I walk out into the clearing we’ve chosen, feeling the weight of the aether staff in my hand. Rotating my wrist. Expecting it to feel strange after not having handled a weapon in weeks… but it doesn’t. I swap to my left hand—Arthur’s preferred grip—and it feels just as at home there. Huh.

The fight starts. I lunge forward with the heavy staff, and Sel strikes and twists out of the way. I disarm him, but he lets the staff fall and pulls a new one in the air. Too slow. I push forward and use my momentum to topple him over, and we go spinning over the leaves scattered on the grass.

Sel rolls me once, twice. I manage to twist enough to draw my left knee back—and kick his chest.

Arthur’s strength sends him flying. He lands flat on his spine with a thud.

My pounding heart stutters in my chest. “Sel!”

His laughter reaches me first. In a flash, he pulls both legs in and executes a perfect no-handed kip-up—a flip forward and into a crouch. He grins, fangs at his bottom lip. “Oh, this is very fun.”

When he raises his staff, the light hits the aether—and a pulse of searing red heat spikes through my mind, boring into the space behind my right eye. I drop my weapon onto the grass, and pitch forward to one side with a moan.

A scene splashes across my vision, painting over the trees in a fine layer of red.

Memories I’ve seen before, rising unbidden.

I’m walking through the French Quarter. A trumpet howls nearby and a piano dances beneath it. Jazz is in the air.

A Black man walking toward me. Bloodred pupils, searching.

I’m shaking. Fingertips burning.

His eyes rake across my skin like knives clawing, searching. I feel stripped. Exposed.

He’s closer now. My hands ball to fists—the crowd is too thick, nowhere to run. I grit my teeth, open up the flames inside my chest to get ready, wait until the last moment—the man passes me by.

Gone.

“Bree!”

I gasp, inhaling the scene into my lungs and away from my line of sight. Like smoke, it’s drawn back into my body.

Sel and William are kneeling in front of me. “What happened?”

By the time I rock back on my heels, Sel is already standing. He peers down at me with questions in his eyes. I stand up, brushing my sweaty palms down my jeans. “I don’t know.”

“What did you see?”

“A bleed-through from Emmeline, I think.”

“Which daughter was that?” Alice asks.

“The one the Hunter found and watched as she died.”