“I hear your blood, turncoat. It calls to be loosed from your veins. It craves that sweet singing release. Let it free from the foulness of your flesh. Let both worlds drink.”

He lifted his hand. A sizzle of light pooled within his fingers, a swell of energy brightening against his palm. It illuminated the silver in his skin, the ripple of scales along his arms, though he hadn’t yet turned his hands to talons. He bared his teeth and then sent the blast of energy hurtling toward Iris.

Elspeth screamed, turning. She thrust the Harrower in her grip away and leaped in front of her sister.

But in the same instant, Iris caught Elspeth’s arms, swiveling, twisting about to shield her. The blast caught Iris, throwing both her and Elspeth onto the road.

Mom was on her feet again, running. Shane had more energy building in his hand, but she threw herself toward him, knocking him to the ground. He rolled away, jumped up, and withdrew a few steps. Mom followed, pushing him back. Whatever she’d lost in power, she was making up for in fury. Her hair had come loose from its bun, haloing about her as she struck. Her fingers latched onto his throat. He staggered, sliding out of her grip, but she caught him again. The second time he broke free, he retreated farther, snarling something between his teeth before disappearing from sight. This time, Mom didn’t chase him. She’d seen me. She raced back down the street toward us.

The remaining Harrowers had vanished. I searched, but no more bodies snaked across the street toward us. No more hisses sounded. No more talons clicked. Nearby, Camille was sitting in the road, a dazed expression on her face; another Guardian rested beside her.

Elspeth was clutching her sister and weeping.

“I’m not dead,” Iris said, trying to push her away. “I’m fine. Get off me.”

She was injured, though, and badly. The back of her shirt had burned away, and blood was oozing thickly from one shoulder, where the skin was painfully scorched. Some of her hair had been singed away, so that it was wispy and uneven. The side of her neck had a jagged cut, climbing up toward her jaw.

“You can’t die,” Elspeth kept sobbing.

Iris was looking at me, her gold eyes narrowed and accusing. “That’s up to Audrey.”

I felt a snarl build in my throat, and struggled to contain it. “You’re the reason all of this is happening in the first place.”

“I told you how to end it,” Iris snapped. “He’s a Harrower, Audrey. You wouldn’t be murdering an innocent.”

“Not like you,” I said.

She didn’t hesitate. “Not like me.”

Mom reached us then, tugging me into her arms for a moment without speaking. She smoothed my hair with one hand, and I heard her breath hitch. When she released me, she stepped back, looking me over critically for a moment, and then said, “I didn’t want you here.”

“Don’t take it personally,” Mickey said from nearby. There was a scrape on his forehead and the side of his face. “She didn’t want me here, either.”

“And look how well that turned out,” Mom said, as she reached out and touched his arm.

He grunted, rubbing his forehead. “I’d rather be out here than hiding away.”

“Did you learn anything from the other Circles?” Leon asked Mom.

Her expression turned grave. “We lost all communication hours ago.”

“The radios have all been coughing out static,” Mickey added.

“So we’re on our own,” I said. I turned, gazing out at the encroaching gloom. This was Valerie’s vision called forth, I thought. I had seen it before, in the last flickering images that sped through Susannah’s mind as she died. The city gone gray, the glare of bloodred stars.

Iris had managed to sit up with Elspeth’s help. “What else do you need to convince you?”

“That’s why we’re here,” I said. “To find Gideon.”

“To kill him,” she answered.

I stared down the block toward Harlow Tower, rising high and dark. “To do what I have to.”

There was a sudden shift in the darkness. I spun and felt Leon’s hands catch my shoulders, steadying me. In the thick red shadows that spread across the buildings, a Harrower was stealing forward. It wasn’t alone. A second shuffled up behind it, and a third. I turned again. On the other side of the street, more demons gathered. I could see Shane among them, still half-human, his blond hair ruddy with blood.

These were not the Harrowers from before. I sensed the difference in them even as they began to step forth together, slowly, forming a loose net around us. They didn’t move to attack with the same heedless anger of the demons we’d fought before. An eerie hum built between them. And then they spoke, rasping, hissing, the same whispering voice I heard in the empty around us.

“The Circle will open,” they said. “Your Kin will end.”

Dread coiled tight inside me.

The Beneath was no longer controlling just Shane. It was controlling all of them.

Mom swore, lifting both her arms before her, poised and ready for battle. Camille and the other Guardian had risen to their feet. Elspeth remained on the ground, hugging Iris to her with one arm, the other shining with pale Guardian lights.

Iris looked at me. “Audrey. Go.”

I didn’t hesitate.

Leon and I ran for Harlow Tower.

We came to a stop outside the building, where the revolving doors were locked, and the thick gray sky made the glass opaque, too dark to see in. I thought of the last time I’d stood there. Six months ago, with the snow swirling in the air around me, and Iris waiting atop, a knife in her hands, Gideon at her feet. If I closed my eyes, I could see them both—the way Iris’s eyes had gone white, the way Gideon had whimpered when he’d woken, telling me he wanted to go home. We’d taken him away, but part of him had remained behind. Part of him had always been here.

You set something in motion that night on Harlow Tower, I heard Susannah say.

“How do we get in?” Leon asked.

I shook my head. “We don’t. He’s not in there. He’ll be in the alley outside.”

Where he’d fallen seventeen years ago.

Where his body had come to rest after he and my mother sailed through the air, wrapped in the Circle’s light. Where that light had burned into him, remaking him, shaping him into something else. Someone else. Where my friend had been born.

“You have to stay here,” I told Leon.

His gaze went wary. He was going to argue, and I couldn’t let him.

Gideon would kill Leon. He would’ve killed Mr. Alvarez if Tink hadn’t intervened. But he hadn’t killed her. And he wouldn’t kill me.

The only question was whether or not I’d be able to kill him.

“This isn’t about you protecting me right now,” I told Leon. “All of us, every one of us, is going to die if we don’t end this. Maybe this is the whole reason you’ve been protecting me. Maybe this was it all along. What I have to do right now.” I looked up into his eyes, watching the struggle within him. I grabbed his hand and held it in mine. The cool air had chilled his skin, but I could feel the warmth of his heartbeat. He lifted his free hand and touched my face.

“But I have to do it by myself,” I said. Slowly, I released his hand, let his fingers slide from mine. “I’m the only one who can.”

I hurried away before he could stop me.

Around me, the city had gone silent. The hush of the Beneath had swallowed the sirens; all I heard was the sound of my footsteps falling hard on the concrete, and that constant, quiet threat that whispered into my ears. This was what it was like, I thought. This was what Harrowers carried with them, the corruption they couldn’t escape. That relentless voice and the reek of death. The grief that had taken root inside of them the moment the Old Race crossed over. The deep, hungering darkness. The hate. I rounded the corner, kept running, trying to outdistance it.