The same place, she realized as they cleared a stack of crates, where she’d found Wren—drained, limp, and wrong.

“Ano!” Kasim released a howl and sped ahead.

Surging for another load of crates, he vaulted off and barreled into a deformed figure scaling the bricks. A patch of brittle hair shed from Ambrose’s skull as Kasim tumbled with him against the building. Luscia let out a growl of her own. Fury over Wren and the others sent fire through her limbs. With a righteous roar from deep within her gut, Luscia ran, slung an empty crate over the pooling water, and skated through the alley toward their fight. Whirling the crescent wraiths in a harmonious whirlwind, she whipped herself off the crate and sliced Ambrose’s thigh apart.

In a somersault, she flipped into a defensive stance and bent her knees at the ready, utterly stunned. Ambrose snarled and rose despite his injured leg, even as inky blood oozed down his shredded skin. Kasim’s kopar lashed out, ripping the muscle out from his calf. His back curling in a sinister stoop, Ambrose hunched and tore off an embellished glove. The moonlight glinted off a set of blackened talons, no longer mortal fingers. Ambrose slashed at Kasim, carving his wrists up and flinging him into the old masonry.

Kasim’s body split the bricks. Neck slack, the al’Haidren slumped into the rubble, unconscious.

“Luscia, to your left!”

She spun at Marek’s unexpected voice, twirling with the wraith as Ambrose rushed for her throat, his claws outstretched. Luscia kicked off the tower of crates and rotated the arcs like a saw, severing what used to be his hand. Ambrose shrieked, guttural and primitive, like a creature from the bowels of the earth. She smelled the toxin coating the luxiron sizzling into his deadened flesh where it spurted dark, curdled gore. Lunging, Luscia severed the tendons at his ankle. Ambrose’s leg crumpled under him as she rotated, but the corners of his mouth tore and opened wide in his fall, spewing oily mire into her eyes.

Blinded, Luscia cried out, dropping the wraiths to wipe the stickiness out of her lashes. The substance, foul and acidic, stung as she desperately tried to rinse it off. In a rush of wind, she felt Marek fly across her back as she doubled over, their contact brief before his luxiron met Ambrose. Unable to see, Luscia scrambled for her weapon within the pools of water. After a succession of crashes, she heard Marek bark in either agony or frustration when something heavy collapsed onto the cobblestones.

“Quarter spin and roll!” Marek shouted, instructing Luscia through her blindness. “I’m pinned under a beam. Waedfrel, now dip low!”

She ducked, listening to the air shift over her head as Ambrose’s remaining claw narrowly missed. A shuffling came from Marek’s direction as materials shifted about. Luscia stayed down, frantically seeking the encased hilt of one of the wraiths in the water. Out of the chaos, like the resounding gong in Thoarne Hall, Marek’s wraith struck a drainpipe, sending waves of reverberation through the stone and creating a field of resonance for her. Luscia inhaled and focused her other senses. Striking the pipe a second time, Marek continued to beat it, like a crude bomaerod.

Luscia reeled aside as she sensed Ambrose pounce, wheeling her body like a spinning top. He dove, sending a ripple through the surrounding air, emphasized by the droplets from the sky. As she twirled, his claw snatched at her boot. One of his talons pierced her toe, and he hauled her over the cobbles through the river of filth.

Pinned against the crates, Luscia struggled to fend off Ambrose’s gnashing teeth, clutching his throat with one hand, hot under her palm. Fumbling beneath the fabric of her hooded tunic, made heavy by the moisture, Luscia probed the folds for her mother’s blade. Stroking the warmth of the hilt, she sobbed in relief and released Ferocity, stabbing the consort dagger into Ambrose’s chest. The luxiron hissed as it sank into his tainted flesh.

“We are what we become,” she heard him croak. Rancid saliva hit her cheek. “Release me.”

His hold loosening, Luscia drove the dagger straight into his heart until the brim of the hilt busted through the bone, meeting soft tissue. Pushing him off her, Luscia flipped him over onto the ground and withdrew the blade, encountering little resistance. Under her touch, Ambrose was slowly changing, his monstrous form dissolving.

“They will come for you, too,” he rasped.

Sinew and bone turned to ash in her hands. Dim shapes came into view, her vision clearing at last. Luscia dry-heaved as she madly brushed the remnants of Ambrose off her skin.

At the sound of his voice, she crawled toward Marek. Her hands trembled as she grasped the beam trapping him, adding her strength to heave it off his middle. Nearby, Kasim let out a distressed moan.

“Ana’Sere, can you stand?” Marek asked.

“Wem, I think so,” she said. “Can you?”

“Nearly,” he replied, hoisting her upright.

“Tadöm. But first help Kasim,” Luscia instructed, exhaustion overtaking her. “His shoulder might be out of place.”

Marek’s boots splashed through the puddles as he bent to boost the Darakaian out of the wreckage. One of the men murmured at the other, but her hearing was to fuzzy to make out their words. An ache coursed through her mind as she started to drift backward.

“Find my Aksel…” she whispered, her voice echoing far away.

Eyes rolling back, Luscia’s head hit the ground, and the sound was no more.

Every part of her body hurt.

Hazily, Luscia heard someone breathing close by—in, then out. Felt a depression on the bed, opposite Aksel’s familiar weight by her thigh. Suppressing a groan of anguish, Luscia thumbed the latch of Phalen’s radial and sat up, releasing the hidden blade and tucking it under the intruder’s chin.

Opening her sore eyelids, Zaethan Kasim stared back at her. He didn’t move, didn’t speak. His vivid green eyes dropped to the thin weapons riding her knuckles, and he arced a dense brow, impressed. Luscia noticed that a leather sling strapped his elbow to his side.

His gaze idled when the blanket fell from her chest, revealing the delicate shift she wore. Under his gaze, Luscia’s arm itched beneath the crust of a poultice. She had no recollection of how or when it got there.

In a rush, Luscia’s memories battered her mind. The girl, war-taint in the city, Ambrose. Her tongue scratched the interior of her mouth, dried from the horror of it all.

I killed a man.

As her hand started to shake, a noise pulled her attention to her bedroom door. Backlit, Marek stood inside the threshold. His hand was clenched around the hilt of his sword while he scrutinized Kasim, as if waiting for something. Still groggy, Luscia hastily assessed his injuries, but stopped, settling on his grave features. Why would the captaen of her guard permit the al’Haidren to Darakai into her chamber?

Dread told her to lower the radial. Something was terribly wrong.