Panic seized Sparks.

  Reginald—kind, meticulous Reginald—was gone. In his place stood Victor, gun raised, speaking in a cold, familiar tone Sparks had only ever heard over the phone.

  It was him. It was always him.

  The decanter slipped from Victor’s hand, shattering across the floorboards. Sparks barely processed it. His instincts—sharp, survival-born—took over. He hurled Gaul’s jacket like the flare of a parachute, creating a blind between them the instant the gun went off.

  BANG!

  The bullet tore through the coat and caught his shoulder. Sparks spun with it, claws out, scrambling up the carpeted wall and onto one of the lofted cat-walks he’d built into the room for exercise. Blood slicked his sleeve. Pain crackled white-hot down his arm.

  Victor laughed.

  "You were always tricky, Sparks. But I know you. I know your habits. Your tendencies. I’ve studied you for years, cat. There is nowhere you can go that I haven’t planned for. Save us both the effort and just die."

  Sparks scanned the floor below, ears flat to his skull. The corgi had vanished from sight. Had he moved? Teleported? Focus. He searched with wide, dilated pupils—

  —and Kindling erupted from his pocket in a burst of blue flame, landing atop a side table and roaring loud enough to rattle the windows. Under the coffee table—a shadow flared outward.

  Got you.

  Sparks hung from the wall by a paw, ignoring the pain rippling through his shoulder. With the other, he spat a furious incantation and twisted his fingers at the revolver as he channeled magic into the world. Dipping into his reserve of power. The familiar heat rose in his chest.

  "Burn."

  A lance of orange heat slammed into the gun, the metal instantly reddening. Victor only grinned. He lifted a silver charm from his neck—an elemental nullifier—and the heat bled into it instead. The pendant pulsed, siphoning the spell.

  "It's useless, Sparks. I know all of your tricks! All your secrets. You think I wouldn’t prepare for—"

  The charm cracked.

  Victor’s eyes widened.

  A second later it burst, flames ripping through his vest and scorching his fur. The gun in his hand sizzled against the unprotected flesh of his paw.

  "You don’t know all my tricks, Reginald," Sparks snarled.

  He kicked off the wall and dove behind a recliner as bullets cracked overhead, bits of wall raining down. Kindling leapt from an end table, exploded into a roaring column of spectral fire and forced Victor back as the heat swept over him, smoldering his suit and fur.

  "To me!" Sparks called. Kindling wrapped a flaming tail around his wrist. They vanished in a burst of blue—

  —and reappeared outside on the front lawn, Sparks crashing to earth in a roll. He cradled Kindling, mind spinning. Home. Gone. What do I—

  Victor’s voice drifted through the broken window—distorted, resonant, wrong.

  "To be above all, you must be the only one contending."

  Sparks looked up. Victor was aiming past him—not at him.

  At Kindling.

  "NO!"

  The rune-etched revolver boomed—purple flame spitting from the barrel. The round crossed the lawn like a lightning bolt and struck Kindling square in the side. The Eidolon shrieked—an awful, animal sound—and Sparks felt it tear through his own head, blood running from his eyes as something ruptured. Rage fueled his spirit.

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  Sparks squeezed Kindling against his chest, eyes fixed on the gun. The metal turned cherry red…then white. The air shimmered.

  Victor tried to withstand it—but the heat overran the spell. He screamed, dropping the weapon with the sound of tearing cloth. Purple energy flickered around the gun to contain the blast as the remaining rounds detonated inside the cylinder.

  Blood in his eyes, Kindling limp in his arms, Sparks sprinted down the street and into the city.

  Victor’s voice rang out behind him, echoing through the smoke:

  "There’s nowhere you can run, Sparks! It’s already too late!"

  Sparks didn’t respond. Didn't look back. His only goal now: escape and survival.

  *  *  *

  Hazelnut, Krouri and Illani burst out the front doors of the apartment building, still breathless from what Illani had pulled from the phone. They didn’t speak—there wasn’t time. Krouri punched Sparks’s number and took to the sky. Hazelnut already had a head start, sprinting down the street like her life depended on it. Illani hesitated only a heartbeat before spreading her wings and following.

  Halfway across the district, the ground shook.

  A muffled boom rolled across the rooftops, followed by a tower of smoke rising somewhere in the direction of the diner. Krouri wheeled around in the air and shouted down to them. "Something exploded—I think by Grenda’s. Keep going! I’ll check the blast!" Hazelnut didn’t argue. She broke into an even faster run, Illani flapping desperately to keep pace.

