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This is so much worse.

Once again, he eclipses all others. His Dark magic—the deepest. His Light—the sharpest. And now his siphon nature—so vicious it turns my blood to ice.

“Lonan,” I whisper, part of me wishing I could turn back the clock and undo this.

He smiles—fangs sharp as his blade, glinting in the meager starlight. And then his shadows unfurl around him.

They erupt throughout the room, knocking me sideways into the table and onto the floor. I cover my head and grip my scythe, praying that I haven’t committed my worst wrong yet.

When I lift my head and open my eyes, his shadows have dissipated, and Lonan is gone. The bell of the clocktower begins its low, slow gong.

It is five in the morning.

One Hour Till Dawn

LONAN

They called me a nightmare. They whispered about me in taverns, in the streets, in the school. They said I was a terror, the scourge of Imaelhain, a fate of certain death. But the shadows gave shape to my rage. They controlled it. My Darkness is efficient, quick, secret.

This . . . this is messy. This is terror. Chaos. Destruction. Ripping, gnashing, thirsting freedom. Vesper has given permission to my Darkness, but she has no idea how dark and deep that well runs.

I am the Great Nightmare.

And she has given me teeth.

Chapter Fifty-Three

There is something strange about five in the morning—the quietest hour of the night. The last obsessive student has finally slumped over their desk, snoring, with candlelight still burning. And there’s an hour yet before kitchen staff rouses to light the ovens for the day’s bread, before the stable hands pitch their first load of hay or the housekeepers light the common room fires. At five in the morning, all good things are sleeping.

So it is the perfect hour for the strange, the magical, the monstrous.

I am all three.

I have to find Galvin before Lonan does. I have to end this before he can stop it. He has to be close—we were just fleeing him. This whole night has been a game of cat and mouse, but I’m not sure which I’ve been. I’m running, silver stake in one hand, scythe in the other, when I turn a corner and trip over something small at my feet. My hip collides with the ground, but I’m already illuminating my scythe, expecting another siphon. But the creature at my feet hisses and swats at my feet—a cat.

I blink. It doesn’t scurry off. Instead it watches me, back arched, eyes narrowed. This isn’t Poppy’s cat—its white ears are flattened against its head. “Um, hello.”

It hisses at me.

If this is another part of the Ridding, I want to tread carefully. I keep my eyes on the cat, slowly circling it. It watches me, glaring, yellow eyes glinting in the dark. When it seems unlikely to attack, I continue my charge down the hall, following that tether to Galvin.

I hear stampeding feet, and my lungs leap to my throat. But when I look behind me, I see that it’s only the damned cat following me. Stopping in the hallway, I turn back to it. “What?”

It sits on its haunches, staring at me, quietly swishing its tail.

“I don’t have any food. Aren’t there a million mice in this place?”

Its eyes narrow. I groan and decide to continue on. The cat, annoyingly, follows, and I keep one eye on it as I search the shadows for my bloodmate. I’m half certain the feline is going to transform into some sort of monster, courtesy of the Ridding, at any moment.

I shuffle down a set of stairs that lead to the science wing, the cat keeping pace with me. Ribbed columns reach toward a vaulted ceiling, where a gargantuan skeleton of a dragon suspends, its tail enchanted to swish like the perpetual pendulum of a clock. I’m running beneath its length when the sound of hurried footsteps reaches me.

I stop short. It isn’t Galvin—I would be able to feel it. So I slip into the shadows behind a statue of a gargoyle, preparing to Light my scythe for whoever, or whatever, is around the corner. It turns out to be the last person I expect, running in a forest-green dress.

I step out of the shadows. “Poppy?”

She stops and nearly topples backward at the sight of me. Her face is pale and marred with scratches. Her dress looks nearly as bad as mine does. But her eyes are clear. “Vesper,” she nearly squeals, and launches herself toward me.

I’m not sure what to do as Poppy’s arms wrap around me. I clench my weapons in hand, not willing to use them, and not willing to stow them either.