Something strange is going on.

  Chair Renata led a group of winged beings. Fucking white-and-gold feathered wings. The Citadel is in chaos, but I’ll let you know what’s going on as soon as we know more.

  I miss you, and Theo is a hell of a kisser. I think I’ll keep him around.

  So mythical beings had come to the Citadel. Sera had read about them—an old foe from before the rebellion. The archives contained limited entries about their species, so most assumed they didn’t exist. But here they were, in the flesh, in the Citadel.

  As she mused on the news, unsettled, voices cheered in the tavern below. She sank further into the straw mattress. Another rowdy night of bard entertainment. As much as she longed to escape her mind and the constant smell of ash, Sera didn’t want to drink the ale again. This afternoon’s hallucination had already embarrassed her, and she didn’t need to push that further by falling up the stairs.

  But was it really a hallucination? She could have sworn it was real. He was real.

  Alistair was partaking in the activities. He’d said it was to get additional information, but she was skeptical. Regardless, it gave her a much-needed moment alone. A luxury she hadn’t been able to indulge in lately.

  Sera picked up her pen and wrote:

  They’re called the aliato. Soldiers of the human Creator, widely thought to be myth.

  Why they are in the Citadel is a little concerning.

  Speak with Galene if you need more information. She’ll have access to older texts than you’d be able to find in the library.

  I’m glad you found someone who doesn’t bore you to tears. You deserve it. He’s lucky to have you.

  Her script disappeared from the page.

  Galene would have the answers. Sera had once brought up the aliato to her mentor, who’d looked petrified and intrigued at the same time. After working with the witch for years, Sera had learned that was the face she used when Sera brought up a subject that Galene had no intention of discussing.

  But buried in the archives were depictions of the winged soldiers, and if anyone knew their way around a library… it was Galene.

  Heavy footsteps sounded outside the door.

  Shadow help her. If Alistair had locked himself out, she’d never let him live it down. Sera slid off the bed and fluffed her hair for a moment before approaching the door.

  “Al, you can come in,” she said. She was turning the knob when the door slammed against the wall.

  Sera stumbled backward.

  The man’s beard dripped with ale. He had a pungent stench about him and wild, bloodshot eyes. “Ah, there ya be, lass. Was lookin’ for ya to be alone since last night.”

  She sprinted around the bed, grabbing one of Al’s hunting knives from atop the map on the desk. She couldn’t let him near her. He’d overpower her in a second. No training was going to help her here, not with her heart beating frantically like this and her veins burning.

  The man’s lips were stretched so tight over his teeth that they seemed to disappear. “Don’tcha do that now. I just came to give ya a little kiss.” He licked his lips. Sera noticed a bulge in his pants and swallowed the hard lump in her throat.

  The music picked up again. Sera could hear stomping and whooping below. Even if she screamed, they’d never hear her. Al wouldn’t hear her.

  “Get the fuck out,” she spat at him, gripping the knife with both hands. She couldn’t stop the steel from shaking. He inched closer.

  You are more than steel. Her magic whispered and surged. Moons, she was burning. Raging and burning and ripping. Sera tried reaching for her barrier magic, but the abomination snapped inside her like an asp in a mighty flood of heat.

  The corners of her vision began to fade as the man came closer. The swing of her arms was met with his maw of a hand over hers.

  Before she could scream, before she could even register what was happening, the intruder was on the ground—with a feral Alistair above him.

  “She said, Get the fuck out.” Al had the man gripped by the throat. He clawed at Alistair’s forearm for release.

  “You can’t keep her for yourself. The whores are passed round ’ere.”

  Alistair snarled, and then they were gone.

  The knife clanged to the floor as every cell in her body vibrated.

  No.

  Shouts of terror rose from the tavern below. Black mist poured from her, pooling around her ankles, leaking between the floorboards.

  A single gray drop of flame fell from Sera’s palm, and they were burning.

  Smoke curled up the stairway and into the room. It was unnatural how fast it worked. Sera squeezed her eyes shut. With its lid removed, that well of darkness went down, down, down. So deep, she’d never imagined someone could hold that much power within the confines of their body. The screaming—Shadow, the screaming.

  Stay. Feel them.

  She shook. That burning scorched her veins. Sera cried out, pulling and pulling it back, down, to lock it away. But what if… what if this time she stopped? Stopped running, stop trying.

  Her pulse raced. Her lungs choked on the black smoke with each inhale. She could almost sense the way her flames licked up their bodies, consuming them, the walls, the tubs of ale.

  Another town destroyed. Sera couldn’t bring herself to move. Mist and flame engulfed the room around her. She could sense the walls cracking and burning, people’s flesh melting.

  Someone shook her. When she opened her eyes, they met his blue. Alistair’s arm circled her waist. His hand on the back of her head pushed her face into his strong shoulder.

  Sea salt and sage.

  Not ash.

  As she flipped through time and space, her stomach lurched. No longer in a room aflame, but in a small clearing in the forest. Al sank to his knees and set her down gently on the ground.

  “Breathe, Sera.”

