Apparently he wasn’t the only Chosen One, and he was still trying to deal with the idea. It was distracting. What was more distracting was the fact that Alana, whom he’d never really paid much attention to, was insanely hot underneath her baggy sweatshirt and oversized jeans. It took everything he had to keep from staring at her legs as they moved underneath her leather and chain-mail skirt.

“I’ve killed a vampire,” he said, out of nowhere.

She made a dismissive noise. “Who hasn’t?”

“Oh yeah? Where were you during the sleeping sickness? The summer before junior year?”

“I was putting the Hidden One back in his chamber at the bottom of the reservoir before he ate anyone else.”

“Oh.” Eric remembered those drownings. He never thought to investigate them. “You ever fought a Lurker?”

“Ugh, yes. Those things are disgusting.”

“I know, right? It’s not so much the smell, as the — ”

“The slime coming from their mouths, yeah. You know what I really hate, though?”

“The Demonized?”

“Yes. The Demonized! So creepy.”

“Totally. You know they’re vulnerable to fire, though? They’re, like, half sulfur inside. They explode.”

Alana signaled for Eric to be quiet. They were almost at the top of the hill. They left the trail and crept around the side. Crawling on their bellies, they looked through the tall grass at the meadow on top of the snake’s head.

A very old man stood in the center, gazing down at the fairy ring that was sometimes called the Serpent’s Crown, but whose true name was the Well of Stars.

Colchester.

He was like a tree at the top of the hill, twisted and gnarled and bent and ancient. He appeared completely at ease, leaning on his walking stick. He wore nothing other than his slightly ridiculous ceremonial robes. But he was not shivering in the wind and cold. He glowed with power and age and deep knowledge. And ownership. The whole night seemed to belong to him.

With his third eye, Eric could see the shields protecting Colchester. They were thick and interlocked, spheres and strange geometries traced faintly in the air, turning and rotating to cover him from every possible source of harm at every moment. It was impressive; almost beautiful, if not for the ghosts of the dead that made it all work. They clung to every corner of the entire astral machine, their souls bleeding into the gears.

At Colchester’s feet, the ground opened. One moment it was grass and dirt, the next it was like a swirling pool of dark water inside the fairy ring. It stabilized, and the darkness became flat and still. It looked like the view from a telescope into deep space.

Eric could feel the cold and distance inside it.