Helena shot through the city, glancing down at the almost unrecognizable scrawl of her own handwriting. Headlights swept across her car like ghosts, and she gripped the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles turned white. Every time she looked at the clock on the dashboard, sickness welled up inside her. It had been ten minutes since she left the Runaway Jack, and each one of them was a minute more that her family—
—and Aleksi—
—could have been killed.
She roared off the freeway, gunning her engine too fast down the exit ramp, and whipped into a shabby neighborhood, the streets lined with densely layered oak trees. Her memory of her vision was too fragmented for her to recognize the neighborhood outright, but something about this place felt right: and it was because it felt wrong. Unsettling. Golden leaves swirled through the air, glinting as they twisted around the falling-apart little houses. Helena’s skin prickled. Magic. The street was soaked in magic.
She checked the directions again. Calendaria Lane was scrawled in her handwriting. She slowed the car, peering up at the street signs. Durnak Lane. Rheta Lane. The sun shone in her eyes. She pulled forward.
There it was. Calendaria Lane.
Helena let the car roll to a stop. She took a deep breath, still squeezing the steering wheel. The leaves were falling more thickly, swirling and dancing, piling on top of the car’s hood.
She slowly turned on the street and a bolt of power lanced straight through her chest. The car wrenched out of her control and veered toward the sidewalk.
“Fuck!” Helena shouted, yanking hard on the wheel to correct it. The car tires squealed against the asphalt and she slammed on the brakes, the car hitting up against the opposite curb with a shudder. She shoved the car into park and took deep, shaky breaths while the leaves fell ceaselessly around her.
Magic thrummed.
Helena cut the car’s engine and stepped out into the heavy, muggy air. The street was empty and quiet save for the constant rustle of falling leaves. A wet, humid miasma had settled over everything, and the houses, set back in their yards, seemed shrouded in haze. As she forced herself to walk forward, the magic in this place rattled inside her chest, like bronchitis.
And then, through the showering leaves, she saw a flash of red. Juniper’s car.
It was parked at the far end of the street, in a cul-de-sac, beneath a sprawling oak tree draped in cobwebs of Spanish moss. Behind the oak, a tidy gray ranch-style house squatted in the overgrown grass.
The air whined. Helena sucked down deep breaths, but the air was harder to breathe, as if it were turning into water. Sense memories of her vision at the Runaway Jack shattered through her head, stirring up sparks of sharp, calcified pain.
Helena pushed forward, toward Juniper’s car. Magic flowed like electricity, invisible and dangerous. She dug her nails into her palm: what had she been thinking, coming out here with no protection? No counter-spells? No help at all?
Light cracked the sky in half.
Helena yelped and dropped down to the sidewalk, squinting up. A thin line of white light stretched over the gray house, and the sky around it was dark and bruised. The air vibrated. Helena’s eyes watered and stung. Her throat seemed to close up.
The leak.
Helena forced herself up and raced toward the house, gasping and heaving. It was Infernal magic, she knew, thicker and heavier than anything she’d ever experienced before, and she realized that the miasma, the humidity in the neighborhood, was Infernal magic, too.
Hell was seeping through.
Helena skittered to a stop behind the willow tree, gasping for breath. The gray house was dark save for one window, which glowed a thin, sickly green. Ill-defined shapes moved across the glass.
She slid to her knees and crept forward, pressing herself low to the ground. The weeds in the yard swayed toward her, brushing prickly fingers across her bare legs. Her eyes watered so intensely she could barely keep them open.
Another crack, like a tree branch shattering under the weight of ice. Helena dove underneath the window and tried to peer up. She could no longer see the white line, the leak. Only the beaten sky.
She moved around the side of the house, balancing herself against the dirty brick. The air buffeted her, even though there was no wind here: everything was silent, muffled, and still. She could barely even hear her own footsteps in the grass. But she forced her way through the magic, toward a back door.
It wasn’t locked.
