I hear a warm chuckle in my mind. We will meet again, young one. Rest.

With a jump, Radomir disappears from the wall, and a crushing anger tears through my chest. The girl will be his slave. A blood bag. A toy. All the students will. That’s on me. I should have stolen Flame from every one of those vampires. Why didn’t I?

Blackness rises again. I struggle against it, determined to stay awake. Maybe my strength will come back, but the pain and weakness suck me further down. I fall into a dizzying hole, into a black nothingness that swirls like a pool of night.

And immediately rise again into blinking lights and the musty scent of forest filling my nostrils. Huh?

A cacophony of chirping insects batters my ears. I stretch my fingers, testing strength.

And find them slipping into smooth sand. What the…?

I risk a peek.

The night sky still arcs above me, stars glittering around the sliver of a moon. But Blackriver Mansion has gone. Instead, a rock face looms in its place. The arch of a dark cave.

Is this a dream? Did I die?

I leap to my feet and scan around for the battle scene I left. The vampires. The Blood Servants. The Guardians. A shimmering lake sits on my right. A body of clear green water, stretching from a beach of black sand all the way to a shadowed canopy of twisted trees. Is that the Border Woods? The glowing water shines, even in the dark, as though lit from beneath. An illuminated jade green.

Where the hell am I?

I dust myself off. I’m still in the same clothes—dark brown suedes and the gray student shirt, but my strength is back. No pain, no burning fire. My body feels floaty like I’m in a dream or an illusion.

“Hello!” I shout at the night. “Mason!”

I’m met with only the palpable silence of a forest at night. A silence that seems to remain, even with the chatter of insects and the scurry of invisible tiny feet. The lake waters lap against the sand—a bursting green florescence. The looming trees seem to watch me from around the lake. Silver veins of glowing Flame ripple through the trunks and branches of some. I’m in the Faelands again. How did I—?

Free me.

My head whips round to the cave. Did I just hear…?

I take a few steps closer, feet sinking into black grains. The sand glitters as if peppered with tiny diamonds. My heart trips into overdrive as soon as I reach the cave. The entrance arches way above my head, maybe ten feet. Trailing ivy smothers the craggy rock, but the entry is a yawning mouth, so dark I can’t see beyond a few feet. The black depths suck on me, pulling me deeper. My fingers tingle with the thought of stepping inside.

No way. I don’t do caves.