Page 16 of The Demon Tide

The child startles and ducks behind her mother, who is watching me through fever-dazed eyes, shock evident on her wan face. The young teen glances at them, then me, and nods stiffly.

Forcing my bruised body into motion, I resheathe my blades and stalk to one of the smoldering bats. Through the flames, I yank the girl’s knife from its tough hide. Then I turn and stride to her, ignoring the stabbing pain in my ankle. I hold the weapon out to her, hilt first.

She meets my gaze, vulnerability breaking through as she lets out a quavering breath, then nods, relief overtaking her expression as she accepts the blade.

The immensity of the situation is suddenly bearing down on me like deadweight. I’m outwardly calm, but my blood is hammering at my temples, dread unfolding in the pit of my stomach.

I’m on a collision course with Vogel and the Prophecy.

Lukas is gone. Chi Nam too. And Ancient One knows what happened to Valasca.

I rake my fingers through my tangled gray hair, a barrage of grief and longing for Lukas—for all of them—hitting me with eviscerating force. I’m splayed open by it, unmoored, my breaths coming in uneven, shuddering waves.How can I face this alone?

A heart-shattering memory of Lukas’s voice fills my mind.You’re stronger than you think. I’m sure of it. I always have been.

The will to fight back wrests hold, spearing up through the grief.

Fueled by it.

It surprises me, how intensely and tenaciously it grips hold.It’s what he would have wanted, I insist to myself, tightening my chest against the upswell of sorrow.It’s what they all would have wanted. They’d want me to stay sharp and persevere.

Steadied, I stride back toward the bats, their charred heads spitting flame and dark smoke. I pause over the nearest corpse and survey the unfamiliar Shadow rune on its chest, knowing that I’m looking at my enemy.

The enemy who killed Lukas.

“Watch for movement in the trees or sky,” I caution the teen over my shoulder. She nods and grips her blade tighter as I set my gaze back on the corrupted beast and lower myself to one knee before it.

Slim, almost elegant tendrils of Shadow are curling from the circular rune on its charred chest, a palpable tang of energy hovering in the air around it. Cautiously, I pass my hand through the smoke, and the tendrils flash silver as they prickle my skin with an unnatural shiver. The Wand of Myth’s subtle, comforting buzz against my calf cuts out.

Like it’s hiding.

Focus sharpening, I draw my hand through the tendrils, the unsettling shiver increasing, then press my palm down on the Shadow rune.

The shivering energy explodes outward, the purple world dimming. My fastlines appear from beneath my gray glamour, the dark, looping lines taking form on my hand and wrist. Alarm knifes through me as I move to wrench my hand back, only to find it fused to the rune.

A translucent image of Lukas appears, superimposed on the scene before me. He’s shirtless and breathing heavily, his muscular body bound to the stony ground by some kind of Shadow vines, his wand hand splayed out and vine-webbed to a cavern’s floor. Bloodred lash marks crisscross his chest, and there are bars made of Shadow behind him.

Every emotion in me surges up, hot and hard.

“Lukas!”

He meets my eyes, defiance rearing in his gaze’s green depths. “Go straight to hell, Marcus,” he snarls as a phantom hand clutching a dark gray wand is raised before me, seeming as if it’smyhand,myvision. The wand lowers and touches Lukas’s fastlines, and he groans, body stiffening in evident pain.

“Lukas!”I cry again, scrabbling to touch him, my hand passing straight through the phantom image. Energy prickles along the back of my neck, and I’ve the sudden, unnatural sense of an awareness provoked.

Lukas’s image whisks from sight, my focus hurtling back to the wraith bat corpse before me, the Shadow rune’s hold on my hand abruptly releasing.

My throat clenches. “No... Lukas...no.”

I frantically press both hands onto the rune, but its smoke has vanished, along with the mist that was emanating from the runes on the other bats, only their gray imprints remaining. I lift my hands, a light-headed rush streaking through me as I find that my fastlines are once more hidden beneath my glamour.

As if something cut a connection.

My heart pounds harder.

Lukas is alive. He’s alive.

Frantic, I struggle to find clarity. The not-fully-charged portal I went through must have had a sizable time lag, I realize, even though the journey seemed over in the blink of an eye.

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