“Will!” My voice was strangled, and I leaned protectively over what was left of Nathaniel. “Will, stop!”

He couldn’t hear me, couldn’t hear or see anything. I realized then how terrified he was for me when I let my emotions and power take over.

“Will, you have to stop! You’re going to get yourself killed!”

A blast of power sent tremors through the earth, and I grabbed at the ground for balance.

“Will, stop!” I screamed, but my voice was lost in the chaos.

Merodach’s elbow smashed right into Will’s nose, knocking him back several steps. The demonic reaper spun and kicked Will so hard he nearly hit the ground. Merodach spun again and pierced his sword right through Will’s chest, splashing blood across his white wings. Will collapsed onto his knees, and I screamed, scrambling to my feet and taking off at a run toward him. I couldn’t lose them both tonight. I couldn’t lose Will. I couldn’t lose him.

Rikken emerged into my vision a few yards away, drenched with blood as if he’d bathed in it. Nathaniel hadn’t killed him after all. A shadow stretched directly over me. I looked up.

The last thing I saw was the back of Kelaeno’s hand slamming into my face.

25

“LET ME GO! SOMEBODY HELP ME! HELP ME, please!”

The voice screamed inside my head and stung my ears. I groggily shook myself awake, my skull hammering with pain, trying to figure out if the voice screaming was my own or not. My body was vertical, this much I could tell. My wrists were cut by the chains binding them over my head, and my healing shoulder throbbed. I slit my eyes open and could tell the light was dim wherever I was. The air was cold and damp, like I was underground—in a cellar.

“You!” the voice said again, hushed but frantic. “Are you alive? You awake?”

Not my own voice. I lifted my head painfully and forced my eyes open. The low light made it easier, but every muscle and joint in my body ached. I was definitely in a cellar with torches flickering firelight off stone walls.

“Hey! Girl!”

The voice was making my head hurt worse. I looked in the direction it came from and found a blond girl about my age standing next to me a few feet away. No, not standing. Chained. Her wrists were chained to the low ceiling, just as mine were. A stab of panic hit straight through my gut as I snapped my head up. I yanked on the chains as hard as I could, my body shaking with fear. They wouldn’t budge. Dust clouded above me, but the chains didn’t break. I summoned my power and gave a tremendous jerk, but still nothing. Fear turned into shock and confusion. Iron chains shouldn’t be able to hold me. I’d brought down an entire warehouse before, just by willing my power. This made no sense. None of this made sense.

But why was I here? How did I get here?

“Are you okay?” the girl asked. “Hey! Are you deaf?”

“No,” I snapped, my voice hoarse. “I’m not deaf. I’m thinking. Or trying to, at least.” I looked around the room, looking for anything familiar, but I’d never been here or seen this girl before.

And then it hit me, the memory rolling in like acid fog.

Nathaniel.

Will.

Nathaniel was dead and Will probably was too.

I couldn’t breathe. I gasped for air—rapid, uncontrolled gasps. My lungs wouldn’t work. My heart pounded and my vision faded to black as I sagged heavily against my chains. I felt like I was dying. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I wept for my friends. The memory of Nathaniel turning to stone in my arms and Will taking Merodach’s blade to his chest was too much. I cried and thrashed and screamed, cursing the demonic reapers and swearing to tear them apart piece by piece.

Then I swallowed hard and forced my tears to cease. I had to be brave. I had to escape and get back to Will if he was still alive. If he was dead, I’d have known. I’d have felt it in my soul. Now I had to get myself out of this, because no one was coming for me.

And my panic wasn’t helping the girl I was imprisoned with to stay calm.

“Are you okay?” she asked once I’d stopped crying. Her face was streaked with dirt and bloody scrapes.

I ignored her question. “Where are we?”

She shook her head weakly. “I don’t know. A basement, I think.”

Useless. “How long have you been down here?”

“A day. Maybe two. I don’t know. They’ve only come down once since I woke up in here.”

“They?”

She was quiet for a moment, her pale blue eyes locking on mine. “Monsters.”

Reapers. “Do you know why you’re here?”

“No. Do you?”

Yes. Maybe. “We have to stay calm.”

“I’m scared,” she said, shaking. “And I haven’t eaten in so long. I don’t feel well.”

“Hey,” I said sharply, just as she was about to cry. “I’m going to figure out how to get out of here.” The problem was, I had no idea how to do that. Something was keeping me weak. I wasn’t so sure I could bust out of these chains by brute strength alone.

My necklace was gone, and my strength felt like it had gone with it. Kelaeno had broken it, and I felt its loss dearly. I looked around the room more carefully. On the left wall of the cellar, past the girl beside me, was a staircase. When I looked through the darkness to the opposite wall, my heart stopped and some invisible horror tore through my stomach.

The sarcophagus. The stone box stood vertical against the wall so that I stared at its lid as if it were a doorway. On one side of it was a wooden table with a large, weathered old book opened on it, but it was too far away for me to read the text. Beside the book was a rough clay bowl and an ornate, ancient-looking box. A silver dagger lay on the other side of the book.