  When she turned onto Sparks’ street, her stomach dropped.

  The house was on fire.

  Not smoldering—not smoking—engulfed. Flame roared from the shattered front windows. Black smoke poured from the roof like a signal flare. Tendrils of flame licked at the frame of the home, blackening and cracking the paint. The air tasted like scorched copper.

  No sign of a tabbi.

  Hazelnut took one hesitant step toward the house. She closed her eyes. In her mind, a staircase unfurled. That terrible, familiar hallway. The cracked door.

  She walked toward it.

  Help me, she thought. Please.

  The world froze.

  Flames halted mid-curl. Embers hung motionless. Smoke turned to still gray marble. Hazelnut stood alone before the rotten wooden door, suspended in blackness.

  "Let me out," the voice breathed from behind it. Soft. Persuasive. "Let me out…and I’ll give you what you need. Power. Power all for yourself."

  Hazelnut rested a hand on the doorknob, but didn't turn it. The voice sensed her apprehension. "You don't need the others. You've done well for yourself, haven’t you? You've always been alone. The world has seen to that. Why not take something for yourself? Why not benefit from the constant despair?"

  Flashes of her parents appeared in her mind. As much as she could remember of them. Scents. Their touch. Trying to recall their faces just brought up faceless photographs. Blank and empty.

  More memories flickered—empty beds. Cold streets. Then better ones. Taurence’s gentle laugh. Poppy’s smile. Brandon’s birthday cake. Iggy falling asleep on the couch.

  The voice behind the door wanted her to throw all of that away. Her paw dropped from the knob.

  "No!" the voice hissed, then began again, softer. "Please. Don't go. I'm lonely too. We can be lonely together. We don't need the others."

  Hazelnut finally understood what lay behind the door. The Eidolon of Loneliness.

  "No," she whispered. "If it's a choice between power or my people, I'll choose them every time. I'm not alone anymore."

  The voice howled as she turned her back and ran. The frozen world rushed past her—fire snapping back to life, smoke roiling once more. She broke into a sprint toward the lawn—

  —and stopped dead.

  Victor stood in the firelight.

  Reginald no more. His eyes blazed with purple light. A thin blade of mist and frost hung from one hand. Ash and scorched fur clung to the other.

  Hazelnut threw a knife on instinct. The blade froze in mid-air, inches from his face. Victor flicked it aside with a single finger, like it bored him. She couldn't win this fight. Not without her friends. She turned to run.

  "Leaving so soon?" taunted Victor. "Don't you want to know what happened to Taurence?"

  Hazelnut stopped. Victor knew. The answer to Taurence’s disappearance was right there, held by that smug little ball of fluff. She shouted over the roar of the fire.

  "Victor, you son of a bitch! What did you do with my dad?!"

  The corgi stepped forward, handling the frostblade like it was second nature. "You’ve searched for so long, little thief. I could tell you, you know. I could give you exactly what you want."

  Hazelnut’s heart hammered. She took a half-step, torn—

  "He’s lying!" Illani shouted behind her, eyes blazing white with Truth. "Hazelnut, he doesn’t know!"

  Victor’s smile died.

  A flick of his wrist—the dagger sailed toward Illani like a shard of winter. Hazelnut didn’t think. She moved. The blade buried itself in her arm. Cold knifed through her veins. She almost collapsed from the shock—

  —and then reality whipped sideways in a burst of magic as Illani dragged them both into a teleport.

  The cobbles of an alley rushed up to meet them. Hazelnut ripped the blade free and lost a patch of frozen skin with it. Illani pressed a cloth against the wound and muttered a healing spell with a shaking breath.

  "Are you okay?" Hazelnut asked, teeth clenched.

  "Yes. No. Maybe. I don't know. That was so scary just now. Hazelnut, I almost died!"

  "You're ok," Hazelnut reassured. "I wasn’t going to let him hurt you. Not while I had the chance to do something about it."

  Illani shook her head. "No, that's just it. I—I saw Truth. I saw what was supposed to happen. Hazelnut, whatever you did, you either changed what Truth is or Truth has no meaning when it comes to Victor. I don't understand."

  Hazelnut pulled her into a tight hug. "It doesn’t matter. We’re alive. Come on—we need to get to Grenda’s. Krouri might need help."