Noah was still frozen when the man shook off the illusion and hissed, “Not this time, pretty boy.”

The first swipe at Noah, long black claws coming for his chest, never reached him. A white ball of fire burst from his raised hands and blew the man’s head off. The fire kept going, cutting through the elevator and the shaft beyond like they were made of paper. The body collapsed, flailing and making strange noises through what remained of its throat.

The elevator doors creaked open.

“Thank you, Ylli,” Lindsay muttered.

He shoved at Noah’s back, sending him stumbling toward the bare concrete block wall revealed by the open doors. There was a gap big enough for them to crawl out through. The noises wouldn’t stop and Noah turned to see the headless body flailing. Not a corpse yet.

“Come on, come on.” Lindsay grabbed him by the back of the jacket. “God-damned Jonas. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Come on.”

Noah stopped staring and turned to help Lindsay, realizing at the last second that throwing Lindsay out into an unknown hall was a bad idea.

“Make sure you’re hidden,” he said as he got his hands under one of Lindsay’s feet. He had no idea what had gone wrong but they sure as hell hadn’t been hidden seconds ago. “Use me as a ladder, Lin.”

It didn’t take much to heave Lindsay through the opening. He was so light.

“Hurry.” Lindsay poked his head back through once he was up and out. “We don’t have much time.

We have to get out of here.” He looked both ways down the hall and scrambled over to one side.

“What happ...” Noah gave up and fought his way through the opening, bruising his knees and elbows.

The mage he’d decapitated was slamming around in the elevator car. “It’s not dead.”

He turned and tried to punch all his horror and rage into the small space. Red and orange exploded inside the car, metal screamed and the force washed back, knocking Noah onto his ass. “Okay, now. Go.”

He flailed, trying to get up.

Lindsay grabbed his hand and dragged him to his feet. “We have to get out of here before Jonas heals.

Let’s go.”

“Which way?” The hall they were in was featureless, the numbers on the doors had no meaning. Noah had no way to get his bearings, he could only follow Lindsay. His head was a mass of questions. What the hell—heal? From that? “Do they know we’re here?”

“Jonas knows.” Lindsay seemed to think that was reason enough to flee. Jonas—Noah could only assume that was who had attacked them in the elevator—was on fire at the bottom of the elevator shaft, but Noah wasn’t going to argue with Lindsay. “I have to tell Dane.”

Noah grabbed the nearest doorknob and sent a spike of flame through the lock. The mechanism gave way and the door swung open enough for him to nudge Lindsay through. The office inside held a hollow stillness.

“There’s no alarms.” Noah’s brain finally prodded him with the absence he was feeling.

“Jonas hasn’t told anyone.” Lindsay’s face was lit by the glow of his phone, but his eyes were locked on something in the distance. “He wouldn’t, not if he thought he had a chance at getting me and Dane to himself.” He shook his head and focused on Noah. “Dane has Zoey and he’s going for Ylli now. We need to head back.”

“We can’t take the elevator,” Noah muttered. He opened the door enough to peek out. After a moment, he thought he knew which way to go. “If we keep down this hall and take a left, we should be near where I saw the stairs.”

“Okay. The illusion feels like it’s holding, in spite of Jonas. Let’s go.” Lindsay was still reading whatever Ylli was sending him, wave after wave of tiny blue text, so Noah took him by the hand and led him out.

“Where did Dane find Zoey?” Noah took the time to read the names on the doors as they pattered down the hall.

“Interrogation rooms,” Lindsay said, lagging behind like a reluctant child. His brow was creased when he finally looked up at Noah. “I suppose Moore knew we wouldn’t just give up, so she had to put Zoey somewhere. She was probably counting on Jonas to hold Dane off if we showed up.”

“That didn’t work out too well for her, did it?”

“No.” Lindsay stopped dead, bringing Noah to a halt as well.

“What?” Noah looked around for some danger but there was nothing there that he could see.

“If Jonas is here...” Lindsay trailed off, his cold hand clenching Noah’s. “I haven’t felt Lourdes.”

“Who?” Noah wished he’d been given some kind of primer when he’d arrived. His senses were still jangling with the memory of Jonas flailing in the elevator and he couldn’t think straight.

“She’s... I don’t know who she is. Dane calls her ‘the girl’ sometimes. Like he calls Jonas ‘the dog’.”

Lindsay shuddered, then shoved his phone in his pocket. “Nevermind. Let’s just get out of here.” He let go of Noah’s hand and started walking again, then broke into a jog, leaving Noah to catch up.

Noah kept trying not to think of what Jonas would look like if he got out of the elevator shaft. He could have done a hundred other things to stop someone, but apparently blowing heads off and incinerating people was where his brain went first. It wasn’t a good precedent. It wasn’t like him. Or maybe it was.

They came around a corner and were faced with a long hall that led to what looked like an exit.

“Let me go first.” Noah wasn’t about to send Lindsay out the door when he didn’t know what was on the other side.

They stepped onto a walkway above an open room filled with computer terminals. There were stairs, at least, two sets that led down into an open media lab that was surprisingly busy for this time of night.

Wide LED screens flashed multiple scenes of violence, uniformed staff and soldiers crossed the floor, running about their business like ants. Noah pushed back on the door, but it was locked.

EXIT ONLY. Why didn’t it say that on the other side? He wasn’t going to panic, not until a set of double doors down below slammed open and soldiers came tromping through, scattering the workers.

“That’s the ground floor down there,” Lindsay whispered, drawing Noah farther along the walkway.

“We never made it to the second level. I’ll see if I can—”

A door opened opposite them, cutting Lindsay off, and a second squad of soldiers stepped out onto the walkway, accompanied by a young woman. She was as pale and as luminous as Lindsay, except her fair hair held a hint of firelight instead of snow.

“Lourdes.” The tone of Lindsay’s voice made her sound even worse than Jonas had been.

As soon as Noah met her eyes, he knew her. Not who she was, but what she was. He felt her mind on his, trying to find a way to separate him from his will. He shoved Lindsay away as hard as he could—he wasn’t going to be made into the thing that trapped him—and turned on Lourdes. As her will crept over his, he grasped his magic.

The first fireball splashed into the soldiers she had with her, spattering her but not killing her. Noah didn’t have time to think, she was keeping him from aiming, and so he threw everything he had at her in a single battering ram of fire and outrage.

He knew exactly when he lost his grip. He could feel his magic slip from his control like water sliding through his fingers. She had it. She had him.

Instead of dying on the air, his fire came back at him. He held up his hands as though that would stop it, but it was free. It hit him like a truck, slamming him back against the wall, and began to feed.

Lindsay watched it all happen in slow motion. Lourdes’s narrowed eyes, Noah’s outstretched hands—

Lindsay knew what was coming, but he couldn’t stop it. He’d beaten Lourdes once before, but only because of Moore’s runes and artifacts. Without them, his illusions wouldn’t fool her; she was too strong.