Ja-Ja picked himself up. Caldera’s punch should have broken his bones but my heart sank as I looked at him and I saw that he was smiling. Whatever he’d taken from Caldera, it had been enough to let him shrug off the hit. “Tastes nice,” he said. “I could go for dessert.”

“What the fuck are you doing?” Captain America snapped at Ja-Ja. He was still holding his gun, but he wasn’t aiming it at me anymore.

“We said don’t hurt her!” Dhruv shouted.

Ja-Ja gave Dhruv a contemptuous look. “Yeah, you were doing so great.”

Will was hesitating, looking between Caldera and Ja-Ja. For the moment the adepts were distracted but I knew it wouldn’t last. One of the metal spheres Dhruv had been firing at me was lying on the floor, and I scooped it up. “Caldera!” I said sharply with a note of command in my voice. “Watch!”

Caldera turned, hurt but angry, and Sonder did as well. Before Caldera could speak, I flicked the sphere back down the corridor. It glanced off the wall and through the archway down to the basement, and I heard the clack-clack-clack as it went bouncing down the steps. Caldera and Sonder stared for a second, then their eyes went wide at the same instant. I put my finger to my lips.

“Keeper,” Will said, and all three of us turned to look at him. He was frowning at Caldera. “We’re not here for you. You and the time mage can go. We just want Verus.”

Caldera looked back at him, then gave him the finger.

Captain America raised his eyebrows; he actually looked impressed. Ja-Ja looked eager, and I knew he was hoping Caldera would say no. Will just looked pissed off. “You aren’t going to win this,” he said. “Get out of—”

The nocturne came out of the shadows, homing in on Will like iron filings to a magnet. Its body was black smoke and blended into the darkness behind it so perfectly that only its blue-white eyes were visible. Will leapt back, eyes going wide in shock, but even he wasn’t quick enough and a tendril of darkness twined around his leg, yanking him off his feet.

The corridor erupted into chaos, the adepts scrambling to get away from the nocturne or rushing to fight it, but this time I wasn’t watching. I grabbed Caldera’s arm and yanked at her. Even wounded as she was, it was like trying to move a rock, but it got her attention. “Come on!”

We fled towards the stairs. Before we got out of sight I took a glance back and had one glimpse of Will on his back, slashing at the nocturne as it pulled him in. Captain America was kneeling and firing, gun flashing in staccato bursts, the nocturne reaching for him, and then we were racing up the stairs with the shouts and gunfire fading behind us.