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Tanner straightened. “Yeah, just…got hit pretty hard.”
“You bleeding?”
“Nothing fatal.”
“Good.” Darien gave himself three more seconds to catch his breath, and then he stooped down to pick up Ivy.
“You okay?” he asked her, being careful not to apply pressure to her bad leg as he slid his arms beneath her.
“I’ll be fine,” she said around tense, panting breaths. She slung an arm around his neck, hand in a tight fist. “But I think I need stitches.”
Darien gave a pointed look at the wound in her leg. “You don’t say,” he joked as he pushed himself to his feet.
She tsked and swatted his arm. “My bag, Darien.” She gestured to the grocery bag nearby, and he grabbed it on the way.
Darien and Tanner were walking out of the store just as the cops were arriving, Finn among them. The warlock gave him a probing look as they passed each other, but said nothing.
As they neared the car, Darien glanced at Tanner. “You smell like formaldehyde,” he said, nostrils flaring. He eyed the splotches of color on the hacker’s clothing—the few on his face, too.
“It’s nail polish,” Tanner mumbled, scraping a dried speck of it off his cheek. “Don’t ask.” He rounded the car with a limp.
Tanner got in the passenger’s seat as Darien put Ivy in the back. As soon as he was in, door shut, he put the car in drive, ripped over to the charging stations—
And screeched to a halt before he could run over Jack.
Jack was shouting, fear written all over his face. Through the spells on the vehicle, Darien couldn’t hear what he was saying, but it looked like—
Loren.
The blood in Darien’s veins turned to crackling ice.
He threw himself out of the car. “Jack?”
Jack’s eyes were bolted wide, his face whiter than bone. “It’s Loren—Darien, Joyce said she’s not breathing. She’s not breathing!”
13
Elsewhere
In the heart of the universe, over two thousand years in the past, a girl and her dog followed a student named Erasmus Sophronia through a school for magic.
Erasmus was a straight-A student with a truly brilliant mind. He’d received an impressive number of scholarships—more than most veneficae and vampires were offered—and every university he’d applied to had immediately written back with an acceptance letter. The teachers and headmaster at Angelthene Academy adored him, taking every opportunity they had to place him in education’s spotlight.
But his classmates were another matter entirely.
He had very few friends, which came as no surprise for a mortal. Of course, the few he did have were human too. His very best friend, a handsome redhead with amber eyes, called himself ‘Elix Danik’.
Elix, too, was exceptionally smart. He had seen the end to most of his bullying when he’d graduated secondary school, going on to join multiple sports teams, and even found himself the object of admiration to three half-human girls. For Elix, life had improved.
Erasmus, however, wasn’t so lucky.
The girl and her dog had followed Erasmus to his classes for three consecutive school days. They watched him now, as he stomped across the dark grounds surrounding the school, toward a small, dark building tucked away behind a chain-link fence.
Erasmus trembled with anger, his flushed face streaked with dried tears. Splotches of purple marked his cheeks and jaw. He’d had a run-in with a few of the students who bullied him nearly every day, and, like always, had limped away afterward with two black eyes and pride so wounded, it was a wonder he had any left.
A shadow stepped out of the trees by the old building.
“Who was it this time?” said Elix Danik.
