“She’s not really good for anything but her power.”

I flinch at the words. How could Anora ever have assumed this person was her friend? But I know the answer…Lennon deceived her, and it makes me angry.

“If I control the Eurydice, I control everything.”

How can she possibly think she can control Anora?

She laughs then, her smile wide. “Can you imagine? The Order having to bow to me? An abomination?”

Her bone-like shoulders shake with laughter.

“The Order doesn’t bow.”

She finally stops circling me and says, “They will. To me.”

And then I’m under attack, but not by her—by the occulates that were scurrying across the walls. They circle me like sharks. When they erupt from their shadow forms, they stick to me like tar. They’re smart too, because the first thing they cover is the scythe at my thigh—the only blade that has any effect on their bodies.

“Dammit!” I curse.

I can hold them off with my double blades, but there are so many darklings, I won’t be able to do it for long. Not to mention the ones on my leg are squeezing tighter and tighter. Soon they’ll cut off my circulation. I hack at them as they rise from the floor, conscious that Lennon stands near like a wraith, her skeletal body draped in black, her strange blade at her side. I catch a glimpse of her, eyes narrow and focused. She’s controlling the occulates…but how?

I’ll figure that out later. Until then, I grip the hilt of my blade like a spear and aim. It lodges right in her shoulder. She’s jarred from her concentration, and the occulates release their hold enough for me to withdraw my scythe. They scream as I pierce them, and once I’m free, my wings unfurl, and I rise off the ground.

Lennon removes my blade from her shoulder, and it clatters to the ground. She rises with me.

“Who taught you to fly?” I ask.

We’d been lucky in the Compound. They pushed us off a cliff and said fly. At least we’d landed on something soft at the bottom.

“It took a while,” she says with a savage smirk. “But I find I can make my body do just about anything if I’m scared enough.”

I admire her. She trained herself under the radar all these years.

She attacks, giving weight to her blow by letting herself drop and pushing off the hard floor. I counter, letting her deliver the blows, letting her think she has the strength and the advantage. She relents and puts distance between us.

“Come on, Savior!” she says. She’s out of breath. “I’ve been waiting for this moment.”

“I don’t want to fight you.”

She laughs, throwing back her head. “Don’t give me that bullshit.”

“I don’t,” I say. “I just want Anora.”