This time, I was the one who screamed.

“Lila!” I thought I heard Devon shout my name above the clashes, clangs, and snarls of the fight, but I couldn’t be sure.

Lucky for me, my attacker’s aim was low, and the edge of his sword only caught me in my left thigh, and not across my gut. Still, the wound hurt, like a line of fire running across my leg, and I could feel blood sliding down my skin. Since the blow hadn’t been caused by any magic, my own Talent didn’t kick in, and the wound didn’t make me stronger.

My attacker rolled off the table, regained his balance, and lunged at me again. Given my injury, he managed to knock my legs out from under me, and I went down on one knee next to a bookcase, all the air driven out of my lungs. The man loomed over me, grinning. He drew his sword back, ready to drive it into my skull.

I sucked down a breath and managed to roll to my right. The man’s sword stabbed into the spot where my head had been a second before, spearing a book on the shelf there. He let out an angry roar and shook his sword, trying to get the book to fly off the end of the blade.

I landed on my injured leg, and more pain shot through my body, making me hiss, but I managed to stagger back up and onto my feet. The man finally hurled the book off the point of his sword and charged at me again, moving even faster than before. There was no way I could kill him, not now.

Not without using my transference Talent to make me strong enough to keep fighting.

This time, instead of raising his sword, the man drew back his fist. I closed my eyes, stood my ground, and let him punch me in the face. One, two, three. That’s how many blows he landed in quick succession, using his speed Talent, before I managed to stagger back out of his reach.

But it was worth it when the sharp, stinging pain from his punches froze into that bitter, bitter cold that filled my body, giving me the strength to surge forward again.

The man lashed out with his fist, but I anticipated the motion and caught his hand in mine. We stood there, seesawing back and forth. Confusion filled his face as he wondered why I was suddenly so much stronger than he was, but I didn’t plan on giving him a chance to puzzle it out. I brought my sword up between us, but he was still faster, and he finally did what I’d feared he would all along—he knocked my weapon out of my sweaty grasp.

I started to lunge for the sword, but the man slammed his hand into my chest, shoving me against a bookshelf. My head snapped back against the metal rack, and this time, not even the cold burn of magic in my veins was enough for me to shake off the white stars winking on and off in my field of vision. My legs went out from under me, and my ass hit the floor. The man stepped in front of me and raised his sword high, ready to bring it down across my chest. And all I could do was sit there in a daze and watch my own death happen—

“Stop!” a sharp voice rang out.

At the sound, a chill blasted through the entire library, one that tickled my skin in a familiar way. Was that . . . magic?

The man attacking me immediately froze, his sword held overhead, the muscles in his neck and arms tensing, straining, and swelling, as though he were fighting against whatever strange, invisible force was holding him in place.

Suddenly, Devon was there, crouching down on the floor next to me. His hand wrapped around mine, and he shielded me with his body, although he never took his eyes off the other man.

“Turn around,” Devon said in that same sharp tone.

More magic surged through the library in chilly waves, and Devon’s hand went as cold as ice against mine. The man did as Devon commanded, although he still struggled against whatever strange power was compelling him. No, not a strange power.

Devon—Devon was doing this.

Somehow, with just his voice, he was forcing my attacker to obey him. The man who had been about to kill me was now doing whatever Devon said, like a puppet dancing to someone else’s tune.

Eyes wide, I looked at Devon. The corner of his mouth turned up into a grim smile, but he kept his green gaze on the other man.

“Protect us,” he commanded, a strange, hard, terrible crack of magic in his voice.

Devon’s hand went colder still against mine, as though I were squeezing an ice cube between my fingers instead of flesh and blood.

The puppet man let out an angry roar, but he did as Devon had said. He whipped around, raised his sword high again, and charged into the two men that were left—his own men.

The first guy blocked the puppet man’s blow, and he stared at his friend in shock, as if the puppet man had suddenly gone mad. Maybe he had, because the puppet man kept attacking his friend, swinging his sword at him over and over again.

And then, the unthinkable happened. The puppet man, the one Devon was controlling, buried his sword in his friend’s heart, killing him. Then he turned and did the same thing to the second man.

Still, as shocking as all of that was, I scanned the library for the last man standing, so to speak, the mystery man who’d been leading our attackers. Where was he—

Devon let out a surprised hiss. One moment, he was crouched next to me, holding my hand in his magic-chilled one. The next, he’d been hauled upright by the mystery man, who had one hand clamped over Devon’s mouth and a dagger pressed up against his throat. Devon started to struggle, but the mystery man dug the blade into Devon’s neck, cutting him.

“You move, you speak, you die!” the mystery man snarled.

Devon’s eyes met mine, and his fear socked me in the stomach. But once again, it wasn’t fear for himself, so much as it was for me and Felix. Somehow, I knew that Devon couldn’t use his Talent, his magic—not unless he could talk.