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Warm blood is trickling down the side of my face. I yank my arm out of my sleeve and roll along the ground, shedding my coat before the first Wraith can cut into my side with its teeth. My hand shoots out, fighting to grab its arm and claim its soul.

But the Wraith fixes its milky eyes on me, then lunges again. Before me, the child turns around and bares a row of needle-sharp teeth.

I throw myself to the ground. The Wraith and child collide, snarling at each other, and I scramble to my feet. Both Wraiths lock on me again, claws and teeth clacking. I dart to one side, then grab the child by its wrist. It shrieks, whirling on me—

—but I’m already claiming its soul, and in an instant, it bursts into a thousand fragments of shadows before vanishing.

Then the first Wraith picks me up like a rag doll and slams me against the brick wall.

Stars explode in my vision. I twist myself around and come face-to-face with the first Wraith, a growl of fury distorting its features, its head tilted at an impossible angle, its cavernous mouth yawning as if to devour me.

It sinks its teeth deep into my shoulder.

The pain is instantaneous and agonizing, unlike anything I’ve ever felt in my life. Fire floods my veins. It is the bite of a cobra—immortal venom surging through my body as the Wraith’s jaw closes harder.

Poisonous, Étienne had said.

I let out a choked cry and thrash, trying to rip myself away from it without opening the injury further. But already, I can feel the poison coursing through my veins, my body numbing in response.

I stagger, then try again to seize the Wraith’s arm. But my grip is too weak now, my fingers unable to close. Everything leaves my mind—my Regent tests, my oath as a Harbinger, my patron god. A slew of thoughts rushes in to fill the absence.

The poison is paralyzing me. The alveoli in my lungs will be unable to transmit air to the rest of my body. My mind will shut down, choked off from oxygen, and the world around me will turn black-and-white.

I’m going to die. And that means Laine’s going to die. I fall to my hands and knees against dry pavement, gasping for air. Over me, the Wraith grins and lunges, maw open.

And then—right as I close my eyes and brace for the Wraith’s teeth—there is a rush of dark wind—

—the sudden presence of someone before me—

And in an instant, the Wraith explodes into a thousand flecks of shadow.

Before me stands my patron god, his jaw set, his gray eyes alight with quiet rage.

The other Wraiths sense his immortality, too, and shrink away in fear, but they are too slow.

“Enough,” Raven growls, and snaps his fingers.

And at once, the other Wraiths disintegrate in a burst of shadows, the echo of their shrieks all that remains.

I can’t concentrate on anything else except my breathing. Every lungful of air is labored. The numbness has crawled through my entire body now, so that I can’t even feel the wall against my back. Am I injured? Bleeding? I smell a coppery tang in the air, and vaguely remember the blood on the side of my face.

Then Raven is leaning down to me, his gray eyes narrowed. He lifts me off the ground as if I weigh nothing, and I lean weakly against his chest. My vision darkens, and in a moment of confusion, I think I’m back in my recurring dream.

Release me, I hear myself whisper.

Through my fading senses, I hear his reply echo in my mind.

No. Stay, Rose.

Then even that disappears, and I sink into a bottomless sea.

20

The world around me is dim, appearing and vanishing in snatches of blurred light. Time comes in patches, advancing like normal and then suddenly retreating again, so that sometimes I think I can sense the passing of a day and other times I think I’ve returned to my childhood.

The uneven change in time disorients me. I can’t remember anything. My head feels heavy, and the weight slows my thoughts. Through the fog, I struggle to piece together something that makes sense.

The still night. The Wraiths, one after another, gathering around me like a thickening cloud. The feeling of the creature’s teeth sinking deep into my arm, and the indescribable pain that followed.