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Chapters (53)
  1. Front Cover
  2. Letter from the Author
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Contents
  6. • One •
  7. • Two •
  8. • Three •
  9. • Four •
  10. • Five •
  11. • Six •
  12. • Seven •
  13. • Eight •
  14. • Nine •
  15. • Ten •
  16. • Eleven •
  17. • Twelve •
  18. • Thirteen •
  19. • Fourteen •
  20. • Fifteen •
  21. • Sixteen •
  22. • Seventeen •
  23. • Eighteen •
  24. • Nineteen •
  25. • Twenty •
  26. • Twenty-One •
  27. • Twenty-Two •
  28. • Twenty-Three •
  29. • Twenty-Four •
  30. • Twenty-Five •
  31. • Twenty-Six •
  32. • Twenty-Seven •
  33. • Twenty-Eight •
  34. • Twenty-Nine •
  35. • Thirty •
  36. • Thirty-One •
  37. • Thirty-Two •
  38. • Thirty-Three •
  39. • Thirty-Four •
  40. • Thirty-Five •
  41. • Thirty-Six •
  42. • Thirty-Seven •
  43. • Thirty-Eight •
  44. • ∞ •
  45. • Thirty-Nine •
  46. • Forty •
  47. Epilogue
  48. Acknowledgments
  49. Excerpt from Be Dazzled
  50. One
  51. Two
  52. About the Author
  53. Back Cover

His head rolled to the side, and he could see Adeline. She was yelling at him, but he couldn’t hear her. He was being carried away, toward the other side of the arena. Toward the hearth shaped like a mouth, ready to eat him up.

Adeline did a weird thing then. She grew calm, almost stern, as though she’d made an important decision. Her fingers wrapped around her chains, like she meant to tear them off herself.

The sorcerer jostled Kane, forcing him to look into the hellish flames before him. The mouth filled his vision, and the air vibrated doubly with the shouts of the crowd, now interlaced with a deep tremor from below. Sweat stung Kane’s eyes. He could smell his hair burning. Still, the sorcerer pushed forward, offering him up.

“Sacrifice!” growled the sorcerer.

“SACRIFICE!” roared the crowd.

And with that, Kane was tossed into the fire.

• Eleven •

Limits

Kane landed on the ground, flung backward instead of forward. The chanting of the crowd dissolved into confusion. Bewildered, Kane opened his eyes and saw the dagger on the stone beside him, the bloody tip flashing in the firelight. He blinked away his tears and made out the sorcerer desperately clawing toward it as a chain, fastened around his leg, dragged him back.

Kane followed the chain to its source: Adeline, now standing in the center of the arena, legs braced as she used one hand to reel in the sorcerer while the other spooled the chain into a neat coil. The sorcerer, who had been strong enough to lift Kane, was no match for Adeline’s fluid, deliberate movements. He clawed and gasped, as powerless as a caught fish.

“Get away from the fire!” Adeline screamed.

There was nowhere to go. The sorcerer lurched forward, his pupils just pinpricks in the yawning white of his blank eyes. Kane slammed his boot into the man’s hands, bending the brittle fingers like straws. With another kick Kane sent the dagger skittering into the fire, and the man screamed in rage. In a blink he spun toward Adeline. Like a kite caught by the wind, he launched into the air and dove upon her, but she was ready. Maneuvering the chain as easily as one might maneuver a ribbon, Adeline twirled gracefully and whipped out the spooled length in a violent slash. It cracked against the sorcerer, cutting into him like a wire through soft cheese.

Blood splattered Kane and evaporated instantly. He stumbled out of the hearth’s edge, fighting down vomit as he hopped over the crumpled body of the sorcerer to join Adeline.

“That was wild!” he panted. “How—”

“Later,” Adeline snapped. “Right now we need to get the real people out of here before the next plot twist. Give me a hand.”