Helena almost laughed as the door swung open to reveal a darkened kitchen. But of course—they had protected the neighborhood with wards, not locks. And with her family’s involvement, the wards must have recognized her Muir bloodline. Otherwise she would never have gotten through.
Helena eased into the kitchen, slid the door shut as quietly as she could. The air was as murky and heavy inside as it had been outside, but at least it was cooler.
Everything smelled of sage and burned cardamom. Scents of conjuration.
Panic seized her. Still, she crept across the kitchen, one hand pressed against the wall. Sound was muffled and distorted, but she heard something that might be chanting. It was coming from the front of the house. The living room. Where the window had been stained green.
Helena slipped into the hallway. The scent of burned cardamom grew stronger. It was interwoven with a whiff of creosote, smoky and metallic. Helena’s eyes watered. She took one cautious step after another.
A loud tearing sound cracked through the house and green light exploded out of a doorway up ahead.
Helena flung herself up against the wall, sucked down breath. The chanting grew louder and clearer, enough that she could make out that it was the blood mage tongue.
“No,” she breathed, and darted forward. The air pressed against her, straining against her like a g-force, but she kept fighting it until she was at the doorway, green light flooding around her. She braced herself against the threshold, and lifted her burning, tearing eyes to the scene inside.
In the center of the room stood Gavin, naked, covered in blood. He gripped a knife in one hand and a blaze of light in the other, and he was turned toward Aleksi, who was pinned to the wall by invisible bounds, his arms and legs stretched wide. His true form threatened to tear through his skin.
Gavin bellowed in the blood mage tongue and thrust the light toward Aleksi. He roared, thrashing against his bindings, his eyes blazing with fury. It was the shard, Helena realized. A tiny piece of Aleksi that Gavin used to weaken him.
Gavin laughed cruelly and released the shard. It didn’t fall, only floated on the air, burning like a star. He turned around. And that was when Helena saw them.
Her mother. Her father. Juniper. They were spread prostrate across the floor, mouths open in screams Helena could not hear.
And then the two strangers Helena had seen in her earlier vision of Juniper. The Landrys. They lay slack, crimson smiles across their throats.
There was no sign of Dominic or Corina.
Gavin dropped to his knees beside Helena’s mother and lifted the knife above his head.
“No!” Helena screamed, but her voice made no sound.
Gavin swung the knife down.
Helena bolted into the room and slammed into Gavin just as the knife dropped toward Juniper’s throat, slicing her skin enough that blood bubbled up like a fountain.
Helena threw Gavin against the far wall and dropped to her knees, pressing her hands into Juniper’s wound. Juniper’s eyes stared up at her, wide with fright.
“What have you done!” Helena screamed. The chanting rose around her. She glanced backward and suddenly saw the Children of Adrasteia, all of them, dressed in dark flowing robes. There had to be hundreds of them, all in this room made cavernous by magic, in this shabby house in the middle of New Orleans.
Helena choked back a wave of nausea, her mind scrambling to make sense of what she was seeing. The room was too big for the bounds of the house, unfolding out into the horizon.
“You’re too late,” Gavin snarled, swinging the knife at Helena. She ducked out of his grip, slippery with blood. Juniper moaned. Why didn’t she press her hands to her wound?
Something roared, violent and jagged. Not Gavin. Aleksi.
No. Byleth.
“Music!” roared Byleth, the English word distorted by his demon tongue.
Gavin grabbed Helena by the wrist and flung her toward her family. She landed on her knees next to her mother, who gazed at her with confused, terrified eyes. She was still alive. Helena sobbed with relief and grabbed at her mother’s hand. It was hot to the touch, as if she had a fever.
Her mother blinked.
She couldn’t move, Helena realized with a sinking of despair. She was alive, but she was enspelled and she couldn’t move. Juniper, their father—they were the same. Frozen in place, their expressions terrified.
But Juniper was still bleeding.
“Music!” Byleth roared again. Helena barely heard him.
Pain lanced through her skull. Her head was snapped back. Gavin’s hand was tangled up in her hair. Her throat stung on the cool air.
