“In addition, the timing of your appearance,” he begins, following behind me, “is too convenient. Demons are crossing through Gates at increasing rates at not only our chapter but also the others embedded in schools up the coast. It’s all but inevitable that the Table will be gathered, but Nicholas is vulnerable. Symbolic. If anything happens to him before Arthur calls and he claims his rightful title, the Order will go to chaos.”

I walk the aisles, looking for the marker on the ground in the oldest section. “I thought you hated Nick.”

Sel falls in step beside me. “Nicholas’s petty childhood concerns and daddy issues have never been of greater importance than the Order’s mission. He should have been preparing himself for the Call instead of whining about his duty.”

I stop walking at that. “I don’t think his mother getting mesmered so severely that she doesn’t remember her own child is a ‘petty childhood concern.’ She only wanted to protect him.”

“She tried to kidnap him.” He stares at me, his tone even and eyes opaque. “And the Line is Law.”

I shake my head in disgust. “Unbelievable.”

I step around him and continue down the aisle. I’m grateful that Sel at least stops talking, leaving me to look for the marker in silence. A flap of heavy wings interrupts my crunching steps as I walk over leaves and yellowed fescue, long dead from the heat of summer. I turn to point out the grave section to Sel, but he’s gone. The aisle behind me is empty.

“Sel?” Stillness and wind are the only replies. Doubt drops into my stomach.

A low growl behind me breaks the silence.

I don’t turn back. I don’t need to.

I run.

29

I’M AT A full-on sprint in seconds. Sel’s hellhound is fast; I can hear its heavy breaths behind me, closer and louder with every step. Hear its claws scraping over stone markers. I reach the section with the headstones, and I zig and zag around them, hoping that I’m nimbler than it is.

I’ve never run this fast in my life, and it still doesn’t feel fast enough.

“Reveal yourself, Briana!” Sel’s voice, taunting and amused, calls down from somewhere above me. I leap over a wall and a gravestone, then another headstone, racing toward the mausoleum section.

I’m almost there. I can see the three low buildings facing inward and the courtyard in the middle. If I can get inside one of them… I push faster, will my legs to stretch farther. Sel’s voice keeps pace. He shouts down from a tree just over my shoulder. “Give up the ruse!”