Callie’s scream is the worst sound I’ve ever heard.
Hellhounds keep coming. Fire barriers are failing. People are dying everywhere, and my small, precise bolts aren’t nearly enough.
A hellhound takes down Deacon Park. Another kills Margot as she’s trying to protect a group of first-years.
Avery’s surrounded, her flames flickering weakly. Vera’s bleeding from a gash on her side, barely holding off two creatures at once.
The evacuation bought us time, but it didn’t change anything. People are still dying. It’s just different people, in different places, at different moments.
I grab Logan’s arm. “I have to?—”
“No.” His face is gray with exhaustion, sweat coating his hair, but his tone is still fierce. “You’re not pulling lightning from the sky. We’ll find another way.”
“There is no other way!” I gesture at the chaos around us. “Everyone’s dying, and I can stop it, and I’m not going to stand here and watch when I can save them.”
“If you call lightning from the sky in front of all these people, the Council will?—”
“I don’t care about the Council! We didn’t come back to watch more people die!”
I plant my feet on the ground and raise my hands to the churning sky, the clouds rumbling in response to my grief and rage.
They’ve been waiting for me. They know what I need, and I’m ready to take it.
The first bolt slams into my palms, I thrust my hands toward the hellhounds surrounding Sam, Elizabeth, and Francis, and the lightning explodes from my fingertips.
Three bolts. Three piles of ash. Three of my friends saved.
Catch. Kill.
Another bolt crashes down. I redirect it to the creatures closing in on Garrett.
Catch. Kill.
The rhythm takes over. Lightning strikes my hands and channels through my body, exploding out to every red eye I can see.
Catch. Kill. Catch. Kill. Catch. Kill.
The last hellhound falls.
I lower my shaking hands, smoke rising from my clothes and hair.
The survivors stare at me. Their expressions haven’t changed, still caught between awe and fear, still carrying the horrible weight of witnessing the impossible.
Sam, Elizabeth, and Francis are all alive.
But Nina’s dead. Lauren’s dead. Deidre’s dead. Alessandra’s dead. A dozen others whose faces I’ll never forget, whose names I might never know—they’re all dead.
The deaths are different, but the exposure is the same. The failure is the same.
“I’m sorry,” I say, scraped thin.
“We’re going back again.” Logan’s trembling hand closes around mine, his palm sweaty, his eyes hollow. Electricity hums under my skin from the lightning, and when it jumps between our palms, his grip tightens. “We’ll divide their attention, split into smaller groups, and head for different exits.”
He pulls me against his chest, and his fire builds around us, shaking between pulses.
“Hold on,” he murmurs, and silver crackles across my skin, black flames surround us, and we’re pulled back into the vortex.
JADE
