She gasped for breath but found only heat and light. She tried to move, but Chatham’s magic surrounded her, trapped her. Her skin was burning in the bright, hissing yellow that encased her like a tomb.

“Now I will show you what power really means,” he whispered.

A film had covered his eyes, a black iridescence, and he was smiling, a curious calmness passing over his features.

She reached inside herself in desperation, searching for an answer within her magic.

She found … something. Something she had sensed before, even used before, but never truly grasped. A curl of darkness in the cold fire that crackled deep within, pulsing with power … A kind of heart, she thought. She tugged on it, wildly praying for a miracle.

Lena gasped. She was in two places now. She was outside the Holy Council on a bright wintry day, staring into Lord Chatham’s Chaos-infected eyes, and she was in Duke’s Forest in her mind, and the three dead were sleeping in the glade outside the city walls.

The real world was fading—the sunlight and the cold, hard hands at her throat. She felt an urgent tug in the place beneath her chest, a struggle, like something trying to escape. In the forest, the huntsman’s arrow bound her palms in prayer, leashing her power. The huntsman lingered in the shadows. In a moment of clarity, she knew what she had to do. She ripped her hands apart, screaming as pain coursed through her like thunder, and her blood and her storm were unleashed. She pressed her hands into the sky. And with her scream, the power rose from deep inside, enveloping her completely. The world returned.

She clenched her fists. Storm clouds spun from her fingers, from her mouth, rumbled over the glassy dome of the Council. Chatham staggered back, his face suddenly confused. She wove the clouds into the sky, sensing a familiar, cold electric fire filling her body—and now spilling out of it. Lena felt the first spots of rain on her gasping lips. And then came the lightning.

Strike him, she thought, and the storm was at her command. A huge bolt of lightning streaked through the air, reflected wildly in the darkened glass of the Holy Council.

Chatham fell, and Lena heard his screams and smelled burning flesh. The butterfly had escaped from her pocket and was fluttering around her head, round and round, as if excited by the power.

Her ears were ringing and her eyes were staring. Under the clouds, it had grown dark. Her hands were wet and hot, her throat sore; the smell of acrid smoke filled her nose. It was pouring rain now. Someone was tugging her and she stumbled up, the steps appearing to fall from beneath her. “Lena, come with me. We have to run.”