Judgment.
And he’s about to incinerate the man I love.
“Kirin!” I shout again, but he’s deaf to everything but the dark mage standing before him. I pour all of my fear, all of my hatred, all of my rage into that vile beast. “Don’t you dare!”
But Judgment only grins as he lifts his wand, his lips muttering a spell certain to bring pain and death.
The wand shines in the moonlight. On the very tip, the first ember sparks to life.
I’ve got maybe ten seconds before my worst fears materialize and I lose Kirin forever.
I don’t speak. I don’t think.
I run. I charge.
I fuckingfly.
Seven
CASS
A wall of silver-blue fire explodes before my eyes, the shockwave knocking us flat on our asses.
I spring to my feet, desperate to get a read on what’s happening. Aside from a lost blanket, Stevie, Baz, and Kirin look unruffled, the professors scrambling to cover them up again. Nat and Isla are at my side in an instant.
“Is everyone okay?” I ask, looking them over. The girls nod, already rushing toward the fire, shouting Ani’s name.
Ani...
It’s in that heart-paralyzing moment I realize he’s not here with us. He’s trapped on the wrong side of hell with a raging inferno and two possessed, gun-waving psychopaths.
Worse? I’m fairly certain he’s the one who lit the blaze. I could see it in his eyes—that eagerness to pounce. To save Stevie and the others by any means necessary, even if that means putting himself in harm’s way.
“Ani!” I shout, but the fire blazes higher and hotter, damn near singeing the eyebrows off my face.
“I can’t even see him!” Nat shouts, reaching out toward the flames with her own fire magick, as if she’s testing Ani’s spell for weaknesses. “It’s so intense—I’ve never felt anything like this.”
Isla lifts her hands, her lips muttering a chant that seems to wring every drop of available water from the landscape, but it’s not enough. The water sizzles into steam the moment it hits the fire, the flames surging brighter.
“He can’t control it,” I say, fighting to keep the alarm from my voice. The flames are creeping closer, growing, consuming the air around us. Stifling a cough, I spin around to check on the others. The professors are still on the ground, their worried faces flickering in the firelight.
“How long until they wake up?” I ask.
“We can’t know that.” Professor Broome sweeps a lock of Stevie’s hair from her forehead, a gesture that makes my chest ache. “They’re still in the dream realm. They’ll come back to us in their own time.”
“They don’t have their own time.” Abandoning the fire, I crouch down to scoop Stevie into my arms. “We need to move them. Those flames get any closer, and the fire will incinerate us all.”
“Leave her be, Dr. Devane.” Professor Broome stops me with a surprisingly firm grip on my forearm. “The realm is highly unstable, and we’re essentially hacking into it with our magick. The fact that all three of them went under at the same time is a miracle in itself, but we can’t assume the rest of their journey will be smooth.”
“What are you saying?”
“If we move or wake them now, we risk cutting off their tenuous link to our realm, trapping them there.”
Fear and frustration war inside me.
“Trapped there or dead here,” I snap. “Who wants to make the call?”
“I’ll make the call!” Professor Maddox shouts. “Put out the damned fire, for Goddess’s sake!” She grabs my arm, hauls us both up. Hoping like hell she’s got a plan, I follow her back to the most intense section of the firewall.