“You’re just in time,” he said again, this time in a whisper, his hot breath puffing against her cheek. “Four more sacrifices to go. Your sister will bleed out soon enough.”
Helena screamed, hot tears brimming along her eyelashes. A knife’s cold sting kissed the side of her neck.
“Please,” she whispered. She didn’t know what else to do but beg.
“I appreciate the donation,” Gavin said.
“Music!” Byleth roared. “Your mus—”
“Shut up!” Gavin screamed, slamming Helena down into a puddle of sticky, hot blood. She scrambled away, her eyes glossing over the sight of the slaughtered bodies and her incapacitated family.
Music, she thought idly.
An immense, rattling crack ripped through the room. The shard’s blazing light flared, drowning everything in a white blindness. The air seemed to compress. Helena dug the heels of her palms into her eyes.
The chanting started again.
Helena forced her eyes open. Byleth was resplendent in his true form: wings spread, horns scraping against the ceiling, his body scaled and gleaming. But he was still pinned in place, the shard drifting above Gavin’s head.
He looked toward Helena, red eyes burning.
Music.
He’d had two Lineage sacrifices already. Juniper was bleeding out on the floor.
And when Byleth died, all the world would die with him.
Music.
Maybe you were practicing without realizing it.
Gavin plucked the shard out of the air and held the knife up to his forehead. His body vibrated in time with the chanting. His feet lifted off the ground.
Byleth bared his teeth, thrashed hopelessly against the wall. And Helena saw a flash of Aleksi’s features in the lines of Byleth’s face.
“I’m sorry I abandoned you,” she whispered, and then she took a deep breath.
And sang.
She sang the first Black Moon song she had ever heard, shaping the melodies of the guitar with her voice, digging deep inside herself for her own Infernal magic. Byleth broke into a grin, jagged teeth gleaming, and Helena sang louder.
Magic stirred inside her, spiky and strange. It welled up in her bloodstream. Shimmered inside her atoms.
Byleth spoke in Infernal, and the words melted into English inside Helena’s mind: “Good. Focus on the shard. Pull it to you.”
Helena closed her eyes and wailed out the melody as loud as she could. The notes fractured inside her throat, snapping into something inhuman.
The chanting wavered.
“Ignore her!” Gavin screamed. “We have all the power here! She’s nothing!”
Helena drew the magic into her voice, the way Aleksi had shown her. And then she sent it whirling out into the oppressive air. She stared at the shard glowing in Gavin’s hand, and with her voice pulled it toward her.
Gavin’s arm, and the shard with it, shot out, knocking him off balance. He flew out sideways. The knife clattered to the floor.
Helena wavered, shocked that it had worked.
“Don’t stop!” Byleth yelled in Infernal.
She lifted her voice again, and slipped into “Midwinter,” the melody she had created vibrating hard inside her chest. She screamed the lyrics, bracing her arms against the floor—
The shard slipped out of Gavin’s fingers.
“No!” he bellowed, just as he crashed hard onto the ground. The shard drifted lazily, like a wisp of a dandelion seed.
“Don’t stop!” he screamed at his followers, whose chanting had fallen out of sync. “I can still do this!” He picked up the knife and Helena sang, harder, more desperately, the Infernal music tearing at her throat.
Byleth snarled something in Infernal—it had the air of an insult. Helena’s mind couldn’t translate it.
Gavin gave a wild shout of fury and snapped forward, plunging the knife into Byleth’s shoulder.
Helena’s song turned into a scream, but Byleth yelled, “Keep going!”
Sobbing, she found the music again. The Infernal magic. Tears streamed out of her eyes; her entire body trembled.
The shard drifted closer.
Gavin pulled the knife out.
Byleth was staring at her, pleading, and she felt something swell up inside her. Not magic. Not desire, either. Something more frightening than either of those.
She leapt up in one smooth motion, her arm stretched—
And wrapped her fingers around the shard.
