“Shane?” I asked, my voice a thin thread. My fingers tightened on Leon, shaking him once more. “What happened?”

Something flickered in Shane’s eyes. “We’ve met before.”

“Um, yeah.” I shifted slightly, my gaze sweeping the room. We appeared to be alone, but I didn’t trust that. Whatever was here hadn’t left. Though my Knowing was quieter now, it still hummed below my skin.

“I know you,” Shane said. “I’ve seen you. The dark star. The fire keeper. Your shine lit the way, but now it’s dim. Barely burning.”

His tone was strange, but his obscurity was at least familiar. “Great. Even more cryptic than usual. I thought you were leaving town. Did you See something here?”

“I Saw you. You’re going to open the circle.”

“Very helpful,” I said. Leon’s skin was warm beneath my fingertips; I could feel his pulse, the rise and fall of his breath, but he hadn’t stirred. I darted a glance toward Sonja’s body. My stomach roiled once more. “So you don’t know what happened?”

“I happened.”

Two words, and all the air left the room.

I stared at Shane. My mouth opened, shut. Opened again. “You did this,” I said dully. I floundered, struggling for coherent thought, but it slipped from my grasp. The information didn’t connect. All I could say was—“Why?”

“Because I wanted to.”

That was when I noticed his feet.

They were bare, as they had been at the Drought and Deluge. Bare, and wet with blood.

My entire body went cold.

He laughed. Not the friendly chuckle I was accustomed to, but a harsh, abrasive sound that felt like pins in my flesh. “Would you like a different answer? I will give you one: it was needful.” His head turned almost imperceptibly toward Sonja, but his gaze remained fixed on me. “She wanted to die. The hunger filled her. It was an ache—to touch the void, to taste that final gasp. Her crime cried out for answer. I satisfied its thirst.”

My mind was still spinning, trying to process. I watched him, seeing the crooked tilt to his lips, those green eyes that had so often gleamed with humor. There was no humor in them now. They reminded me of Susannah, of Tigue: smooth and empty, nothing but surface. A flaw in his human disguise.

I’m not like you, pet, Shane had told me once. I’m one of them. One of the monsters you see in your sleep.

Part of me hadn’t believed him.

He was neutral, I thought. He had helped us. I remembered that night in the alley outside the Drought and Deluge, when the world had disappeared all around me, until there was nothing but darkness and terror and the feel of my body falling. It was Shane who had caught me. His arms that had lifted me, his hands that had held me steady. He’d saved me, and he had saved Tink. He hadn’t needed to. He could have let us both die then. He could have let us bleed.

Susannah’s voice echoed in my ears. Her laughter rang. The beast within them sleeps, she taunted.

It wasn’t sleeping now.

But I needed time. I needed Leon to wake.

“Her crime? What crime?” I asked, slipping my arms between Leon’s so that I could lift him against me.

“The crime of your people. And others, more recent.” Shane’s lips curved upward again, more of a sneer than a smile. He hadn’t taken a step toward me, but somehow he seemed much nearer. “Deep down, you know. You’ve wondered. They were warned of its coming. Would they really let it walk the earth unguarded?”

“What are you talking about? It?”

“She. The echo. The thing that remains.”

“The Remnant,” I said.

“In ancient times, they gave it other words. It was known as a poison of the blood. That was how your elders saw it. And so they cut the Kin-child open and let the poison out. Now that’s all she is. Remains.”

Brooke’s face flashed before me, damp with tears. I shook my head, shoving the thought away. “The elders sealed her powers,” I said. “You know that. They sent her away from the Circle.”

“No. She is with the worms. She is rotting in the ground. She is beyond my reach. But you aren’t. They would have killed you, had they known.”

I was afraid then, really afraid. Afraid in a way that surged past dread, cut deeper than panic. This fear had teeth. It sank them into my skin and didn’t let go. My stomach heaved. I couldn’t seem to draw breath.

Shane’s smile widened, gleaming red. His tone was cold as the Beneath. “You fear, and rightly. You feel it. The chill in those brittle sticks that you name bones. The quickening of the meat that pumps life into your cells. You are a corpse taking air.”

A sudden stench filled my nostrils. Near the wall, Sonja’s body had begun to decay. Under the sticky glaze of blood that covered her, congealing, her skin began to bloat, turning mottled and gray. Wisps of shadow curled up around her, thickening. They wrapped her ankles and thighs, the red mess of her torso, the terrible angle of her neck. The Beneath, I thought wildly. It was drawing her into it, collecting her. Feeding. Like she was a Harrower.

Shane was still watching me. “You are going to die, Kin-child. Just not today.”

And then his gaze flicked to Leon.

Horror flooded me as I realized his intent. I wrapped my arms around Leon’s chest, still trying to lift him. “Wake up, please, you have to wake up,” I begged, clutching at him, holding him tight against me. I began to amplify, hoping to accelerate his healing the way I once had with my mother. But my agitation made it difficult to concentrate—and however fast his healing was, it wouldn’t be fast enough. He didn’t rouse. His body lay slack in my arms, his head against my shoulder. The glow in his fingers brightened, but his eyes didn’t open.

Shane walked toward us, leaving bloody footprints with every step.

He meant to kill Leon, I knew.

He was going to kill Leon.

And he was much stronger than I’d known, stronger than any of us had ever imagined. He’d incapacitated Leon in a matter of seconds. He’d torn Sonja open and given her to the Beneath. I couldn’t hope to fight him, even sharing Leon’s powers. It wasn’t just fear, it was fact. Inescapable truth, strident inside me. Shane would attack. Leon would die. I couldn’t hope to stop it. I couldn’t hope to save him.

“Please,” I whispered again. My hands were shaking, my teeth chattering. I tightened my grip on Leon. His back was heavy against me, weighing us both down. I felt his heart. I felt the burn of the bond between us, erratic but growing stronger. I felt the surge of power in my veins. Guardian powers. Leon’s powers. Desperately, I squeezed my eyes shut.

How do you Know?

Like breathing, I thought.

You just have to do it.

Blindly, I reached out—and teleported.

Darkness enveloped me. All senses fled. There was no cold in this darkness, no heat. There was no sound or smell, not even the feel of Leon in my arms or the thud of his heart against me. The universe contracted into pinpoints. As the void expanded and seconds elapsed, I had the sudden, terrible thought that we would be trapped forever in some formless in-between, a black hole that offered no escape. Or that we would reappear under the earth. Our lungs would fill up with soil. Roots would twine all around us, crunching our bones.

And then the dark receded. Then there was daylight: warm sun above, half-hidden by the motion of heavy gray clouds. There was grass beneath us, short spikes that jutted up through my open fingers as I groped toward the ground, feeling it solid and safe under my hands.

With one arm still curled around Leon, I felt for his pulse, and then looked about, trying to make sense of our surroundings. A young girl, no more than three or four, stood a short distance away, plucking dandelions out of the grass. Her mouth dropped open when she saw us. She gave a little squeak, letting her bouquet fall from her hands, and went galloping away. Beyond, I saw the beginnings of a sandy path that led toward a beach. Red picnic tables were clustered nearby, paint peeling here and there, revealing the scuffed wood underneath. Far away I could see the glint of sunlight on cars and the dark tar of a parking lot.