Their eyes mirrored the same horror Maris felt.

Caillen bit his lip in frustration. “I don’t know how to help him. I don’t. You’re the only one of us he’ll let in the same room with him. He won’t take any of our calls. We can’t get the time of day out of him.”

That was true. Every time Caillen, Syn, Nero, Hauk, Nykyrian, Jayne, or Darling’s family tried to see him, he emphatically refused.

Darling had only spent ten minutes with Lise—long enough to assure himself that she really was all right, then the instant he saw the leftover limp she had from her injury, he was done. She hadn’t been allowed near him since.

Maris raked his hand through his unstyled hair and cringed at his own sorry appearance. Gah, he was a mess, too. But he was more worried about Darling than his own vanity, and that concern kept him up all hours of the night as he tried to reach Darling through the potent rage his best friend had cloaked himself with.

“For the record,” Maris said to the others, “he won’t talk to me either. I’m serious about the beady-eyed stare thing. That’s all I can get out of him. That or a growl. Meanwhile, he doesn’t sleep. Doesn’t eat. He just drinks things that double as rust removers, and pops pain meds like candy. He walks the halls, day and night. I’m telling you right now, he terrifies me.”

All of them knew that Darling was spinning out of control and none of them could stop it.

Since Syn had given him leave to travel, Darling had been on a vicious killing spree, taking out every member of the Resistance he could find. He’d brutally killed every doctor who’d ever treated him under his uncle’s orders, and half the staffs of the mental wards where he’d been confined over the years. Two of the buildings, he’d blown into rubble. The third he’d burned to the ground and toasted marshmallows over its smoldering embers. Then, he’d laughed as he ate them.

For that matter, he’d offered one to Maris.

Worse, he’d slaughtered several dozen members of his own royal guard, which hadn’t gone over well with the ones he’d spared. Okay, so the guards he’d killed had deserved it. They’d been the men his uncle had sent after him over the years who had done unspeakable things to him, but still…

It was scary.

And there was no end in sight. Each kill fueled him to the next.

The League had sent more than three dozen of their best assassins after him, and Darling had plowed through them like they were rookies. If that wasn’t bad enough, he’d sent them back to the League in pieces.

Now even the League was reticent to send anyone else to the slaughter party.

But that kind of fear wouldn’t last. Sooner or later, the League and the rest of the United Systems would band together to kill Darling if he didn’t stop his homicidal rampage.