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“Dammit.” Tait looked around the corner, then turned back to me. “We’ll find them, but if I say run, you must run. Promise me.”

“Agreed. So long as you run with me.”

He pressed a hard kiss to my brow, then counted down three ticks on his fingers.

We bolted into the center of the garden.

“Sander!” I whispered in a rough hiss when I caught sight of the alver prince standing beneath a wilted tree scanning the upper branches. “Run!”

Sander tilted his head for a heartbeat, two, then seemed to recognize the frenzy of our pace and rushed after us.

Where the hells was Gavyn?

I nearly sobbed in relief when the dark head of the Bone Lord appeared near the gate, searching a hedge.

“Gavyn.” Tait waved his hands, foregoing silence this close to the exit. “Get out!”

If Gavyn was startled, he did not show it, merely smirked at Tait, then offered a slight tilt to his chin. Another moment, and Gavyn’s form dissolved into a thousand water droplets and faded into the puddle by the open gate. Doubtless he would reappear somewhere nearer to the shore to fight with the others.

Sander’s footfalls were heavy at my back, Tait’s at my front.

On our next step, a slight figure pounced from a dying hedge. I skidded forward with such force that I nearly fell back and cracked my head on the cobblestones.

Eeva—or something that was once Eeva—blocked our path.

The gold strands of her hair stood on end, wild and untamed. Webs of blackened veins split off her eyes, like her smooth skin had cracked like dry clay. But it was the points of two fangs I could just make out under her lips that drew my attention.

The tears in her eyes were an odd show of compassion when every other feature burned with violence.

“Forgive me,” she said, voice rough as dry soil. “You cannot leave.”

49

The Heartwalker

I raised my bound hands and stepped in front of Mira. “Eeva. Please. You don’t want this, I feel it.”

Eeva’s chin trembled, and her voice shifted to a scratch, something broken. “I can’t stop what I am. I thought I had, but what a lie I’ve lived.”

I needed to get Mira out of this damn garden.

“She needs blood,” Sander whispered.

“Yes, she wants ours,” I snapped from the corner of my mouth.

“No, I mean—”

Whatever Sander planned to say, he did not get the chance. Eeva let out another shrill scream, tucked her chin, like she could not stomach looking at us, and attacked.

Mira darted from behind me, hands open in front of her. Wild buzzing flooded the garden. A cloud of thousands of pests with tiny wings surrounded Eeva’s head. The shimmer of illusion was greater than the cracking earth.

Still, it was enough to drop Eeva to her knees, swatting and batting at the swarm of pests.

“Go!” I nudged Mira forward and snatched the blade from her grip. “I’ll finish her.”

“No!” Sander held out a hand. “What I’ve read insists the blood call fades when the thirst is satisfied.”

Sander took a step toward Eeva.