“Not all is as it seems.” There was a bite to his tone, the cruel assassin was bleeding through the somber, curious creature he’d been.

“People I love are in these walls,” I bit back. “Good people. You take them from me, and I will never help you. I will not stop until Stonegate hunts you down.”

Skul Drek leaned closer until we were brow to brow. His skin was cold, like bathing in a frosted lake, but his breath was warm like the scent on his clothes—cloves and pine and dying embers. “I will say for a final time—stay out of sight.”

A rattle echoed in the room, like a pick worked against a lock. A fist pounded at the door.

Skul Drek reared back. At full height he was enormous, a looming shadow that drew in light until it blotted out.

The harrowing blare of a ram’s horn sounded from the distant towers. Sound was muffled at first, but with each breath grew clearer and clearer. The shadows of the mirror faded across the room, but for the first time, Skul Drek did not go with them. He remained, dark and harrowing, more solid than before.

How was he here if the dark realm faded?

In a rush, he made it to the window at the same moment the door crashed open.

Roark stumbled into the room, breathless and with a dark hate in his eyes when he saw the assassin. He cast a look at me, ensuring I was breathing, then swifter than a spark of a flame, Roark ripped one of two twin daggers from the sheaths on his thigh.

“Roark, no!” Strange as it was to feel drawn to the brutality and villainy of Skul Drek, I could not stomach the thought of Roark being harmed.

The dagger flew, drawing a shout of pain, a clack of snapping teeth. The blade buried into Skul Drek’s side to the hilt. In another breath, Roark rushed the assassin.

Skul Drek waved a hand and the dagger clattered to the floorboards when Roark met him with the second blade.

“No!” I snatched hold of the stoker near the inglenook.

My cry snapped Skul Drek from his haze. Like a haunt in the night, he slipped through the open window without a sound, fading into the darkness.

Roark stumbled toward the window, clutching his side, sweat on his brow. Gods, he’d been struck.

He remained there for only a moment, then spun back into the room. With a wince, he took five long strides and trapped my face in his palms. Hot, sticky blood coated one of his hands where he’d pressed it against his wound.

My hands trembled when I covered his palms. “You’re wounded. Roark, let me see it.”

He ignored me and scanned my features instead, searching for injury.

“Roark.” I patted his bloodied hand on my face. “I’m fine. You are not.”