“You can’t have me,” I seethe as red-hot wrath ignites, fueled by the memory of Lukas’s patient hands on mine as he taught me how to use these very blades, sliding my fingers across their charged runes while murmuring the fire-amplification spell as I’m doing now.

The bats advance, their dark forms hunched, nostrils flaring as they hiss and spit and bare teeth. But I’m beyond fear now, a volcanic fury rising to singe it to ash.

“Screw your Magedom,” I growl at Vogel. I draw my arms back and the Wand’s guiding translucent green tracks, visible only to me, appear in the air, leading from my blades to the necks of the closest beasts—the injured bat and the one beside it.

With a harsh grunt, I hurl the knives.

The blades streak through the air and impale the two bats in their broad necks with dual snicks. The beasts’ cavernous mouths wrench open, releasing metallic shrieks into the air, before their heads and upper torsos explode into bright balls of golden flame, the Ash’rion blade’s explosion the most potent.

The other two bats launch themselves at me and I break into a dead run.

Wet snuffling noises sound behind me, and a clawed grip closes around my ankle, pitching me forward. I twist around, pressing my fingers to the weapon-retrieval runes Valasca marked on my palms, the marks hidden under my gray glamour.

My blades fly from the dead, flaming bats and hurtle to me in a blur, their hilts colliding with my palms with satisfying stings. I press my fingers to the fire runes, and stab one blade into the bat restraining me, then hurl the other at the eyes of the bat that’s closing in. Both creatures’ heads explode into fiery balls.

The heat rushes over me, the grip around my ankle loosening. I scuttle away, breathing hard, as the flaming bats flail and convulse, then lie still. Hoisting myself to my feet, I scan the lavender field and purple forest, every nerve on high alert. Heart thumping against my rib cage, I find no additional threats. Nothing but rustling leaves, a storm darkening sky, and the forest’s aura of hostility, thick as tar.

I raise my hands and my blades rip from the beasts and fly back into my palms, their hilts scalding against my fire-resistant skin. The Wand’s energy shivers against my calf as gratitude for its aid courses through me. Feeling as if liquid steel has entered my veins, I turn to face the teen girl, the Urisk woman, and the young child.