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“You will have exactly one minute,” she told Reynard. “Are you prepared?”

“Yes.”

He could move fast. Once he sensed the shadowbeast, he’d go after it, capture it again—somehow—and we’d get Zee.

“Alright,” Madame Matase said. I sensed her hands moving, picking apart her tapestry of protection. “Three, two, one. They’re down.”

A shiver passed through me, but I only noticed it because I was looking for it. Nobody else would know. We just had to get through sixty seconds⁠—

Someone screamed.

CHAPTER 12

One scream became many. Reynard flew through the door and was gone in a blink, too fast for me to track, but it wasn’t hard to figure out where he’d gone since there was a stream of people surging from the bar.

This was going to be a PR nightmare, but I’d worry about the fallout later. For now, I needed to get inside the bar.

Buffeted by fleeing guests, I fought my way inside, and caught the tail end of Reynard leaping off a table and landing a punch into the enormous shadowbeast’s middle, sending it flying backward. It splashed against a wall, and poofed into a cloud of static-dust smoke. Vanishing inside the shadows once more.

“Adam!” Reynard bellowed.

I dashed to his side as he whirled, trying to find me in the chaos. “I’m here—what do I do?”

“When it attacks again, it will leave a tear in the shadows. Go through and find Zodiac. He’s nearby, in its realm. I’m sure of it. I’ll keep it busy here. You have thirty seconds.”

“Thirty seconds?! What?! Wait⁠—”

Shadows pooled from every corner of the bar, rose up in a wave, and crashed down on Reynard, washing him and half the tables across the floor. Then, between him and me the air crackled, and the shadowbeast emerged, born from a split in the darkness.

I ran at the tear and plunged through. Whatever in-between space I ended up in, its air choked like thick smoke, and pushed in from all around, trying to expel me. Blinking through the thick gloom, I was able to make out the SOS Hotel bar, but here it was empty. Just walls, the ceiling, the floor, and no color or life—an absence of living.

If this was the same hotel, just . . . dead, then where could Zee be?

My dream . . . The attic!

There wasn’t time⁠—

I ran, pushing through the thick air. “Zee?” The shadows swallowed my voice as soon as it left my lips. The silence clung to my skin like oil, sapping my will, trying to slow me down and force me out. This place was horrible—like a purgatory, a prison of nothing—and the very worst place a demon who thrived on life could be trapped and forgotten.

I hammered up the narrow stairs, stumbled into the attic space, and there he was, curled into a ball, his wings tucked around him, his tail limp. “Zee!” I skidded to my knees and peeled a wing back. His face was snow white, his lips grey. Dull, unseeing eyes peered through me. Not blinking, not seeing. I was too late. “Zee, no.” I cupped his face. He couldn’t be dead. Not Zee. It wasn’t right. He didn’t deserve this.

“Hurry!” Reynard’s voice boomed from all around.

I didn’t know what to do. Drag his body back to the bar? How? “Zee . . .” My fingers fluttered to his neck, checking for a pulse, fearing there wouldn’t be one. “Come on, I need you to be okay. I can’t do this without you.” There, the smallest of beats, like a tiny butterfly, its wings beating under my touch, his life so fragile a thing. He wasn’t dead. Not yet. But how was I going to get him out? Wings and horns, he was half as tall as me again. I couldn’t get him down the narrow stairs, and I didn’t know how to make a tear in the shadows.

“Zee, I need you to wake up. We have to get to the⁠—”

A blow knocked me clean off my feet. I slammed into the underside of the roof trusses, then dropped to the floor with a mouth full of dust. I turned my head, spluttered, and the shadowbeast loomed. Bigger than I’d ever seen it. It pulled the fabric of the world into it, bolstering itself with every step toward me, filling the attic space.

I staggered to my feet and jerked my chin. “You don’t want to do this.” Zee was still slumped behind it. I could save him, I had to save him. But the beast was huge, and getting bigger by the second. “This isn’t your fight. Gideon controls you, I know.” I thrust out a hand, as though to hold the creature back. “It’s his ring, you don’t have a choice, do you? But I can help. I can free you.” I wasn’t sure if that was possible, but it sounded good.

Unfortunately, the shadowbeast either wasn’t listening or didn’t care. It swept a huge arm through the air, knocking me clean off my feet and face first into the floorboards. I scurried around, momentum carrying me onto my feet, then righted myself again and swept a hand through my hair, freeing bits of splintered wood. “Alright, I see we have a difference of opinion happening here. But you see that demon over there? He’s my friend, and I need to take him home. If you get in my way, I will stop you.”

The shadowbeast didn’t really have a face, just a murky outline, but I sensed its unkind smile.

“You don’t think I can stop you?” Granted, it wasn’t looking good. Reynard hadn’t been able to stop it, and he had a few thousand years of battle prowess over me. “We can do this dance all night, but I’m not leaving without my friend.”

The beast chortled—at least, I figured that’s what the odd bubbling noise was that came from its insides.