“Right now,” he finally says, “I’m beginning to lose my patience. You know Myriad is perfect for you, and yet you resist making covenant. You know you fit with us. Know you’ll be happiest with us.”

Moonlight...sunlight.

Vengeance...forgiveness.

Fused...solo.

He’s wrong. How can I ever know?

I stand, swaying when my knees shake. “I’m finding the other inmates and—”

“No, lass, you’re going to sleep.” A certain command. “The medicine will—”

“Do me a favor and don’t be here when I return,” I interject. As I step forward, a wave of black sweeps over me. I fall. What the—

“—activate any second,” he finishes as his strong arms catch me. He eases me to the ground, and I know nothing more.

* * *

Gasping, I open my eyes and jerk upright. A collage of memories rush in at once. My escape. The fight with the giants. My rescuer, who is seated across from me, the fire crackling between us, tendrils of smoke curling to the roof of the cave. The walls are shaking, but soon stop. Another realm battle?

Killian doesn’t seem to notice. He’s comfortable in the darkness, a phantom within familiar depths.

A blue light emanates from his wrist, but with a single tap of his fingers, the light dies.

“You...that...” I stammer.

He dismisses my bafflement with a wave of his hand. “Sleeping beauty awakes at last.”

Irritation blooms. “Earlier you called me hideous. Basically a she-beast.”

“Earlier you were hideous. An absolute she-beast. Now the medicine has kicked in.”

The medicine... “How long was I out?” I ask with bite.

“Roughly six hours.”

There are six points on the Star of David. Six, the atomic number for carbon. A six-pack of beer—what I could use right now.

“Here’s a better question,” he says. “Do you feel as good as you look?”

I...do feel good, I realize. The wound on my wrist is nothing more than a long, thin scab, the stitches absent. Dissolved? The knots in my muscles have loosened, and when I gingerly pat my jaw, I note the swelling is down.

“I’m not going to say thank-you,” I mutter. He helped me for his gain, not mine. “Not again.”

“You prefer to thank me with action instead? Well, I accept.”

I give him a double-birded salute. How’s that for action?

He laughs outright, the sound of it rusty. “I’ve never understood the insult of showing off your middle finger. I’m number one in your book—what’s to hate about that?” As he speaks, he reaches over, slides the scalpel from my pocket and turns, flinging the metal across the cave.

I gasp with surprise and confusion. Then I see the scalpel embedded in the throat of an intruder. A pained grunt echoes as the masked man falls to his face.

Killian jumps to his feet. “Stay here, lass. I want you protected at all times. Knowing you, however, you’ll decide to run. If so, all you have to do is stay alive. I’ll find you.”

My heart knocks against my ribs as he flies through the exit.

I rush to the injured man’s side to rip off his mask, and a chill skims over me. He’s a guard from Prynne. He worked there four months, six days and eight hours, during which I endured sixteen eyebrow wiggles, twenty-seven lewd grins and three invitations to the party in his pants. If I “sucked him off,” he said, he’d give me a candy bar.

A candy bar. As if that’s all I’m worth.

The memory still boils my blood.

He peers at me, frantic, a rush of crimson gurgling from the corners of his mouth.

You don’t know his heart. He’s capable of change—we all are. Give him a second chance, Archer would probably say.

Remove his junk and stuff it in his mouth, Killian would definitely say. He can eat his own candy bar.

“I’ll help you. For chocolate.” My anger is speaking for me, more powerful than my capacity to forgive. “Don’t have any on you? Aw, too bad.” By the time I’ve relieved him of his winter gear—mask, goggles, insulated coat, heated gloves and socks...everything but the blood-soaked scarf—he’s dead.

I don’t feel guilty. I don’t!

Except dang it, I do. He never showed me a bit of compassion...and I acted just like him.

I dress as quickly as possible before stuffing the giant’s coat in the backpack, hoping to share my bounty with other inmates. Screw Killian’s order to stay here. Kids just like me are being hunted. I’m doing what I originally planned and finding as many inmates as I can. We’ll make our way...somewhere else. Somewhere far away from the asylum. Far away from our parents. Far away from Laborers who use without thought.

I yank the scalpel from the guard’s throat and clean the metal with the dry end of his scarf—a scarf I throw into the fire after returning the scalpel to my pocket. A weapon has never been more important.

I anchor the backpack over my shoulders, mentally polish the nuts I’m so infamous for, and step out of the cave. Night has arrived with a vengeance, the moon shielded by the tall canopy of snowcapped trees. My surroundings are nothing but doom and gloom...until the goggles switch on automatically and illuminate the world around me. A computerized scanning system even pinpoints Killian’s footprints. Great for me, but bad for the kids the guards are chasing. I head in the opposite direction, and lo and behold, the rest of the gear works wonders, keeping me warm and toasty.

The problem? The farther I get, the more a sea of dark thoughts bombards me, soon so loud I’m surprised I’m not surrounded by a crowd of people. Or...maybe I am surrounded. By people I can’t see. Messengers. Without Shells, they are spirits and therefore invisible to me.

I’ve heard Messengers are sometimes posted around homes and buildings to stop members of a rival realm from gaining entry.

Guess they can also be used to keep flight risks inside caves.

Go back, go back, one says. It’s not safe out here. You’ll die.

You’re going to die, die, die. Turn around, before it’s too late.

Go back! Your time is running out!

The words elicit fear, and as I’m learning, fear is Myriad’s greatest weapon. My heart sprints toward a nonexistent finish line. Fire burns the center of my chest while ice freezes the blood in my veins. I begin to pant, sweat beading on the back of my neck.

Almost too late...go back!

The ground shakes, and the whispers suddenly stop. I breathe a sigh of relief and continue forward. I’m not going to die, and I’m not going to pander to fear, giving it power over me—power to direct my actions.

What I do will be my choice, not the choice of my emotions.

One point in Troika’s favor.

And while the odds aren’t currently in my favor, I’m not helpless. I have my wits.

Trekking down the mountain, I count my steps. One, five, ten...twenty...fifty...one hundred. One hundred percent, the full amount. One hundred degrees Celsius, the boiling temperature of pure water at sea level. The sum of the first ten odd numbers. (1 + 3 + 5 + 7 + 9 + 11 + 13 + 15 + 17 + 19 = 100)

Any lingering fear finally drains, my physical reactions returning to normal. Good, that’s good. I pick up the pace, going another two hundred steps. Two hundred—bicentennial. The Latin word for this number, ducenti, also means “to the leading man.” Numerologists claim this particular number signifies insufficiency.