doors. The chamber fills with the sounds of violence as the darklings clash with the lovely unlaggin orc that guards the other side.

Then . . . silence. Nerve wracking, gut twisting silence. Never in my life did I think I’d be rooting this hard for a cyclops orc.

When the darklings return from the forbidden vault a few minutes later, there’s markedly less of them. The unlaggin, at least, took out a fair number of them.

But not Evelyn. She leads the group, her arm cradling something metallic and small inside her hand. A weapon, maybe?

“Looks like they’re leaving,” Jace breathes, his voice tinny with relief.

“Thank God.” I squeeze Mack’s arm, ready to hop up and run as soon as they’re gone.

Ruby squirms inside the front pouch of my onesie. The heat from my sweaty body is probably smothering her. Without thinking, I unbutton the top of the pouch.

Before I can so much as put a finger to my lips, she shoots past me into the air.

Crap. “Ruby,” I whisper-yell. “Get back here.”

Ruby turns around to look in my direction, but she forgets to stop flying, and I watch, horrified, as she slams into a mannequin holding an iridescent breastplate and helmet made of petrified wood.

As if in slow motion, the helmet careens sideways, slips off the mannequin’s head, and crashes to the floor.

“Oopsie!” Ruby trills before diving into my pouch.

Thirty darklings rush us at once. Blood hammers in my ears, nearly drowning out their hissing snarls. There’s nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide.

I wrench a steel helmet from nearby and widen my stance, prepared to fight to the death.

The first darkling hits so fast I don’t even see it coming. Pain crashes over my skull as my head connects with the floor. Dizziness slams into me. Shadows circle my vision.

Where is it? The others are fighting around me. They need my help.

Get up! I stumble to my feet, swinging my makeshift weapon. Ruby zips around my head, casting spell after spell to try and confuse the horde.

Another darkling knocks me off my feet. Fire rockets up my arm. Blood. My blood. The smell hits the darklings instantly, sending them into a wild fervor.

Zombies are about to dine on your flesh, Summer, unless you awaken your inner badass.

“I AM NOT FOOD!” I roar.

I kick out, catching a darkling square in the face. The creature stumbles back, shakes its head, and then crouches low, prepared to lunge.

“This is it,” Mack whispers as we press together, shoulder-to-shoulder. “I love you, Summer.”

Even though we’re seconds from dying, I feel a sense of pride swell to fill me. “Being your best friend was the highlight of my life.”

A dark streak in my periphery. An ear-shattering shriek splits the air. The darklings recoil from us, but they don’t flee, instead crouching ten feet away, heads cocked . . . like dogs waiting for instruction.

“It can’t be,” Mack cries, and I follow her gaze to Evelyn. She’s standing between us and the darklings, making choppy hissing grunts that the darklings seem to understand.

“Evelyn?” I say, forgetting that she’s one of them.

Her head jerks in my direction, and I fight the urge to flinch.

Up close, there is absolutely no illusion that she’s anything close to human. Emaciated cheekbones protrude below enlarged black eyes, their depths wild and feral and brimming with an ancient hunger.

The potent stench of corrupted magic seeps from her graying flesh—rotting lilies and copper and old blood.

But unlike the other darklings, her eyes aren’t completely black. Rings of white light pulse around the edges of her irises.

“Evelyn,” I breathe, trying to sound soothing and not horrified, “why are you here?”

She laughs, a terrible inhuman sound that makes me wince. “No choice,” she insists. “No choice.”

The darklings mill patiently around us, waiting for their master to tell them what to do. But she just said she doesn’t have a choice, which means someone is calling the shots.

The same person who stole the soulstone.

I nod slowly. “Someone else is controlling you?”

Evelyn makes a low, whimpering noise that breaks my heart.

“Oh, God,” Mack murmurs. “There has to be a way to help her.”

“Who is your master?” I persist. “Can you give us a name?”

“Can’t talk,” she whines. “It hurts. Can’t talk.”

Jace shakes his head. “This is pointless. She’s been spelled into silence.”

But I refuse to give up. If we can figure out who’s using her, perhaps we can save her. “Anything, Evelyn. Anything you can think of that might help us so we can help you.”

“Did this to me,” she snarls. “Did this to me. Did this to me!” The darklings react to her anger, growling and baring their teeth.

“Easy,” I whisper as the others press against the wall. “Who did this to you? Who is controlling you?”