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Zeke backed into the shadows as Briar stormed out of the front door and marched onto the drive. He waited until Mara’s head was turned.

Then, heart slamming, Zeke crept into the lounge.

“It’s just us now, Cyrus,” Mara said. Cyrus’s eyes were squeezed shut with pain. “And I can keep a secret.”

Zeke raised the cane over his shoulder, arms trembling.

“So why don’t you tell me what you know about someone named—”

Thwack. The cane’s handle connected with Mara’s head, and she collapsed.

Cyrus flinched into awareness as Zeke discarded the cane and frantically untied him.

“Who are they?” he asked, breathing heavily. “What do they want?”

“Secrets.” Cyrus’s face was pale with terror. “Secrets I will not give.”

Zeke shivered in dread as he helped Cyrus up. Before he could consider where they were supposed to hide, Cyrus took a sheaf of shipping documents from his writing desk and shoved them into Zeke’s hands.

“There’s a satchel in the storeroom, with enough dullroot to last you the trip.”

“The trip?” Zeke pocketed the papers. “Uncle—”

“These are the king’s Hunters, my boy. They won’t stop until they find you.”

Zeke startled, horrified. He hadn’t used his specter for years. And even if the Hunters had discovered him, it sounded as though they’d been questioning Cyrus about someone else.

“Uncle, I don’t—” Zeke halted as he saw a shadow, stretching ahead of him. He’d barely registered who it belonged to before Cyrus yanked him aside.

And Mara’s knife—the knife that had been meant for Zeke’s back—plunged into his uncle’s stomach instead.

For one awful moment, Zeke was frozen. Watching as red blossomed across his uncle’s favorite shirt. As Mara’s eyes glimmered with satisfaction.

But before Mara could yank out the blade, Cyrus hurled himself forward. She buckled under his weight—and then they were grappling, Cyrus’s blood smearing the floor.

“Run, my boy!”

Mara’s mask tore away, and the sight of her face—viciously beautiful, fierce with anger—shocked Zeke out of his stupor.

He spun.

Mara barked a laugh. “Coward!”

He stumbled at the threshold. Was he really going to abandon his uncle? But one look behind him, at the blood and the blade and—

Yes. Maybe it did make Zeke a coward. But he didn’t want to die.

So he raced out the back door, into the muggy morning air. A moment later, he burst into the storehouse.

He panted, his throat burning from the chemical stench of pesticides. The storeroom was kept in near-darkness to prevent the vats from combusting under the sun; with only the light from one little window to see by, Zeke reached for his matches and dragged one down the rough surface of his boot. Then he lit the emergency lantern and searched for the satchel.

The scene replayed in his mind as he scrambled over the straw-covered floor. Run, my boy! But what if Zeke had fought Mara? What if he could’ve stanched Cyrus’s bleeding?

Self-loathing was settling in when his foot nudged the satchel. Exhaling, he set the lantern on the windowsill and shouldered the strap.

Taking one final deep breath, he sprinted out of the door.

He was running alongside the dullroot fields when he saw the masked figure, standing in wait. Zeke skidded to a halt, fear gripping him.