Sel seems to know where he’s going, because we stop at a small round cave about ten minutes later and he points up at an opening between the petrified beams. “This door will bring us to the surface on the far side of campus. There’s an illusioned lockbox of metal weapons in the woods if the foxes have found us somehow, but they’d have to possess more than the average demon’s sense of smell to track us here. I’ll go first, give the clear, and then I’ll pull you up.”

I nod and watch as he begins murmuring again. The Welsh sounds similar to the sounds of the swyns William says when he’s healing. Sel’s fingers create shapes in the air above our heads; then, in a reverse of the last time, he punches up with an open palm. A door above bangs open.

Sel crouches, leaps the vertical equivalent of twice his own height, and then lands on the grass beside the door. After a moment, he whispers that we’re clear and reaches down to pull me to the surface.

We emerge right where Sel said we would: a low stone wall marking the campus perimeter and beyond that, the thick forests that belong to the town of Chapel Hill. Sel’s back is turned to the base of the wide oak we’ve emerged from, twisting his palms to hide its aether door again, when the hairs on the nape of my neck rise in warning.

When Sel shouts, “Get down!” my body doesn’t argue. I throw myself to the ground in time to see a hellfox sailing overhead, its skull colliding with the side of the mighty oak with a loud, ground-shaking crack.

While it recovers, a second fox screeches, tackling Sel. It’s heavy paws and weight knock him to the ground. Like with the uchel, Sel and the fox are tumbling, rolling on the grass in a blur of black clothes and smoky-green scales.

Sel must glance my way, because he shouts in warning just as the third fox lunges toward where I’ve landed on the ground. His warning gives me just enough time to roll. Jaws snap by my right ear—where my face had been a split second earlier.

There’s an awful tearing sound, and a high-pitched yowl cuts the air.

Sel tore something off his opponent.

The fox beside me runs to its brethren’s aid, and then Sel is screaming, trying to wrestle both at once without calling any aether.

He needs weapons.

I scramble to my feet, jump over the wall, and sprint toward the woods and the illusioned lockbox. Between one blink and the next, a hellfox appears in front of me. Its head is split open in the middle, glowing-green aether oozing from the jagged crack: the fox that hit the tree.