Her throat convulsed, and for a stomach-churning moment she felt her lungs hitch. She gasped, vision tunneling, felt a sliver of air through her nostrils. Her breath wouldn’t come. She ripped the makeshift mask from her face and with a shaking hand grasped at the horse’s saddle, straightening her back and gulping clean air. Sharp pain sliced through her chest, and she didn’t know if it was the frigid air or the substance Kit had thrown or both. Had she inhaled it—whatever it was? Had the mask worked? She felt her heart racing more than it had inside, and what little light the storm overhead allowed began to dim. She couldn’t feel her hands. She looked down at her maimed fingers, wiggled the remaining digits, and felt the world tilt.

Crashing and bellowing issued from the tavern, the scrape and clang of metal. Anji let go of the saddle and dropped to one knee. She gripped a tuft of weeds poking through the chipped cobblestone and focused on it, as though holding on to the earth would right the spinning, fading sensation enveloping her every sense. She couldn’t process anything but the immeasurable darkness creeping on the edges of her vision. Another cut of pain racked her chest, and she felt tears of fear and frustration and confusion bubble up at her eyes. The tears stung in the cold, and she wiped them away with her mangled hand.

It began to rain.

As the eddies of vague darkness closed in, the inn door burst open and Kit appeared, leathers flecked with dark blood. Anji watched the woman kick the door shut and spring down the steps into the street, favoring her left leg, but losing no speed as she came level with Anji and the horses.

Anji felt a tug on her upper arm, and the world spun once more. She waved Kit off.

“I can’t—”

“Get on the damned horse or you die!”

A splintering, squeaking noise issued from the inn’s facade and the door exploded out in a shower of stone and wood. The Goat thundered into the light, his monstrous horns nearly at a height with the second-story windows. He loosed a roar so loud it vibrated in Anji’s chest, his eyes shut tight, claws swiping at empty air. Screams issued all around the street, townsfolk sprinting for cover. Doors and shutters slammed shut as the Goat stomped toward Anji and Kit, footsteps shaking the ground at their feet. He stumbled to one knee, still huffing and bellowing, black blood seeping from his eyes. As he fell, he gurgled and coughed and belched a gout of amber-coated bile onto the stones.

The Goat rolled onto his side, his limbs convulsing, kicking up broken cobbles and sprays of dirt. A final shuddering breath escaped his open maw and he lay still. His bulbous mask shimmered like an obsidian scab atop his broad, fur-lined head.