“Hush.” Indignation sparks, then dies when I hear the sound of his sword, extending. I imagine his face: brows tight, eyes and ears intent, weapon drawn. A swell of rustling leaves. A single branch snaps up high and to the right.

The barest whisper of movement—and a palm strikes my chest so hard the air leaves my lungs in a whoosh.

I hit the ground back-first, and pain shoots across my spine.

A low growl from above—the harsh clang of metal on metal.

The high-pitched whine of weapons grinding against each other.

“What are you doing?” Nick shouts, his voice strained.

“You bring a Shadowborn onto our grounds, to our sacred ceremony, and you ask what I am doing?”

Sel!

Adrenaline rushes through my veins, along with Nick’s voice and Rule Three: “Never let Selwyn Kane get you alone. He can’t find out what you can do.”

I skitter backward in a frantic crabwalk, hands scraping dirt and gravel.

A burning-hot hand seizes my ankle.

A thud, a grunt. The fingers release.

Impossibly strong fingers dig into my bicep. Pain like daggers. I scream.

The hard smack of flesh hitting flesh. A punch?

Sel’s fingers let go.

Labored breathing above me. Nick, between us. My heart thunders with panic. How much do I trust him now that I know what Sel can do?

“She’s not Shadowborn!”

“Three nights in a row of Order interference is not coincidence. I mesmered her twice myself and yet she stands here. An uchel—”

“Jesus, Sel,” Nick groans. “An uchel?”

What is that? Another demon? They say the new word with a short “i” sound at the beginning, then the throaty “ch” from “loch.”

“I decided to bring Bree forth today. She is my Page. Mine. You swore an Oath to serve—”

“And I am keeping my Oath.” The wind picks up just as Sel’s casting reaches my nose. There’s a tight, rhythmic sound like a small cyclone spinning to life.

“Sel…,” Nick cautions.

“It has enthralled you,” Sel growls. Electricity arcs across my nose and cheeks. The wind picks up, and something crackles. Ozone enters the air.

“Don’t do it—”

“SELWYN!” A man’s voice slices through the woods, and the cyclone dies immediately.

Footsteps approach behind me on the path. The steps are low and measured, but the older man’s heavy drawl holds barely contained fury. “You wouldn’t be callin’ aether against my son, now would ya, Kingsmage?”

Another pause. Even in the darkness of Sel’s mesmer, the tension in the air raises the hair on my arms.

“No, my lord.”

My lord?