Beside a towering waterfall, Merik Nihar picked his way up a cliffside. Spindrift misted his sun-soaked face.

“Another hour,” Ryber had said at the bottom of the cliff. “Then we’ll reach the Sightwitch Sister Convent, and I’ll guide you through the glamour that protects it.”

Always, Ryber had guided Merik and Cam, steady and true. Since leaving Lovats two weeks ago, she had led them through the Sirmayans, ever closer to her childhood home—the long-lost Sightwitch Sister Convent, a place Merik hadn’t known existed. And he certainly hadn’t known that Ryber was a Sister from their ranks.

Water caressed Merik’s face. He was tired, he was parched—so parched, he’d already imagined dumping his face into the waterfall and gulping whatever he could before it dragged him down.

He glanced at Cam behind him. Then glanced again.

“I’m fine, sir,” the boy groused. He had to shout to be heard above the falls. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“I’ll stop looking,” Merik countered, “when your hand is fully healed.” He knew Cam was sick of the fretting. Overprotective hen was his phrase, but Cam also couldn’t see how pale his brown, dappled skin had become since leaving Lovats. Since the Nines had cut off his pinkie.

“At the top,” Merik called, “let’s stop and change the bandages.”

“Fine, fine, sir. If you ins—”

A great rip tore through the earth, stealing Cam’s words and tossing Merik against the cliff face.

It tossed Cam right off.

Without thought, Merik’s magic snapped free. A whip of winds to snatch the boy before he hit the rapids. A coil of air to launch him straight into Merik’s arms.

Then he clutched the boy close while aftershocks rumbled through the stone. While they panted and heaved and hung on. It felt an eternity before the quake fully faded, leaving dust and water thick in the air.

“Sir,” Cam breathed against him, eyes bulging and terrified. “You used your magic.”

“I know,” he said at the same time Ryber coughed out, “Everyone all right?” Her umber black skin was streaked with dust from the tremor as she clung to the ledge above.

“Hye,” Merik called, even though that might not be true. Two weeks, he had stayed so diligent against his witchery’s call. Against the Nihar rage too, for they were connected. He could not stop his winds when the anger took hold.

And he could not stop Kullen when the winds awoke.

“Just a bit farther,” Ryber said. She scrabbled down slightly and grabbed hold of Cam’s good hand. Then, with Merik to push, they got Cam onto a higher ledge.

“Maybe,” Cam called as he climbed, “the first mate didn’t notice the magic.”

Not the first mate, Merik thought, wishing yet again that Cam would stop calling Kullen that. The first mate was gone. Kullen was gone. He had cleaved in Lejna. His magic had reached a breaking point, then it had burned through him and turned him into a monster. Yet unlike other Cleaved, who died in minutes from the boil of corrupted power, Kullen had stayed alive.

And somehow, Kullen’s mind had been replaced by a shadow beast that called himself the Fury.

Merik was just about to resume his own ascent when a voice split his skull: THERE YOU ARE.

Merik clutched at his head.

I AM COMING.

“Sir?” Cam blinked down at him. “Is it the first mate?”

“Hye,” he gritted out. “Move.”

This time, Merik did not resist his magic. Kullen had found them; they were already damned. He drew in his breath, clogged as it was with dust off the mountain, and let the hot air spiral close. Fragile strands, but enough to push them faster. Enough to send him, Cam, and Ryber skipping straight up to the top of the cliff.

When at last they reached the final ledge, they scrabbled to their feet and ran. No one looked back. They could hear the storm approaching, sense the cold on its way.

Fast, impossibly fast with all that dark, wretched power coursing through it. A journey that had taken days for Merik, Cam, and Ryber would take mere minutes for the Fury to complete.

They ran faster. Or they tried to, but waves of dizziness crushed against Merik—and Cam, judging by the boy’s yelps of alarm.

“Ignore it,” Ryber commanded. “It’s part of the glamour’s magic. You just have to trust me and keep going.” She took hold of Cam’s forearm, and Cam took hold of Merik’s. They ran on.

