Constance nodded. She scooped up the cane. “We’ll need to go deep enough to ensure we’re left alone.” She looked down on the people in the courtyard. “Things are changing in Duke’s Forest—but I don’t think they’re ready to see magic like this.” Her eyes glinted as she replaced the brass mask over her face.

The two young women hesitated on the steps. If Constance had ever thought to gain control of the people, Lena saw at once that it was not possible. Chaos has taken over already, she realized in wonderment. The courtyard was flooded with townsfolk, and some of the guards, who either had witnessed the Justice’s fall or assumed he had fled, were flinging down their weapons in surrender; others were running out toward the gardens. Very few were fighting. It was like trying to stand against the sea: the sheer number pressing through the gates was enough to overwhelm every guardsman in the castle, even if they’d all been willing to lay down their lives for … well, for what?

“The storm is making it worse,” said Constance quietly. “It is born of Chaos and feeds on death. Before, fear largely kept people inside, protected. But now … The more they breathe in its vapors, the more they are driven wild.”

The dogs had apparently been released but were attacking people indiscriminately—Lena averted her eyes from a body already torn and half-devoured by a pack of the snarling creatures. The houndmaster was nowhere to be seen. The doors to the living quarters had been locked and bolted, but people were breaking in through the windows, and Lena watched as others came out carrying everything from food to candlesticks. The air was alive with screams and howls and tearing flesh and the rumble of the thunder, more thunder than ever before, as if the storm was feasting on the horror and bloodshed.

“It … wants this to happen?”

“Yes. And that is why we—you—have to seize control of it. The longer we leave it, the worse it will get. It will whip Duke’s Forest into a frenzy of death until the city has destroyed itself. And then…”

“And then what?”

“Like I said, the spell is born of Chaos. If nobody takes possession of it, it will go wild. A storm such as this roaming the land…” She shook her head. “It doesn’t bear thinking about.”

And this thing is part of me? Lena thought, feeling the beat of the spell’s heart inside her own.

Constance started down the steps. “Come. We’ll go to the great hall—there’s not much to loot in there but tapestries and floor reeds, and it’s an easy route down into the crypts.”