Ilse clipped past him on high heels that echoed through the chamber. As she came alongside Daniel, she knelt down, studying him with a quizzical look. Daniel looked back at her with drooping eyelids.

But then she mouthed a single word: Rebeka.

Daniel sucked in his breath. “Here? No—”

Ilse’s eyes flared wide as she pressed a finger to her lips, then stood once more and joined Kreutzer at the lectern in the chamber’s center. He ran his fingers along the page open before him. The illustration showed a darkened doorway, thick shadows pouring out of it in spiraling waves. As Daniel tried to focus on the waterfall of darkness pouring off the lectern, he felt even more disoriented, nauseated.

Rebeka. Had she come after him? What about Liam and the others? He prayed that if any of them had sense left, they’d find one another, stay together, leave him to die and not risk their own lives as well—

“You shall be a sacrifice. To fuel the transformation of our troops and the unlocking of boundless energy for the Reich,” Kreutzer crowed. All around them, the air had taken on a shimmering quality. “You remember the creature we examined from Siegen, Ilse?”

Ilse’s smile was strained. “How could I forget?”

“We will command an army of them. Infuse our soldiers with their powers. An army of monsters to devour our foes.”

“And a new world to conquer,” Pitr added. His blade skipped across Daniel’s arm, making a shallow nick.

Kreutzer waved his hand with annoyance. “But only if you hurry up.”

“He’s fighting it,” Pitr growled, studying him. “He doesn’t feel enough pain.”

The machines gurgled with a new sound—the frequency had changed. Daniel felt a tremor in the air like the trill of the strings section, the low rumble of timpani. He knew the sensation. It was the same feeling of teetering on the brink that he’d felt all around Liam. When they were about to kiss. When he was about to tear the world in two—

A tremendous explosion ripped through the chamber. Not an artillery strike—something more, something primal. Something deep and vast and hungry.

Yes, hungry—that was the word Daniel thought as he was tossed into the air, the ground beneath him bucking wildly. Hungry like a deep, deep well that could never be filled. As Kreutzer and Pitr and Ilse went flying skyward with him, he imagined they felt the hunger’s pull, too, and none of them were afraid.

Then they landed on the shattered Black Sun mosaic at the chamber’s center. Daniel groaned, fingers stretching out along the tiles as he tried to wrench his arms around. The book skidded across the broken stone floor, pages rifling in the wind. Sulfur and smoke danced heavy on the air.