They reached a forest. Trunks striped past, prison bars to hold them in and nowhere to go but forward. Green needles bled into red bark and melted into hard earth. Everything spun and swung.

Ryber never slowed, though, so Merik and Cam never slowed either.

Then the creatures of the forest began to flee. Spiders rained down and tangled in Merik’s short hair. Then came the moths—a great cloud racing not toward the sky but simply ahead. Away from the Fury.

I never thought you would leave Nubrevna, the Fury crooned in Merik’s mind. All this time, I thought you would return to the Nihar lands. After all, do you not care about your own people?

Birds launched past Merik. Mice and rats and squirrels too.

“Faster,” Merik urged, summoning more winds. Cold winds. The world might be unstable, but if he had to, he would fight.

“We’re almost there!” Ryber shouted from the fore, while beneath their pounding feet, the earth quaked yet again. Merik couldn’t help but imagine each lurch as one of Kullen’s steps booming ever closer.

“Where are we even going?” Cam panted. “If he can follow us through the glamour—”

“He can’t.”

“He already did.” As Merik uttered those words, he slowed to a stop and looked back. Black snaked across the forest floor. So fast, there was no outrunning it. So fast that before he had even turned forward once more, the darkness swept across him.

He still had hold of Cam, and Cam still had hold of Ryber.

They kept running.

Soon, no sunlight penetrated. The darkness moved and shifted around them and Merik had never known there could be so many shades of gray. Then hoarfrost raced across the forest, a crackling that froze creatures as they fled.

Where are you, Merik? Where has my Heart-Thread taken you?

Merik couldn’t answer, even if he wanted to. The dregs of the glamour’s magic fought to disorient him …

Until he saw it: a haze of gray stone amidst the shadows. Hewn from the mountain itself, a chapel coalesced before them, its high doorway blocked by saplings and sedge.

Ryber slowed, releasing Cam and grabbing for the knife at her hip. There was no time to hack through the brush, though, so Merik thrust his winds straight at the overgrowth. Raging air ripped the plants up by the roots.

A dark doorway yawned before them.

In moments, they were inside, and what little light they’d had vanished entirely. The chaos followed, though. As did the bellowing of winds, charging ever faster their way.

“Ignite!” Ryber shouted, and a weak torch lit among the endless shadows.

Merik and Cam skidded to a stop. “Keep your hand elevated, Cam!” He didn’t know why holding Cam’s bloodied hand aloft seemed the most important thing when death chased from behind.

Ahead, Ryber’s hands slammed against a stone wall. “Why is this here?” she screamed. “Why are you closed to me? I am Ryber Fortiza, the last Sightwitch Sister—why have you closed to me?” She smacked her hands harder against the granite. “I’ve only been gone a year! Open up! You must open up!”

Nothing happened, and she jerked back toward Cam and Merik. “This shouldn’t be closed. I’ve never seen it closed!” Her hands clutched at her heart, at her face. Then back to her heart again. “It must be because he follows—” She broke off as the hoarfrost slithered into the chapel’s space.

The pale lantern light guttered out.

The Fury had arrived.

Merik shoved Cam behind him. “Stay with Ryber,” he ordered, and to his vast relief, the boy actually obeyed. Then Merik stepped back through the door and advanced on the shadows.

“Let them go!” His voice sounded stretched, as if cold had sapped it of all dimension. “It’s me you want, isn’t it?”

“No.” The word whispered against Merik’s face, plucking at his skin. Then the Fury stepped from the shadows. A thousand dark ripples moved around him; the evergreens crashed and waved. Somehow, though, Kullen looked as he always had. Tall, pale haired, paler skinned. Only his eyes had changed: black with small lines radiating along the temples.

Black lines like Merik wore across his chest. The foul taint of the Cleaved.

A bolt of pity cut through Merik. Ryber loved Kullen as much as Merik did. But unlike Merik, she had not yet seen this monster Kullen had become, and he hoped she would never have to. He hoped she would not turn back this way.