It was kill or be killed, just like the streets had been when Wesley was coming up. Though now those shadowed streets had spread their arms and the entire realm was at risk of having to look over their shoulder every second, or fear that doing or saying one wrong thing could cost them their lives. That doing or saying nothing could cost them worse.

Wesley had done a lot of bad in his life, but he didn’t want to be part of a legacy of suffering. He didn’t want his name remembered beside Dante Ashwood’s.

If nothing else, Wesley wanted to make sure his city survived.

Wesley whistled the old tune that every person—Crafter, busker, or the ordinary—was taught as a child. The melody to call a delg bat from their haunt. There were at least a dozen in the Uncharted Forest—Wesley had seen them hanging from the trees by the curved river—and so it took only a minute before one flew in from the window and landed straight in his palm.

Wesley stroked the blackened creature and it cooed in his hands, flapping its night wings and nibbling at his finger.

“Find Fenna Schulze,” Wesley told the bat. “And tell her that the underboss of Creije wants a meeting. I have an army of magic that I’m willing to align with her forces. If we join together, we can finally end Ashwood’s reign and stop the Loj elixir from spreading.”

The bat chirped in response and leaped from Wesley’s hand. It was fast and it only took a matter of seconds for him to lose sight of it altogether. Wesley wasn’t sure where the bat was heading; he didn’t know exactly where Schulze was, but the creature would find her. Delg bats were magical things, feeding off of psychic energy. They could find anyone, anywhere, even at the edges of the realms. Some people said that if the bat was ancient enough and loyal enough to its master, it could even cross into the afterlife to ferry messages to the dead.

So somewhere like the Halls of Government in Yejlath shouldn’t be a problem.

“The Doyen should get the bat within a day,” Wesley said. “And after that we—Damn it!”

Wesley yelled out in pain.

A sudden sharpness pierced through his mind like a hundred needles, stabbing and stabbing.

He grabbed at his temples, teeth grinding together.

“Skeht!” he cursed.

“Wesley!” Tavia said, running over to him.

But then Saxony started screaming too.

There was a darkness in Wesley’s mind, clouding his vision until the real world blurred and he could only focus on the images in his head. The shadows squirmed through his mind like worms looking to take root.