All the light in the passage vanished.

“Millie!” I screamed.

Noise, all around me. Sounds of confusion, men fumbling through the dark, Lariel swearing. Finn knocked into me and wrenched me to the floor. A bolt hissed above us and thunked into the wall.

“Stay down!” he hissed into my ear.

I heard harsh breathing and then a crash. Finn jumped up and lunged away into the pitch black darkness. I crawled forward. Not Millie, not Millie. I had seen Lariel pull the trigger, but then the darkness had swallowed everything up. A bang, muffled gasps. The door hinges screeched behind me—it sounded like at least one person had escaped.

A heavy sliding thump, a body falling.

“Finn?” I scrambled to my feet, panicked.

“I said stay down, El!”

Not him, then. His voice was further away than I expected; he seemed better able to navigate the darkness. I could not tell what was happening, but I stumbled toward the place where I thought Millie should be. Gargling sounds, choking.

Eater, please, I prayed, reaching blindly ahead of me.

I felt the air move as someone rushed past me. A gasp from ahead; maybe Lariel. More knocking against the floorboards. Then stillness and only the sounds of heavy breathing.

“Millie? Finn?” I whispered.

“It’s okay,” said Finn. “She’s just winded.”

I felt the edges of a door frame. Finn caught my hand and guided me inside. Millie was wheezing.

“I knew something was wrong,” she rasped. “The kid outside made it far too easy. Never checked for Sisterhood tattoos.”

I found her, my hands searching her arms and back. Was she hurt? The moment before darkness swept through the room, I had been certain Lariel pulled the trigger. It was as if the bolt had vanished midflight.

“Finn?” Millie coughed. “Is Lariel…?”

“She’s still breathing. Just unconscious.”

“I think her head hit the wall.”

“Are you hurt?” I demanded. “Did she hurt you?”

“Nothing serious.” Millie pushed away my anxious hands. “El, stop it, let me catch my breath.”

She would have shot you! I wanted to say. Finn stood up and took a few steps to my right. I heard shuffling, the sound of fabric moving.

“What are you doing?” asked Millie sharply.

“I’m taking her bolts. I don’t want them used against us later.”

“Yes. Good.” She took a deeper breath. “Sorry.”

I wove my lace into thin strands and extended them like feelers into the darkness. By sensing where they dissolved, I could get a picture of where Lariel and her associates lay. Or, at least, where their weapons lay.

“There are at least four sets of bolts,” I said. “I’ve never encountered anything like them before.”

“No kidding,” Finn murmured as he moved to collect them.

This had to be Celane’s doing; where else would mercenaries have acquired this kind of weapon? I shivered. The Reverend must be insane, giving that much power to someone like Lariel. It left every Sister wide open to attack. Not to mention the rod that had broken Lucian’s back. Exactly how many of these tools had Celane been working on?