wake up.
When the heat of the creature’s breath cooled over her skin, she lurched to her feet. Her boots slipped and slid over the dusty floor as she pivoted to square off with the beast.
Twin pools of Netherfire burned from the shadows, searing into her. She searched their depths for a hint of Stolas, something she could connect with, but—
Nothing—there was nothing but molten fury and grief and pain.
A low growl filled the space between them as the creature saw the golden orb hovering above her palm. She must have subconsciously drawn out her light magick.
“Don’t make me use this,” she pleaded, willing Stolas to hear her.
Wake up, Stolas.
She knew it was going to lunge by the way its hindquarters rippled. Her magick arced across the shadows and broke across its muzzle. The bitter scent of singed hair was followed by a sharp yelp of pain.
She flinched from that horrible sound, scrambling backward through the debris. The shelves rose around her, providing the illusion of safety.
Deep down she knew there was nowhere safe from a creature that could crack stone like it was rotted wood.
But she clung to the illusion anyway.
The shelf to her left groaned, warping inward seemingly in slow motion as the wolf tore into it. Splinters of wood and fragments of clay and glass peppered her face, her injured arm. Throwing up a temporary shield, she managed to deflect the worst of it. White fangs gnashed against the golden bubble of magick between her and the beast, but the magick wouldn’t last for long.
She needed to distract it. What could distract a wolf?
The answer had barely formed in her mind before she was throwing out sparks of magick. A rune was drawn over each one, and the sparks flared into glowing field rabbits that scampered across the floor around the wolf’s giant paws.
It snapped its teeth over the magickal creatures. The impact rattled her bones.
The wolf wouldn’t be satisfied with such empty prey for long. Her heart lodged in her throat as she sprinted through the maze of shelving.
Stolas’s familiar was worse than she imagined. A frenzied beast of nightmares. There was no reaching it. No bond that she could see to Stolas.
Blood soaked the sleeve of her tunic and dripped to the floor. Her back stung where it must have caught her earlier. Adrenaline turned the pain into a relentless throb, but her gut said the cuts were deep.
A thud jerked her attention to her right. She took in the approaching shadowy figure—
“Bell?” she hissed. “How?”
He bent over, positioning his hands on his knees as he sucked in air. “I just . . . climbed my way down. It was a combination of . . . gravity and . . . falling.”
“Idiot,” she muttered.
Another light thud revealed Surai, who landed much more elegantly. A magickal rabbit darted between her legs, its apricot-colored light gliding up the blades of her twin katanas.
“Thought you might need some help, Soror.” Her lavender gaze slid to Haven’s wound, the destroyed shelves behind her, and the flaming rabbits scuttling around the room. “Looks like we were right.”
“Nasira and the others are trying to get past Stolas’s wards to his chamber,” Bell explained. A golden orb tinged and feathered with red danced between his fingers. It was perfectly constructed, an offensive display the most distinguished lightcaster would be proud of.
“Someone’s been practicing,” she whispered, not that she expected anything less from her studious, overachieving friend.
Bell’s pearl-white teeth flashed. “I mean, not to brag but—”
An ear-splitting howl cut him off. Too far—the howl was too far away. Which meant . . .
The object! Runes.
Haven darted around the shelf and searched the darkness for the creature, following the sound of cracking wood and shattering to the far side of the room. Every crash was punctuated by frenzied inhalations.
Any moment the wolf would discover the object it hunted and destroy it, sealing Stolas’s fate.
She ran toward the creature. Her frantic pulse lashed her skin.
Don’t find it. Don’t find it. Don’t find—
A booming creak, like metal being warped, echoed off the walls, and then a massive crack sent her heart into overdrive. She leapt across an overturned shelf in time to see what was left of a large iron cage rent in two. The Shadow Wolf had peeled back the iron bars just enough that it could fit its giant head inside, but not enough to allow its shoulders access.
The focus of its rage was something oblong and around her height, covered in a lacy black