Channeling fire, she shot a burst of it at the wall separating this room from the next. It created a ragged, smoking hole she could climb through. With some luck, she could just go around the guards.

Drastic times called for drastic measures.

THEO CALLED FOR SARAFINA AGAIN. WHERE THE fuck had the woman gone? He dodged a bolt and it smashed into the water at his feet, apparently dissipating on contact.

Stefan had lost control of the daaeman magick, but that only meant the ball was shooting off randomly. It was almost as bad as having Stefan direct the thing. The only positive was that now the warlocks were being hit, too.

Fighting the crowd that was working its way to the back of the foyer and the corridors leading away from it, Theo pushed his way forward toward Stefan. If he knew Sarafina, she would have gone for the source of the problem rather than running from it.

Theo came upon Isabelle kneeling in the water with Micah half in her lap, her wet hair sticking to her face. Theo went down on his knees beside Micah. “Are you hit?”

“His magick is gone,” said Isabelle. “Completely gone.”

“Oh, fuck.”

Soaked, Micah looked up at him with haunted, blank eyes. “Find me a sword,” he ground out. Rage transformed his face, made his expression tight. “Theo, find me a sword!” he repeated, louder his time.

There was a brutal cast to the scholar’s face that Theo had never seen on him before. It was an expression he was more used to seeing reflected in the mirror.

Right now, Theo could deny Micah nothing. He’d find the man a sword.

Theo glanced toward the corridor leading off to the opposite side of the stairway. An Atrika blocked the end of the hallway, but he could get into the room. There might, with luck, be some weapons in there.

“I’ll be right back,” Theo said and rose, sloshing through the water and picking his way past fallen witches to make it there, keeping an eye out for stray bolts of the blue demon magick.

After breaking the locked door down, he found only three swords within and managed to get them back through the crowd without the Atrika noticing. He gave one to Isabelle and one to Micah. Micah caressed the hilt with a finger, looking nothing like the happy-go-lucky geek Theo knew. Micah wanted to spill blood and Theo hoped he’d get his chance.

“You see Sarafina anywhere?” he asked Isabelle. Everyone had to shout over the din of battle, grieving, screaming, and rushing water.

“She was here, Theo, but then she took off like the devil was chasing her.” She pointed toward the back of the foyer, at the other corridor.

Maybe not the devil, but Theo was guessing it was somebody just as bad.

Theo melted back into the crowd in the direction Isabelle had pointed in. He had to find her.