  She was trying. Trying to tell him, but Al disappeared. Her lungs burned. It was fucking excruciating how her own magic could harm her in this way. Dead leaves crunched between her fingers as she tried to hold on to something. She couldn’t get enough air. Shadow, she was going to die here.

  As she lifted her head, panic seized her, shortening her already shallow breaths. “Al… Snik…” she wheezed.

  Heavy tears rolled down her soot-caked cheeks. In the dusk light, across the clearing, was the man who’d attacked her.

  His mouth hung open, his neck bent at an unnatural angle. The forest scavengers were already circling high above.

  Sera heaved up the contents of her stomach. The pressure in her head was excruciating, and every second, she worked to slow the flow of magic through her body. She was dying.

  “You’re all right. It’s all right.” Alistair had his hands on her shoulders, was pulling her hair away from her face.

  She gasped and clung to him.

  “Shit,” he said and lifted her to a seated position. He knelt in front of her. “I’m going to try to heal your lungs.”

  Sera gave him a shallow nod. It was like her body had forgotten what it was like to draw in air.

  Ripping off his gloves, he settled his thumbs on her breastbone, his palms and fingers spread along her ribs as white light seeped from his fingers.

  His eyes were closed in concentration.

  Sera tried to memorize the planes of his face. High cheekbones, strong brow, and the way his lips quivered in concentration.

  “Breathe, damn it!”

  Cool air flooded her chest, and on her exhale, she sobbed.

  “Well, your lips aren’t blue anymore,” he said after a few moments and let her go. She instantly missed the warmth of his hands around her.

  Before she could thank him, Sera puked again.

  “Fuck,” Al said. “Can I carry you?” he asked, barely a whisper.

  She nodded and reached for him. He scooped her into his arms, grabbed both packs, and threw them over one shoulder.

  “We’ll make camp a little further south,” he murmured into her ear.

  Sera stared over his shoulder at the man who’d started this. Crows had landed around him, and she didn’t look away when they plucked out one of his eyes.

  Chapter twenty-five

  Seraphina

  It wasn’t the prodding that made her panic. It was the pops and crackles from the fire that caused Sera to wake up screaming. Snik slithered his way into her arms. His whines reverberated against her chest like a soothing purr.

  “Snik? You’re safe,” she croaked. Her throat was raw from either the vomiting or the smoke she’d inhaled.

  He’s safe. Yes. The people? She’d done it again, and every pop of a stick against flame made her twitch.

  “Are you all right?” Alistair asked from across the fire.

  Sera ran a shaky hand through her hair. She didn’t remember being set down on her bedroll, nor Al making camp. The last thing she remembered seeing was the empty eye sockets of the man who was going to rape her.

  Sera nodded.

  “I moved us south. You won’t have to see him again,” he said, breaking off a piece of a stick and tossing it into the flames. He must have been doing that for a while. A pile of burning stubs lay near his side.

  “Thank you.” Snik was warm in her arms, a blessing, since she wanted to be as far away from that fire as possible. Flame and death, that’s what she was. Destruction… an end.

  Al wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I shouldn’t have let him approach the stairs.”

  “It’s not your fault. How would you have known he was coming to our door?” Our door, like this was something permanent, like they could go back and spend their whole lives drinking ale and dancing the night away. As if the entire world wasn’t crumbling around them and she wasn’t burning and killing and ruining everything she touched.

  “I’m supposed to protect you.”

  She froze at that word. Always needing to be protected. Defective, spineless, incapable. Her mother’s words churned through her head, causing her darkness to rouse. Sera quickly bound what magic she had, envisioning the cage and locking it away. “You’re supposed to find the oracle. If I survive, great, but your mission isn’t to protect me.”

  Too much talking. Her lungs protested despite Al’s healing. They were bruised, the muscles around her rib cage sore.

  “You think I’d let harm come to you, Sera?”

  She didn’t have an answer for that.

  “Why didn’t you run?”

  Sera stared into the fire. The movement of the flames matched what had licked up the tavern walls. Instead of the reds, oranges, and blues, all she could see were black, gray, and white—mist, fog, and burning.

  “Sera, when I traveled back, you were just standing there. Why didn’t you try to get out?”

  Her palms itched as she willed the darkness to stay in the cage within her. She’d never wanted this. Of all the times she had, as a witchling, prayed to Shadow for more power, this had never been what she wanted. “I thought maybe I deserved it. That I should die there.”

  “How could you think that?”

  “Who would care if I went up in flames?” She swirled her fingers in the soil.

  “Are you insane?” Al wiped a hand over his mouth.

  Her mind jumped from one thing to the next. A useless waste of space. Too tiny a well. She didn’t even know why the Council wanted her to try to find the doorways to Gehenna, and she’d been too cowardly to ask. A barb of hot anger ripped through her. She set Snik on her bedroll.

  “Wouldn’t it have been easier?” Her throat protested. “Or were you too worried about leaving a recruit behind? That if I died, you wouldn’t get a promotion?”

  “How fucking dare you,” he growled at her. “How fucking dare you think all I care about is a promotion, Sera. What the fuck even is this?”

  She wanted a fight. To rip him limb from limb, to feel something other than the constant pressure of limiting herself. To stop struggling.

