“The Endless One grows stronger, but you’re no puppet master yet.” He smirks at me. “You couldn’t sustain that kind of compulsion, and I will never willingly work against he who Turned me.” The air boils with tension, and William gives me a mocking salute, the tube of paper touching his temple. “Farewell, August. I’ll see you soon.”

He starts for the window, but Gunnar cuts him off, his own face full of dangerous angles. “Whatever you’re holding, put it down, and you can go in peace.”

“Peace is overrated,” William purrs, and then he bares his fangs with a threatening rattle from deep in his throat. “You will step aside, boy, or you will die!”

“I died once already,” Gunnar points out, holding up a hand so William can see the thin tendrils of smoke rising from his black-tipped claws. “It didn’t agree with me.”

Then, without warning, he surges forward, and the two of them collide in the center of the room. They smash against a table that splinters into fragments, their bodies spinning in a chaotic, violent dance, and I barely duck in time to avoid an airborne projectile. It’s too dark, and they move too quickly for me to understand what’s happening, but I hear the blows they rain down on one another—bones snapping and healing in the space of a breath.

If Gunnar dies, I realize, I don’t know what I’ll do. I don’t know how to describe what’s between us; we’re not friends, enemies, or lovers, but some mix of the three. I know he cares what happens to me, in spite of all the accusations I leveled earlier, and in this moment of literal life and death, I finally understand that I care what happens to him, too.

With a great roar, Gunnar flips backward, rolling and twisting in a way no human could ever move, and he flings William across the room. The vampire with the wild hair slams into the classroom door, tearing it off its hinges as he sails into the dark hallway beyond. His eyes burn against the shadows of the corridor for an instant—and then vanish.

“He’s running!” I exclaim. Now that I’ve been inside his head, the connection between us is fibrous and tensile, stretching as he darts away. Fear overwhelms me, everything coming apart; I have so few days left, so few chances to save myself and those I love, and William is disappearing with one of those chances now. “We have to stop him!”

Gunnar moves reluctantly after me as I race for the door. “It’s not worth it, Auggie. He doesn’t know anything, and I promise we can figure out what he was here for.”