Immediately, a dark, thrumming power flooded through her body and she felt a delirious burst of pain in her shoulder. She hit the floor hard, clutching the shard to her chest. Light poured through her fingers and she unfurled them until she saw the shard itself. It was so small, just a sliver of polished black glass.
“Do as you will,” she whispered to it.
Byleth roared and ripped out of his bindings and flapped his great wings, releasing a rush of hot, iron-scented air. The Children of Adrasteia broke apart, screaming, rushing toward the door. Byleth lifted Gavin up off the ground, dug his claws into Gavin’s sides. Gavin thrashed, throwing blood around—his own blood, Lineage blood, Helena didn’t know.
Byleth ripped Gavin’s head from his shoulders.
Helena screamed, slipping and stumbling over the blood on the floor and then slamming up against the far wall, so hard that pain lanced through her spine. She squeezed the shard into her fist, the sting of its sharp edges tearing into her palm.
Byleth flung Gavin’s body to the side and dove down into the Children of Adrasteia as they shoved their way through the door. Helena gasped and slid down until she was sitting, then crawled over to her family, still frozen in place. She ripped a strip of fabric off her shirt and wrapped it around Juniper’s wound. Juniper’s eyes flashed over to her, unreadable through her fear and confusion.
As she crouched over her enspelled family, a million horrified emotions welled up inside Helena. Grief and fear, a rippling undercurrent of rage and a sharp, unsettling glee: rage at the man who had harmed them, glee that he had died so horrifically, and at the hands of a creature she had fallen in love with.
The realization hit her like a slap.
She was in love with Aleksi. Byleth. Aleksi/Byleth.
She looked down at the shard again, shaking. Then she lifted her gaze, eyes streaming hot tears. Byleth flapped his enormous black wings, muscled legs crouched midair. He was shouting in Infernal, his voice streaming out like magic.
How could she be in love with him? But it was there, a painful seed growing roots in her heart, and she wept her fear and her confusion and her grief and her relief.
And then, with a swelling of Infernal magic, the cultists vanished, blinking out of the room and casting it into a sudden, delirious quiet.
The only sound was Helena’s muffled tears, and a strange, low keening. It was coming from her mother. She was blinking wildly, moaning through her clenched teeth.
“I’ve got you,” Helena whispered, stroking Juniper’s sweat-soaked hair. “I’ve got all of you.” She glanced over at her father, who blinked slowly at her. “It’s over now.”
She looked up at Byleth as he lowered himself to the ground, the movement as graceful as a dancer. His back was to her and all she could see was wings. Juniper trembled.
“He’s on our side,” she said softly.
Her mother let out a sharp, muffled shout. Her father just closed his eyes.
“He is,” Helena whispered. “I swear to you.”
The air in the room was thick with lingering magic and an overwhelming, cloying sweetness that Helena knew, instinctively, was the scent of death.
“I sent them away,” Byleth said in distorted, gravelly English. “The survivors. Scattered them across the country. My hope is that they’ll be so disoriented they won’t remember.”
Helena’s mother let out another muffled scream, her face burning with rage.
Helena took a deep breath, wiped furiously at her eyes. She gripped her sister’s hand. Pressed the shard into the palm of her other.
Byleth turned slowly around. Aleksi’s true form rose before her, dark and beautiful, a deity that haunted black forests and deep, dripping caverns. Thick muscles corded beneath his scaled skin as he stepped toward her, wings dragging behind him like a cape. He didn’t come close.
“My parents,” she whispered weakly. “They’re still alive. We have to get them out of here.”
Her mother’s strangled screeching grew louder, and she could sense her father straining against his magical bounds, his fingers twitching. Helena’s face flushed with heat. Aleksi had just saved them, and they were still trying to fight against him.
“The Lineage is on their way,” Aleksi said. “I can sense them. They’ll be here as the effects of the bounds fade away. Your family will recover.”
“But Juniper needs help now!”
Juniper blinked. Tears glistened along her lash line.
