The pale gray eyes widened slightly. “You know me. How . . . interesting. I know you as well, Tony Foster. I hold a shadow of you.” A glance down at the pipe. “Seems there’s more substance to you than that, though.”

Tony tried to flinch away as warm fingers pinched his chin, but his shadow rose up behind him and held him in place. Not the Shadowlord’s minions. Or the Shadowlord’s army. The Shadowlord. Here. Himself. Why would he do that? Why would he travel to another world just to take out Arra when he’d already fried her entire order?

“Able to question . . .” The grip on his chin tightened and his head was forced first one way then the other. “. . . but nothing else. As you are, you are no danger to me.” The Shadowlord smiled. His teeth were very white and the smile, wreathed in shadow, was intended to be terrifying, but Tony had seen smiles wreathed in Darkness and the joy of the Hunt . . .

And maybe he shouldn’t have made that thought so obvious.

The smile snapped off, no longer dangerously charming, merely dangerous. “Where is she, Tony?”

No reason to waste hero points—he suspected he was going to need all he could muster. “I don’t know.”

The hand not holding his chin reached out, grabbed his shadow, and pulled it forward. Pulled it through flesh. Screaming would have been nice, but the hand holding his shadow also held back his voice. Holy fuck, that hurts!

“You’re not lying.”

The release hurt almost as much as his shadow snapped back.

“But she hasn’t run. Not yet. I can sense only one gate. Mine.” An amused tone, at odds with the vicious grip. “It was foolish of her to have waited; the moment she tries to open a gate, I’ll know exactly where she is and I’ll be on her between a heartbeat and her dying breath. Ah, you didn’t know that, did you? You didn’t know she was trapped. You’re wondering if she knows how loudly the gates call to those who use power. Probably not.” The grip became almost a painful caress. “Last time she opened a gate, I was regrettably delayed. This time, there’s no one to delay me. Oh, wait, I’m sorry. There’s a boy and a Nightwalker. I tremble. I truly do. Tell me where the Nightwalker hides from the sun.”

Why don’t you already know? Why hadn’t the shadow taken that information back through the gate? Granted, it hadn’t been in his head for very long, but Arra had said they knew what he knew. Seems Arra was wrong about that. The resulting emotion was more nah nah nah than hope, but he found strength in it. “Never.”

“And that would be the required cliché response. Do you think I’m giving you a choice?” His hand stretched again over Tony’s shoulder. “So foolish.”