The vial is empty.
It’s the cork that carries the scent.
Fucking Crone.
Arga’s fist smashes toward my face as he catches up with me. I dart to the side at the last moment, pitching the empty vial at his face. He swats it away and I race for the door, skidding through it in a wave of broken flowers.
Outside, Koda stands in the center of the room.
He holds a vial in his hand. It’s empty too, but…
The intense scowl on Crone’s face tells me that the vial Koda found wasn’t a decoy.
I can’t see Esta anywhere, but Koda’s gaze flickers to the room with the furniture.
I hesitate. He’s either trying to give me a hint—although fuck knows how he figured out how to find the vials—or he’s trying to mislead me.
There’s no time to decide on which, and I don’t have time to stop and fight Arga—not when he could knock me out with a single punch. My only choice is to keep running and searching.
Arga rages after me, his fist hitting the side of the door, splintering wood when I duck again.
Spinning toward the room full of furniture, I race inside.
It’s massive—an elongated chamber so tightly packed with large wooden items that I have to leap over a set of drawers to get inside.
In the distance, a golden light bobs between the pieces of furniture, appearing and disappearing, and I catch sight of Esta’s golden hair. I remember the flash of power I thought I saw around Koda’s face when he ran into the sand room.
Somehow, they’re using their power to find the vials.
Rapidly, I chart a course to a far bookshelf, behind which I might be able to hide and have a chance to stop and think. Hurtling upward, I throw myself around the next obstacle—a grandfather clock—speeding over and around the furniture in my path until I reach the bookshelf.
A brief glance tells me that Arga has slowed down, but his attention is focused in the direction in which I saw Esta’s light.
He takes off after her.
He must have decided that following me is a bad idea since I’m unlikely to find an antidote before Esta.
I take a deep breath and call my power to the surface, harnessing my demon sight and inviting the way the world bursts into color when I do. The wooden shapes in the immediate space around me fade into the background while bright spots glow in my vision.
Vials!
But there are so many of them, which must mean there are decoys in this room, too. I’ll need to check each one—although my wolf’s senses will tell me whatnotto look for this time: A bitter scent means a decoy.
Allowing my demon power to combine with my wolf’s senses, I follow both my sight and my nose, veering away from the nearest vials, which all waft with a bitter scent that combines with the scent of the wood. Climbing carefully over the nearest furniture, I scan the room again. As I near another vial that also carries a bitter scent, I suddenly recognize that the decoys are all visually similar, their silhouettes slightly crimson in my demon sight.
I need to find a vial that looks different.
Stopping again, this time on top of a set of drawers, and scanning the front of the room, I ascertain that all of the vials on that side of the room are the same color in my demon sight. Then I turn toward the back of the room.
And stop.
A vial glints on my far right, and another on my far left, both of which carry a cobalt sheen. It makes me wonder if this is how Koda found his vial so fast, whether it somehow triggered his power.
Crone probably assumed he was too weak to use his power, that it wouldn’t give him an advantage. I suppose she’s accustomed to underestimating him, but I saw the destruction he wreaked on the supernatural community on Earth. I know what he’s capable of. I recall the way he pummeled his conjured Reaper to death with sheer brute strength alone, and I remind myself—never misjudge Koda’s determination to live.
Esta’s power is a bright glow on my right. She’s closest to the vial on that side of the room, so I race for the one on the left, hoping Arga won’t change course from his current trajectory toward Esta. He’s the biggest and bulkiest and he’s having trouble catching up to her since he has to vault over and squeeze himself between countless pieces of furniture to follow her path to her vial, which is even more maze-like than my path.
I don’t have time to waste.