“I’ll take her with us,” Aleksi said. He looked down at Helena’s family, and Helena’s mother screamed out the strangled fragments of a spell against demons.
“You should know,” Aleksi said calmly, “that this spell is a strain on your system. Tell the Lineage to monitor you both.”
It was then that Helena’s mother recovered her voice. “Go,” she rasped. “Back...to Hell!”
Byleth ignored her. Instead he looked to Helena and Juniper and held out his hand. “We have to go,” he said softly.
Helena nodded and rose shakily to her feet. Her head spun and she stumbled forward, the room’s horror blurring into a haze of red. She slammed up against Aleksi and he caught her, and for a moment she was flung back to the show, the first time she had seen him in person.
“I have your—this piece of you,” she whispered.
Aleksi pulled her close to him, and she melted into the embrace, pressing her cheek against his chest. The scales were silken, like a snake’s, and cooled the fever of her terror.
“Keep it,” he murmured. “It can’t be returned to me in this realm.”
Helena sagged against him. She couldn’t keep something so precious. But she didn’t want to argue with him about it. Not now. And so she slipped it into her pocket, where its pulse was a comfort against her hip.
“I wish I could have killed Gavin Vargo five years ago.” Aleksi squeezed Helena closer. “I wish I had never let it get this far. But when I came through, I was too weak—”
“It’s not your fault,” Helena said.
“It’s not yours, either.”
There was a sympathy in his voice, a kindness, that was exactly what Helena needed to hear in this moment. Because she knew her parents were blaming her for this disaster, even though she had tried to warn them. They refused to see her any other way.
Helena’s tears flooded out at this realization, and she sobbed into Aleksi’s chest, clinging to him.
“Let me get both of you out of this place,” he murmured, stroking her hair. He peeled away and knelt down beside Juniper, who stared up at him with wide eyes.
“Truce?” he said to her, and she blinked.
“Juniper!” Helena’s mother screamed, her voice ragged. “Don’t do it! Don’t let him take you!”
“She’ll die if we leave her here!” Helena screamed back.
Her mother glared at her, her eyes filled with fury. Her father’s gaze, though, was only sad.
Aleksi scooped Juniper in a fireman’s carry, draping her over his shoulders above the place where his wings sprouted from his back. Then he reached out to Helena.
“I should wait here with my parents,” she said, even though the last thing she wanted was to be in this room, in this house, surrounded by death, while her mother screamed curses at her and her father gazed at her like she was a disappointment and a failure.
“The Lineage will capture you if you do that.” Aleksi balanced Juniper with one hand and then pulled Helena to him with the other. There was a gust of hot, sticky wind, and Helena’s feet were lifted off the ground.
She gasped, clung tightly to Aleksi’s waist, the back of her head pressed against Juniper’s legs. On the other side of Aleksi’s face, Juniper looked over at her, and her mouth quirked in something like a smile.
Gavin’s spell was wearing off.
“Don’t look down,” he said, which of course Helena did, down at the ocean of dark blood, at her parents, sending their hatred up at her. She blinked back tears.
Aleksi shot up toward the ceiling and Helena braced herself for an impact but there was none: the ceiling vanished above them and then they were gliding up through the last remnants of the sunset. The sky was normal again, and beautiful, streaked with embered light. A few tenacious stars glimmered against the velvet backdrop. Wind buffeted Helena’s face, whipped her hair around, and she felt a strange hope deep inside her chest.
“I don’t see the leak anymore.” She had to yell over the wind.
“It’s still there,” Aleksi said. “But it’s small. Thin.”
Helena trembled. “So things can’t get through?”
Aleksi didn’t answer, just swept sideways, and for a second Helena forgot all that had happened and yelped at the dizzy thrill of flying. Louisiana spread out below them, a quilt of dark green threaded with dots of glimmering lights. Helena breathed in the cold air and Aleksi’s scent of burning incense and melting sugar.
Aleksi began to slowly spiral downward, drifting toward a dark patch of swamp. A single light burned in the middle of all that greenery, a pinpoint guiding them to safety.