She glanced up at me, then walked around the side of the desk after closing the drawers she’d been snooping in. “Learned—nothing. It is simply a disturbing report.”

“About what?”

“Seers,” she said, in that familiar clipped tone. “Which I would normally ignore. You recall the trouble a few months back. The Seer who was killed.”

“Valerie,” I said.

“It would appear we haven’t heard the last of this vision she had.”

I wondered if Elspeth had spoken to her, or somehow managed to convey Iris’s warning. “The future isn’t fixed,” I replied. “That’s what you told me. You said not to worry about Val’s vision. That it wouldn’t come true.”

“Correct. One Seer having one vision is not something I would normally put much stock in. However. Every Seer throughout the Kin having the same vision—that is potential cause for concern.”

Goose bumps rose on my flesh. “Every Seer?”

“Yes, well. That isn’t a fantastic number,” she said. She folded her hands in front of her, tightening her lips. Despite her calm bearing and the brisk tone of her voice, I caught the hint of something I’d never felt from her before: a slender thread of fear. “There are maybe a dozen true Seers throughout the entirety of the Kin. Beginning last week, they all began to have the same recurring vision.”

“What exactly are they seeing?”

“A Harrowing at our Circle. The Beneath breaking through. Permanently.”

She didn’t have to say the next part. The end of the Kin.

“I hope that means the other Circles are sending more reinforcements,” I said.

But before she could answer, a sudden sense came to me. A deep chill that started in my bones and sent icy tendrils through my veins, climbing up toward my heart. That high, keening sound—a sob or a scream—at the very edge of my hearing. Knowing that squeezed at my lungs.

I turned to Esther, reaching for her arm.

“We have to go. We have to run.”

Her eyes met mine. Her lips parted.

And then the Beneath stood before us, dressed up in Shane’s human skin.

Shane appeared near the window, the fading dusk outside making him into a dark silhouette. But I knew it was him immediately. His hostility filled the room, and there was that faint scent of decay again, turning my stomach. He took a step forward, then another, until the lamps in the study illuminated him, sending sharp yellow light across the angles of his face. His blond hair was matted and sticky with blood. His shirt hung in tatters, and his jeans had collected more stains.

I backed up, shifting my gaze and trying to measure the distance between us and the door. Too far. I looked back toward the figure standing before me. “What did you do with Shane?”

“He is mine to do with as I wish.”

“I don’t think he’d agree with that,” I said. I retreated another step. For half a moment, I considered trying to amplify, to share his powers and fight him the way I had fought Susannah. But I dismissed it almost instantly. Sharing Susannah’s powers, even for a short time, had made me feel like something savage and vengeful had been thrashing about inside of me, hunting for an escape. I had felt her corruption, her loathing, and in the chaos I hadn’t been able to separate her thoughts from my own. I didn’t want to know what it would be like to touch the Beneath, even for an instant. Revulsion crept over me.

“His agreement wasn’t asked,” the Beneath answered. “It is my will.”

Esther stepped in front of me. She raised her left hand, and though the colors that began to shine at her wrist were weak and dim, her posture was alert, ready for attack. “Go, Audrey,” she said. “Warn Charles not to come home. Run.”

“He’ll kill you,” I said.

“I am aware of that.”

“No,” I said. She was more at risk than I was. Even now, the unseen Guardian bond that warned Leon I was in danger would be threading through the air, waking the instinct within him. He would appear; he wouldn’t ask questions, he’d just take me away—and leave Esther here. And I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let her be dragged Beneath, like Sonja and the other missing Kin, for it to squeeze the blood from her. For it to feed. I reached toward her. “Come with me.”

But before either of us could argue, or even speak another word—before I could attempt to amplify her powers—Shane was in motion. He crossed the room so quickly I almost didn’t see it, and then he was there, near, his hands in talons and slicing toward Esther.

She evaded him at first. Her own arm whipped up, thrusting him backward with enough force that he stumbled back several steps. It seemed to take him by surprise. He hesitated, watching her intently. The glow at her wrist was slightly warmer now. With one quick motion, she shoved Charles’s leather armchair toward Shane, forcing him to back up once more.

Then she charged.

She was graceful in motion, much faster than I’d have believed possible. She flew toward him, feinting and then sidestepping as he moved to counter. But Esther was out of practice. She hadn’t acted as a Guardian in years, and her powers had been diminished with age. When she tried to grip his neck, he ducked out of reach, and though she managed to deflect his second attack, the third time he caught her. His talons sank into her shoulders. He lifted her into the air and then hurled her across the room.

A scream tore from my throat.

I ran to her, my eyes fixed on the crimson that began to spread across her pale lavender blouse. The lights in her hand didn’t even flicker. They simply vanished. I grabbed her wrist, felt for a pulse. It was there, faint and erratic. Below the thick ooze of red, her chest rose and fell.

Shane stood watching me, but he didn’t attack. “Leave her,” he said. “Let her life soak the ground. Let her give no more gasps.” When I didn’t move, he took a step toward me.

Leon appeared in front of me then.

His back was to me. His tall frame blocked my vision of Shane, so that all I saw was the slight curl to his hair, the taut line of his shirt across his shoulders. And his arm, wrapped around someone much shorter. My eyes caught the shine of blond hair. A black sweatshirt and a white, eight-pointed star. He’d brought my mother with him.

Mom paused only long enough to glance at me and assure herself I was all right, and then she flung herself toward Shane, colors swirling out from both wrists and glimmering at the base of her throat.

Leon turned and knelt beside me, pulling me against him.

“She’s not dead,” I said quickly. “She’s still breathing. We have to get her to the hospital.”

“I need to get you out of here.”

“Mom has Shane distracted. I can wait. Esther can’t.”

He hesitated only a second. Then he nodded and gathered Esther into his arms. I saw her eyelids flicker. A groan escaped her lips. And then she and Leon disappeared, and there was only a smear of blood on the floor where they’d been.

I stood, facing Mom and Shane.

Charles’s desk was positioned between them, its contents knocked askew. The chair had been shoved to the ground, its wheels spinning as Shane thrust it away. For a moment neither of them moved—they waited, assessing, searching for some opening to seize.

“Stay back, Audrey. I’ve got this,” Mom told me.

“You don’t want me to amplify?”

“I want you to stay back,” she repeated.

Shane was still watching her. “I know you as well,” he said. “I have heard your voice through other ears. You call to the dark. You are no stranger to hate. You’ve tasted the blood of the hunt.”

“I mean to taste yours in a second.”