Daniel’s breath caught in his throat, but he stood up straight, curling his lip. “Why else were you cozying up to Junker?”

“I’ll kill every last Nazi if I have to.” Liam’s voice thickened into a chorus. “I will tear the Third Reich apart. But I need to get into the Siegen archives to do it.”

Daniel huffed. If the American thought he could intimidate him, he was badly mistaken. His country had barely even stumbled into the war, had only glimpsed a sliver of the horror Daniel had lived with for most of his life. Horror was a real, beating thing, bloody and raw. It was a glower nurtured into a whisper, goaded into a shout, hardened into fists and long knives. Horror was law, a way of life, an unfeeling iron cage. And becoming a horror himself was the only way to tear it down.

“Do what you want,” Daniel said. “But stay out of my way.”

He turned and trudged deeper into the woods, trying to snuff out the weariness and sorrow that thing had stoked in his thoughts. Nothing about the terrain was familiar; none of these shattered ruins had been here when he’d made his way to the town before. He had no idea if he was heading the right way; he was too angry and exhausted to care. So what if Liam had saved Daniel’s life? He didn’t need saving. He’d been prepared to slaughter the whole tavern, the whole village, if that’s what it took. He’d been prepared to die.

He choked back a sob. The worst thing you can do is be afraid. What bullshit. Fighting—feeding his fears, nurturing them like parasites in his heart—that was the only thing keeping him alive. Even if it got him in the end, he’d kill every last Nazi he could along the way.

He trudged to the top of the ridgeline—and nearly stumbled back down at the sight of the valley below.

Fires raged, purple and blue and savage, flowing like liquid through the trees. The sky glowed with unnatural light against a swallowing gulp of darkness. And in the distance, a column of flaming stones soared skyward—a pillar. Shadows circled it like giant bats, impossibly long wings scraping against one another in their jagged dance.

Liam appeared behind him. “As I was going to say . . .”

Daniel shrank back, pulse racing. What had happened to his world, his life? The wings beat louder, threatening to drown out his thoughts. “What have you done to me?”

“To you? Not a damn thing. In fact, I think we might be able to help each other.”