Not denying the accusation, Kallum leisurely removes a device from the pocket of his black jeans, and suddenly the chirping goes silent. As he narrows his gaze on Devyn, he says, “Do I look like a moth now?”

Devyn’s heel grinds into the base of my spine. “I see your wings,” she says, disoriented as she tips off balance. “I’ll give you the offering, Harbinger. One we can share.”

She reaches down and claws her nails into my hair. Gripping the strands at the roots, she drags me up to stand before her, securing an arm around my shoulders. In her other hand, she wields the honed antler, and she presses the spike to my neck.

Kallum’s smile is deadly, the blood-red hollows around his eyes empty. “She’s not yours to offer.”

“The Harbinger isn’t here to stop you,” I say to her, trying to play into her delusion.

“You’re my path.” Her hold tightens. “She’s my path,” she says in challenge to him, digging the point into my skin. “I have sacrificed. I’ve walked the abyss. I have achieved what no other could. Not even you, demon of fate.”

A calculating cruelty ignites behind Kallum’s gaze, just as striking and lethal as the hardened features of the skull that masks his face. A shiver envelops me, the press of cold more bitter than the tomb surrounding us.

“Even the wisest among you is only a conflict and hybrid of plant and ghost,” Kallum says, delivering a passage of the allegory Devyn has twisted for her delusion. “Behold, I teach you the Übermensch! Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Übermensch—a rope over an abyss.” He takes a daring step closer to the fire. “What is lovable in man is that he is an over-going and a going under.”

Devyn’s hold around me weakens. Falling victim to the spell only Kallum can cast, she’s racked with shivers. My entire body lit with pain and shock, it’s too much of a burden to keep me held upright. Devyn removes her arm, letting me crumple to the ground.

Stepping through the fire, Kallum bares his teeth. “A going under, priestess,” he says, his tone snapping as hot as the flames. “Going under is the sacrifice of oneself. I told you before—” he reaches out and touches the side of her face, his action tender, almost regretful “—how easily philosophy can be misinterpreted.”

Tucking my wounded arm close to my body, I angle my face upward, catching a moment where clarity shines through Devyn’s eyes. Hope hangs on a fragile breath, where I’m too scared to breathe.

Devyn follows me to the floor of the cave, her arms extended, her head bowed, tips of the antlers speared into the earth. “I’ve failed,” she mutters against the dirt.

Relief fills the aching chambers of my heart, and I drag in a lungful of smoky air, letting my head rest on the ground. I’m not sure what this means for Devyn. Once she’s apprehended, I won’t have access to her. She needs help; deep psychological help. Not a jail cell.

Fighting the undertow dragging me under, I watch as Kallum drops to his haunches in front of Devyn and takes hold of the spine in her outstretched hand, sliding it away from her as he curls his fingers around the weapon.

Devyn looks over at me, the light lost in her eyes, a message delivered only between us, and my heart thunders. I feel the volatile shift in the air, hear the drums echoing in my ears.

A cry shatters the reprieve as Devyn draws upward in a sharp arc. The curved tines of her antlers strike Kallum in the chest, knocking him off-balance. She attacks, attempting to impale his body.

The struggle ends with Kallum bracketing an arm around Devyn’s neck, her face held by his palm. I see the spiked bone in his other hand…and fear twists my insides.

“You know things you shouldn’t,” Kallum says in her ear as he raises the weapon. “I can’t let you remain a threat to her.”

“Don’t—” I say, my voice coming in a hoarse croak, but my command reaches Kallum, his attack halted in a heartbeat. “Kallum. Don’t.” My eyes seek his beyond the dark hollows. “I’ll never forgive you. Just…let her go.”

A growl resounds from deep within the base of his chest before he flings Devyn aside. She reels unsteadily, the priestess righting herself to stagger to her feet. She doesn’t glance back as she flees the scene.

My sight fading, I track Devyn to the entrance of the cave, waiting until she crosses into the night to let my head drop to the earth.

Then I plead for unconsciousness to claim me.

The arms of death surround my body, and I fold into his solid embrace. He carries me through the dark cavity of the cave, descending deeper into the darkness. As my eyes adjust to the absence of firelight, I make out a string of white lights ahead.

A stark realization washes over me, bringing a dose of reality. We’re not inside a cave at all.

Track lighting runs along the ceiling. Guide beams line the walls, and below, rail lines run along the ground of the tunnel of a mine shaft.

A layer of lucidity breaks through, freeing my mind a measure from the hypnotic coursing my system.

I reach up and touch Kallum’s face, trace the outlined hollows of the skull. Feeling the dried blood. The monster that feeds off my pain, my personified daemon, presented as the killer I’ve obsessively hunted.

“The villain becomes a hero,” I say, my voice weak.

His arresting eyes find mine and he looks into me, his smoldering, breathtaking smile an unbearable ache clutching my heart. “Sweetness, I’m your goddamn devil.”

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16

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CHAOIST

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KALLUM

Candlelight awakens the dark shadows of the mansion library. After I light the last pillar candle on the mantle, I drop the match to the kindling in the fireplace.

The weak flame threatens to extinguish, but just as the blue ribbon of flame snuffs out, the kindling catches fire. The crackling pop of tinder summons an image of the blazing ritual circle to the forefront of my thoughts, and I lower my gaze to Halen.

She sits before the giant brick hearth, her knees drawn to her chest. A threadbare blanket drapes her shoulders. A glass of water is clutched in her hand. Her gaze is fixed on the wispy flames, yet her eyes are vacant, unseeing.

I’d say she’s in shock if I didn’t know that she’s endured far worse.

I stoop beside her and remove the glass from her hand. Wordlessly and without protest, she allows me to link her arm around my neck. I then lift her into my arms, and her body curls easily against my chest, unconcerned by the caked blood as I carry her into the bathroom.

“I’m loath to leave the one room that’s uncluttered,” I say, “but since forensics processed the house, I trust it’s mostly sanitary.”

“It doesn’t bother me.” Her tone is borderline apathetic.

I’m reluctant to uncurl my arms from around her blanketed body. However, she’s wounded and needs treatment. What occupies her thoughts isn’t shock or apathy, her injuries, or even the remnant of the drug in her system. It’s the woman she set free.

There was a choice to be made before I brought her here. Whether to go straight to town and announce Devyn as the perpetrator.

“There’s no urgency,” Halen had said. “I came here to solve a mystery, and that mystery is solved. Soon as I make a report, they’re going after Devyn.”

The heavy confliction I still sense inside her is a battle she needs time to wage.

How do you measure good and evil?

Devyn was her friend, someone she trusted. Alister serves justice, an authority figure to respect.