  “Like you know me so well?” she huffed, slamming her hand on her bedroll. Snik winced as she stood and began to pace. She was overheating, and it was fueling her anger.

  “We may not have been friends the last seven years, but I know you matter.” He stood before her. His gaze was intense, sweeping over her face and mouth. “Not just to me, but to Dominick, Honora, and your mother.”

  “My mother doesn’t care about me,” she hissed. “All she cares about is the seat on the Council that she’s been working toward half her life, and Nora. Her instructions were to give myself up to save my sister. A bargaining chip, a trade, and a fucking poor one.”

  Alistair grabbed her wrists and pulled her forearms to his chest. She could feel his heartbeat galloping at the same speed as hers.

  Alistair leaned down, his breath scorching her skin just below her ear. Sera shuddered at the sensation. “Get over yourself. You’re not the only one who had a hard life.”

  He let her go. And there, in the middle of each palm, was a burn. Al wiped his hands on his pants and swore, leaving her beside the fire.

  She rifled through both packs, hoping her journal had been tucked between pants and tunics, or somewhere else where she couldn’t see it. She needed Dom: a balance, her anchor, someone to keep her from spinning out of control.

  The longer she rummaged, the more panic set in.

  Alistair walked into the camp, shirtless and wet.

  Very wet.

  Water dripped from his hair down his corded neck, shoulders, and chest.

  He was made for battle. Every inch of him was hard muscle. His defined abs had a trail of hair down the center, leading below the waistband of his pants.

  His hands… The injuries were so similar to what she had done to her mother’s. Not as severe, but moons, they had to be painful.

  “What are you doing now?” he asked.

  “Looking for my journal,” she said. “Have you seen it?”

  Alistair shook his head and threw his shirt down amid the other clothing and trinkets. “I’m going to assume by this”—he motioned with his damaged hands to the mess strewn around her—“that it wasn’t in your pack?” He reached for a roll of bandages and slowly wrapped each palm.

  “I was writing in it before… Did you grab it, by chance?”

  “The room was in flames. I barely got your map in time.”

  “Fuck,” she whispered. “Fuck!”

  “I’ll buy you a new journal,” he said, tenderly putting his gloves on over his bandaged palms.

  “It was enchanted.” This couldn’t be happening. That was the only way to communicate with Dom and get information about Nora.

  No control. She had no control and no way to figure out how to fix that. Ironoak was probably soot now.

  She wiped the tears from her cheeks.

  Failure. Disappointment. Spineless.

  “Have you cried since Nora was taken?” he asked softly.

  “I feel like I haven’t stopped.”

  An air of melancholy surrounded him, and he traced the palm of his glove, clenching his jaw, his dark wet hair flopping across his brow. Shadow, what was wrong with her? She was bitching about her journal, and he was in pain.

  “How are your hands?”

  He flexed his fingers in his gloves. “This isn’t anything to worry about.”

  “Why did they do that when you grabbed me?” She was terrified to hear the answer.

  “Could have been anything. That magic was… unnatural, and you were surrounded by it; you inhaled it. I’ve never seen a demon use that kind of power before, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t evolving. It also doesn’t help that you’re constantly cuddled up with that beast over there.”

  Snik responded with a snore. The goblin lay curled in her bedroll like a sleeping cat; he hadn’t even moved when she’d tossed the clothes on top of him.

  Alistair thought it was demon magic. Sera held her head in her hands. She felt like she was being pulled from the inside out, raw and frayed. She pulled Snik closer, curling around the goblin. She wanted to waste away, to be free from carrying these burdens. The killing of innocent humans. The harm done to Nora, Dom, and now Alistair was all because of her. She was alone in this.

  She reached for her pack and downed one of her elixirs, praying for a soundless sleep.

  Above the chirping of crickets and the crackling of the fire, she heard Al moving something around. Then he lay beside her.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered.

  “If you think I’m going to let you sleep unguarded, you’re out of your mind.”

  If she took a deep enough breath, the planes of her back would brush against his. She didn’t want to admit that the thought soothed her. No matter how many times she’d wanted to refuse his help, anyone’s help, she knew now she couldn’t. She needed Alistair Alcott in more ways than one.

  That fact clawed at the back of her mind like a rat trying to escape flames. And there was nothing she could do about it.

  Safely tucked between Al and Snik, she wondered what it would feel like to fall asleep in his arms, to feel truly safe, to let herself be taken care of.

  But a desperate witch was never safe.

  The calm rise and fall of Al’s breathing could have lulled her back to sleep. Snik had rustled her awake before venturing out into the woods for his morning hunt, leaving her to stretch, turn, and tap Al on the shoulder.

  He startled and threw his arm in the air. Suddenly a domed white barrier surrounded them.

  “How many powers do you possess?”

  “Shadow, Sera, stop touching Snik, then me. I thought I was stabbed.” He dropped the shield and rubbed sleep from his eyes. He was still shirtless from last night, and goose bumps now rippled over him.

  Where her fingertips had touched him were raised purple welts.

  “Sorry,” she said. Al covered her delicious view of his far-too-chiseled chest with his shirt. “And thank you,” she added.

  “For?”