“What happened?” Ava asked, examining Will’s bite wound.

“Merodach,” I squeaked. “And Rikken. They ambushed us. Rikken bit him.”

“Rikken?” Sabina repeated. “That was the name of the reaper?”

I nodded, my eyes on Will’s shuddering form.

“I know him,” she said. “No one has survived a bite from Rikken.”

A wail escaped from me and Marcus stomped in front of me, snarling at Sabina. “That is not helping. What’s the matter with you?”

Her mouth opened and her eyes widened as if she didn’t know what she’d just said. “I—I’m sorry. Rikken’s venom takes about a week to kill. We have that long to save the Guardian.”

A week. A week left for Will to live. A week of horrific torture and pain. I was starting to hyperventilate.

“I’ll be right back,” Marcus said, touching my cheek to reassure me. “I have to return Kate’s car to her and bring my own back before she gets suspicious and wonders where you and Will are. The less she knows, the better.”

I nodded and chewed on my bottom lip as it trembled against another sob building in my throat. Marcus disappeared, and a quiver of despair shot through me. My face was sticky with tears and smeared makeup, but I didn’t care that I looked like a train wreck. Sabina and Ava turned back to the table and began removing Will’s jacket. He shuddered with every breath, and his eyes were closed tightly with pain. I didn’t know if he was conscious.

Ava held out her hand and summoned her sword. She leaned over Will and touched the blade to his chest.

I was there in a flash, my sword in my hand, the tip pressed into Ava’s jugular. She froze in place and looked at me out the corner of her eye. “What are you doing?” I snarled hoarsely through my tears.

“I need to see how badly it has spread,” she responded in a calm voice.

For a moment, I felt absurd pointing a sword at Ava’s throat while wearing my prom dress. It was ripped and bloodied—completely destroyed. I looked from Ava to Will and back again.

“Ellie?”

I startled, letting my weapon disappear and nodding numbly. She eyed me for a few more seconds before drawing her blade across Will’s sleeve, carefully cutting it open to reveal the terrible wound on his arm. She removed the cloth of his shirt until he was naked from the waist up. When I saw his skin, my heart lodged in my throat. Black spiderweblike lines extended up his wounded arm and across his chest, pooling thickly over his heart. The black lines traced every vein and artery beneath his skin, and a powerful memory struck me hard: The day of my seventeenth birthday, in the girls’ room, the same spidery lines had covered my face the way they covered Will’s body. Had I foreseen the same event that Kelaeno had prophesied? Had the darkness I originally saw in myself really been a warning?

Your strength in heart and hand will fall….

Ava was saying something to Sabina and possibly to me, but I couldn’t hear a word. I was shaking, staring at Will as his body trembled and his head thrashed from side to side in agony.

“Ellie. Ellie!”

I was brought back to my senses at Ava’s sharp voice barking my name.

“Sabina, get her out of here,” Ava growled. “She can’t handle this.”

“No!” I flailed against Sabina as she turned me around. “Let go of me!” I shoved Sabina in the chest and she lost her balance. Stepping back, I slammed into Marcus’s body as he appeared in the doorway. His hands grabbed a firm hold of my shoulders.

“What’s going on?” he asked, his voice and expression filled with concern.

I shoved him off me. “Nothing! I’ll just go.”

Marcus blinked at me and exchanged glances with Ava. “Why? We need you here.”

“No, you don’t,” I snarled back. “I’m going to do something about this. Give me your keys.”

“To my car?”

“Yes!” I held out my hand. “Give them to me before I take them from you!”

He dropped the keys into my palm. “I don’t know where you’re going, but please, for the love of God, don’t scratch my car.”

I made an ugly noise and stomped past him. I yanked open the door of Marcus’s Maserati and threw myself into the seat. I wasn’t even sure I remembered how to drive a stick like this. My dad had taught me how, but that was so long ago. My knees curled up to my chest, and I buried my face in my hands. I let myself cry for just a minute, just long enough to clear my thoughts for an instant, just long enough to remember something that Will had said to me months ago, something I already knew.

The Maserati’s tires squealed as I peeled out of the driveway. The car had a voice-recognition satellite phone built into it. I instructed the car to dial a number.

After one ring at the other end of the line, a slightly surprised voice answered, “This had better be a booty call.”

“Cadan.” I was exhausted and irritated, my voice barely able to work. “Where are you?”

“So it is a booty call.”

“Cadan!” I shouted, half sobbing. I took a deep breath to calm myself. “This is serious. Where are you?”

A hesitation. “My apartment. In Troy.”

“What’s the address?”

I barged through the door of his apartment and moved through the entry into the living area. He stood in the center of the room, one hand holding a glass of deep gold liquid, the other in his pocket. His fiery opal eyes opened wide as he registered my terrible appearance, my ripped and bloodied dress, my makeup smeared with tears down my cheeks.