He took another step back, drawing the Shadows with him like a dark mist, struggling to understand her words through the pain and shifting visions. “What vervain?”
“God. Of course.” Emma stretched out as if to grab him, but he lurched back, out of her reach.
“Okay.” Emma lifted her hands as if promising not to touch him. “I’ll show you. It’s the plant with purple flowers. Vervain has always been sacred—it’s for purifying evil. For protection. There’s some upstairs in the grove.”
James shook his head roughly. It took everything he had to keep from falling screaming to the floor, locked once again in the nightmares that had trapped him before. “I can’t.”
“No,” Kay agreed from beside him. “But we can.”
Before he could argue, Shadows wrapped around him like a cocoon. Midnight blue and ocean blue spun into a vibrant roped net that pulled him off his feet to cradle him safely in the air. Vibrant tendrils twisted and curled, linking with his sky-blue Shadows to beat back against the darkness of the blade. A soft mulberry joined them, lifting him higher.
James whimpered in their hold. He curled around the blade, gritting his teeth and forcing himself to take shuddering breaths as the blood Shadows roiled through him.
The cruel visions of the blade blended with his nightmares until everything was darkness and grief. A black fireball exploded over Kay again and again. Roman soldiers lay dead, their blood seeping into the ground. A gang leader clawed at his throat. Ethan stumbled back from his door, white-faced and devastated. A beautiful strawberry-blonde Dru-vid woman slowly whetted a stone knife.
Nothing was real.
Everything was real.
He closed his eyes and focused on the Shadows twining around him, holding him. Blood Shadows crawled over the net like dripping poison, etching acid through the weave. It seemed like a million years since David had forced them to practice catching each other with Shadow nets. Everything had changed since then. But not these people. Not how much he loved them. His triad fought the boiling Shadows back again and again, but their concentration never slipped as they ran, carrying him up staircase after staircase.
James opened his eyes, and for a long moment, he was huddling in a bog, hair gripped by a cruel-eyed Seer ready to sacrifice him for a vision. He shut them again, preferring the darkness as he floated, lost.
When he dared to open his eyes again, they were through the black door and surrounded by the strange stillness of the rooftop grove.
Kay, Zach, and Emma lowered him in front of the small fountain, their Shadow ropes unraveling, and he sank to his knees, head bowed. His friends’ Shadows bolstered his, keeping his heart clear of the churning Shadows. Every other part of him was in agony. Pain burned through his veins, radiating from the blade in his fist.
If he’d been alone, he would have succumbed to madness, or his heart would have stopped. There was no doubt. But he was not alone. For the first time, he truly understood that he never had been. He could hold on a little longer.
If it meant he could find his way back to Riley, he would hold on.
Water splashed his skin, and he lifted his head as Emma dropped armfuls of long-stemmed plants with clusters of small purple-blue flowers into the lowest pond. The water was dark but clear as the flowers drifted lazily to the bottom.
Kay said something, gesturing toward the mesmerizing pool. James stared at her, trying to make sense of the words through the buzzing in his ears.
“Throw the knife in,” Kay urged, leaning close. “Get rid of it.”
Get rid of it. God. Why was it so hard?
James forced his screaming muscles to move, inch by torturous inch, until he held the dagger over the surface of the water. But he couldn’t go any further.
The blade froze in the air, dark Shadows fighting back as if they were repelled by the gentle lemon-like scent rising from the pond.
James grunted, battling with the Shadows that swarmed up his arm, writhing beneath his skin, reaching toward his heart.
He looked up at his triad and whispered, “Please help me.”
They didn’t hesitate. Kay, Zach, and Emma immediately linked their Shadows with his—ignoring the poison that traveled over his skin, through his Shadows and onto them—boosting him, guiding him, supporting him. But he stayed locked. His hand shook, sweat pouring down his face, but he couldn’t lower the blade.
“Riley?” Kay’s voice rose over the bubbling of the fountain, and then a soft hand settled on his back.
James flinched, trying desperately to turn toward her. He had to tell her to stay away. He twisted his head to look back over his shoulder. To warn her.
She didn’t give him the chance. Her mouth closed over his and her Shadows flowed into him. Not merely linked, like the others, butjoined.
Her Shadows merged with his, filling him with vibrant wholeness. She smiled gently against his lips, and then she reached over with her free hand and closed her fingers over his fist to hold the dagger with him.
God. It was the last thing he’d wanted. Riley shuddered, groaning in pain, and he would have done anything to save her from it.
