“Saves us from having to pick up clippers, ” he noted dryly, for Lindsay’s sake. He was weighed and prodded, and he was just starting to feel calm when a pair of technicians in vanilla jumpers came in with a tray of syringes.

Vaccinations?

“I’m going to guess it’s not tetanus shots in those. ”

“No. Not tetanus.” Lindsay’s voice was flat the way it got when they were talking about something he didn’t like. The injection felt like fire going in and Lindsay hissed inside Noah’s head. “Nothing changes, does it? But you’re going to be all right, Noah. I promise.”

The technicians went past him, working their way back. Noah turned his attention to the first men to get their shots and watched one of them swaying.

“Yeah. I thought so. I think our broadcast is about to be disrupted. ” The room started spinning slowly. Noah turned his attention inward, closing his eyes to shut out the blurred room, and called up what heat he could muster. “Metabolism is just another kind of combustion, right?”

“I’ll be with you all the way.” Lindsay felt miles away, but the words were something Noah could cling to as he fought to hold on to consciousness.

The world turned into a stuttering slide show as Noah slipped in and out of consciousness. There were hands on him, and he was cold with something steel under his bare back. He was in a barn. No. Something huge and chilled, but he could hear animals. The rattle of metal on metal was a cage door being slammed shut. He was still moving, and they were talking.

They left him and, with nothing to hold on to, he slipped into the dark. A howl brought him back up and he had the sudden impression of being in a dog pound.

Hounds.

Now, with his body limp and out of his control, he panicked. This can’t happen. They were back and he fought down his fear. Hands were on him, his legs and shoulders. He was hefted up and tumbled into a metal box. They were talking about him, but the words didn’t make sense. To him. They would make sense to Lindsay.

Hybrid. Balancing strains. Inscribed cell cultures. Noah let himself fade until he was only a ghost in the back of his own mind, so Lindsay could listen. They were putting something in him, cutting and

stitching, like he was a doll. When the door closed, he could feel that same fire again, creeping out from that point.

“Help me. ” Noah needed to wake up. He needed something to burn away the poison leaking into his veins. “Don’t let me sleep. ” He needed to make sure they weren’t already doing something to him.

“I’ve got you.” Lindsay’s cool fingers were on his forehead, except that they weren’t, and Noah could feel the pull of his magic being drawn up inside him. The heat of it flowed under his skin, pushing back the chill of the medication.

Nothing was as terrifying as being helpless in the face of something awful. He was ashamed of not being stronger. Without knowing how, he was aware that Lindsay had been through this in some way. He could survive—Lindsay had.

“I’m sorry this happened to you .” Anything else he might have felt was lost the next moment.

Fever kept Noah from sinking into unconsciousness, but it distorted his perception until he felt as though he had been locked in the cage for days on end. The thought that he had been surrendered to the pound like a dog nagged him and became confused with the reality that his father had sent him to Cyrus.

He knew Lindsay was with him and imagined Lindsay standing outside his cage, looking in.

Finally, even if his mind couldn’t focus, his body acted, and he drifted into consciousness to find broken tubing clenched in his right hand and cool liquid pooling on his skin.

I’m awake.

His magic felt like a limb that had fallen asleep—only when pain came did he realize the magic working through his veins was his, but not in his control. Lindsay held it for him, separated him from it by some illusion he couldn’t understand, and kept it burning through his blood. The world grew clearer by the moment, like dawn had come.

Opening his eyes, he found that he could see—he had only imagined that the lights were out. There was the rattle of a gurney and voices drew close, so he turned his back to the cage door and hid the broken IV lines under him. His body was burning off the sedative, and he could flex his muscles now, enough that he thought he could stand.

I can do this. He reached out for his magic and touched it. As Lindsay let it go, it flowed back into him and sang in his veins like hundreds of tiny flames. He hadn’t known what having it truly absent—not merely parted from his will by Lindsay’s illusions—felt like, and he regretted all the times he’d wished for it to be gone.

Adrenaline brought the rest of Noah’s senses back. “Let me go. ” He itched under his skin with fire and fear. It was a struggle to stay helpless. He could see the others when he dared look, all of them limp and unaware of what they’d consented to become.

“Soon.” Lindsay’s voice was soothing, soft and cool like a touch. “Zoey is working on the cages—

she’s going to release the locks to let you out. Watch for the lights, then go.”

“I keep thinking I hear him . ” Noah shifted to press his feet against one wall, flexing his legs to work the drugs out of the large muscles. “If there’s anything you want saved from here other than him, tell me now. ” His outrage was deeper than his morals, it went down to his bones, down to everything written in his genes. When he let it loose, there wouldn’t be anything left of what distressed him.

“Just the two of you.”

“Soon. ” Noah wanted to go home.

When the lights went down, Noah felt the door of his cage give way, and he grabbed it as he rolled out. He was on the second tier, so it wasn’t far to the floor; as soon as his toes touched, he let go and crumpled to the ground. He felt leaden, his limbs refused to answer him, and he grasped at his magic to burn off the remaining drugs.

He had to move. Primal urgency forced him up to hands and knees. A cage door smashed him in the head as the man inside thrashed about. Pain and adrenaline fueled his magic and his head cleared enough that he could drag himself to his feet. Yelps and howls of creatures tasting freedom echoed through the room as the lights came up again.

Noah took a few unsteady steps and tripped over a body. Of course. Everyone around him would be as drugged as he had been.

“Come on.” Forcing his limbs to obey, he tried to turn the man over. His hands slid on cold, sweat-slick skin. “Wake up. We have to get out of here.” Noah flipped him over and stared down into empty, clouded eyes.

“Noah, move.”

Even as Lindsay’s frantic voice filled his head, something sent him sprawling. Someone stepped on him, a knee caught him in the side as he tried to get up. He staggered to his feet, slipped in something slick, and caught himself on the grating of another cage before he went down again.

“Noah. Do something. Now.”

His feet were sliding in blood. Half a corpse dangled from the top of the cages. Noah turned to see a huge Hound feeding on the man he’d tried to help.

He couldn’t parse Lindsay’s orders but his magic understood. It rose up in him and washed him clean with fire. Not content with purifying his blood, the fire rolled out to cleanse his skin, then boiled outward.

When Noah finally stood steady, there was nothing but ash on the floor at his feet.

Anarchy churned around him, howls and screams rising until Noah felt them through the concrete.