“How dare you speak their names?” Artem was in Kai’s face, looking like he wanted to throttle him. “I could argue this started with you, too, Salonga. The way you poisoned Farran’s mind with this ‘Tides and Shadow being equal’ nonsense…”
“What are you talking about?”
Farran Caine—the boy Kai used to date when he was at Trevelyan Prep. Baz had only ever heard Kai utter the nameonce, but he remembered it acutely. And judging from the fury on Kai’s face, it was still a sore spot for him.
“Don’t act like you don’t know,” Artem spat.
“All I know is he chose you depraved lot over me, and look where that got him.”
Artem’s hand grabbed a fistful of Kai’s shirt, the veins at his temple bulging out.
“Stop it,” Baz said. “Please.”
With a sneer, Artem let go of Kai. “At least I won’t have losteveryone. Not once Keiran returns.”
“Don’t make me do this,” Freyia pleaded.
But Artem looked at her and spoke in that voice laced with compulsion again: “Bring him back.”
Powerless against his Glamour magic, Freyia knelt beside Keiran’s corpse. Tears fell in earnest down her cheeks now, even as her expression became glazed. She was a puppet whose strings were being pulled against her will. They all were, forced to watch without being able to do anything to stop this perversion.
Baz half expected silver light to flood the sleepscape. But no silver shone beneath Freyia’s skin, her Collapsing long since over. The only sign of her magic was the faint ripple between her and Keiran’s corpse.
And then, impossibly, Keiran took a gasping breath, eyesshooting open to stare at the dark expanse above him. Life was returning to his pallid features. He looked like he was waking from a nap, alive, alive, alive, and Baz thought Freyia might have actually succeeded this time.
He felt Kai’s sharp intake at his side. “Something’s wrong,” the Nightmare Weaver said.
Baz saw it with his own eyes: darkness gathering above Keiran, hovering there as if in wait, becoming denser until it formed into claw-tipped hands that reached down to Keiran’s face. Horror lined Freyia’s features, and though she tried to wrench back from Keiran, from this creature of darkness, she couldn’t do so under Artem’s spell.
“What is this?” Artem barked, a note of fear disguised as annoyance in his voice. “What are you doing to him?” he yelled at Freyia.
“It’s not me,” Freyia gritted out. “I can’t—”
“Stop!” Artem yelled.
Freyia wrenched away, falling backward as she was released from the Glamour, just as the clawed, shadowy hands gripped the sides of Keiran’s head. The darkness spilled inside him. Keiran convulsed, and then—the darkness was gone, and it was just him. He sat up and stared at them, eyes unnaturally dark and sharp with starlight, rings of gold and silver around his pupils. And though itwasKeiran, there was nothing of the golden boy of Aldryn in his expression, none of that carefully contained arrogance, that air of superiority disguised in charm.
There was something old and bloodthirsty in the curve of his mouth. A promise of death in the look he swept over them.
“Keiran?” Artem croaked. “Is it you, brother?”
Keiran craned his neck toward him in an unnatural motion. The golds and silvers in his eyes seemed to flare like dancing flames. Before Artem could utter another word, Keiran was upon him, moving with a kind of preternatural speed that no one shouldpossess. He grabbed Artem by the neck, lifting him off his feet with a strength that couldn’t possibly belong to Keiran.
Baz felt the compulsion’s hold on him vanish. Artem must have lost his grasp on it as he fought against Keiran’s choke hold, feet kicking wildly beneath him. Kai grabbed Baz’s wrist with such ferocity it had him snapping his head toward Kai. He had never seen Kai look so afraid—other than earlier, when he’d been fighting his invisible demon.
“Tell me this is real,” Kai said tightly. “Tell me I’m not seeing things.”
“This is real.” As fucked-up as it was, it wasreal—had to be.
“Okay.” Kai blinked rapidly as if coming out of a trance. “Okay, then I suggest we run before that thing is finished with Artem.”
Nightmares erupted out of the gloom between stars.
The umbrae were here.
They milled around Keiran and Artem, as if called by the darkness within Keiran or perhaps by Artem’s fear as he screamed and sputtered, whimpering broken pleas to Keiran. If there was anything of Keiran left, he did not seem to recognize his friend as he squeezed the life out of him.
More umbrae manifested from the darkness, setting their sightless eyes on the rest of them, swiping for Virgil and Freyia first since they were closest to them.
