through the ringing in Elisabeth’s ears. Ahead, a section of the wall had been breached, its machinery a smoking ruin. As she stared around, trying to get her bearings, a warden staggered back through the breach, grayness creeping across his features like frost. When he had almost reached the library’s doors, he collapsed into dust.
The next cannon barrage illuminated a figure rearing above the rampart, the tines of its antlers stretching toward the moon. With a sideways slash, the antlers took out a cannon, tossing it aside in a spray of masonry.
Elisabeth took a faltering step backward. It didn’t seem possible, but— “It’s gotten huge,” she shouted over the din.
“It’s drawing strength from each life it takes,” Nathaniel shouted back. “It will only keep growing larger and more powerful.”
She turned to him, the wind tangling her hair around her face. “We have to stop it.”
Nathaniel’s gray eyes lingered on hers. Then he nodded. He bowed his head, his lips moving. Clouds swept over the moon and engulfed the stars. For a moment, the wind stilled completely. An eerie calm descended over the courtyard as the cannons ceased firing, unable to spot their target in the dark. Even the tolling of the bell sounded muffled. In the sudden quiet, Nathaniel’s incantation seemed to grow louder, the Enochian syllables echoing from the walls.
“It’s the sorcerer,” a warden called out. “There he is!”
Elisabeth had been afraid of this. With no evidence of Ashcroft’s involvement, Nathaniel appeared to be responsible for the Chronicles’ escape. As wardens pelted in their direction, she stepped in front of him, Demonslayer at the ready. Silas leaped from his shoulder, human again before he struck the ground.
Demonslayer clashed against the closest warden’s sword, the vibration shuddering up her arm. He had the advantage of skill, but she was taller and stronger. Parrying recklessly, she managed to block his strikes until their blades locked.
“He isn’t the saboteur!” she shouted over their crossed weapons.
The warden didn’t listen. Veins stood out in his face as he pushed against her, his sword screeching dangerously along Demonslayer’s edge. Her stomach turned when she realized she might have to start fighting him in earnest—perhaps even risk killing him. She couldn’t hold him off for much longer without one of them getting hurt.
Nearby, Silas neatly sidestepped another warden’s swing, appearing behind him in the same breath. He seized the man’s wrist and twisted. There came a sickening crack, and the warden yelled and dropped his sword. Before the weapon fell, Silas had already moved on to the next attacker in a blur of movement. One by one, wardens dropped like chess pieces around Nathaniel, left moaning and cradling their broken limbs.
Wind sliced across the courtyard. Nathaniel raised his head, his hair wild, his eyes rimmed with an emerald glow. Fire danced along his fingertips. He looked like a demon himself. Through bared teeth, he uttered the final syllables of the incantation.
Elisabeth gasped when she lifted from the ground, the toes of her boots weightlessly brushing the flagstones. Electricity snapped through the air, crackling over her clothes and standing her hair on end. The energy built and built until she thought her eardrums would burst—only to release in a rush that pulsed through her body, accompanied by a boom of thunder that felt as though the sky had plunged down to slam against the earth. Gravity yanked her back to the ground as a bolt of lightning flashed on the opposite side of the wall. It struck once, twice, three times, and kept going, each blinding, sizzling blast twisting between the Malefict’s antlers and coursing down its body in rivers of green light.
When the lightning finally ceased, her vision was too full of smoke and blotched purple afterimages to see what had happened. But she was able to venture a guess when a tremor ran through the courtyard, as though something heavy had fallen, and a cheer rose from the ramparts.
With a great shove, Elisabeth heaved the warden away. He stumbled, appearing uncertain. More wardens had arrived on the scene, but they hung back, staring at Nathaniel.
His chest heaved. Sparks flickered over his body; miniature bolts of lightning crackled between the tips of his fingers and the flagstones. As if that weren’t enough, he was grinning.
One of the wardens started forward.
“Stand down,” snapped a voice from above. A stocky woman with close-cropped hair stood on one of the stairways that zigzagged up the inner side of the rampart, watching them. She vaulted over the railing and landed