But there was no answer from behind the door. I lifted my fist to bang again, but before I could, claws dug into my thigh and dragged me back. I slipped in the snow, dropping face-first and hitting my chin on the stone. Dazed, dizzy, tasting blood, I struggled. A pair of jaws snapped inches away from my face, and I threw what little magic I had left at it. It snarled, shaking off the blow as if it was nothing more than a nuisance. I saw blood pouring from its arm—it was the monster I’d refused to kill earlier.
I slammed my fist into its face, but it scarcely noticed. The shadows didn’t feel pain the way we did—it lunged for my shoulder, tearing the skin and sending lances of agony down through my body. I screamed.
Then something invisible collided with the monster, sending it flying away from me and rolling over and over to lie still against a snow bank. Nina grasped at my uninjured arm, hauling me up by the wrist. She’d saved my life.
“I’m out,” she gasped, exhaustion warring with fear and adrenaline on her face. “Nothing left. We’ve got to run.”
I lifted my head, but there were shadows everywhere. There were more now than there had been, drawn no doubt by the sound of combat—and the smell of blood. Our way back was blocked.
I stepped close to Nina so I could shout over the screams and howls raging around us. “We need to get this door down—if it’s broken they have to help us or they’ll die too. You’ve got to blast it.”
She shook her head. “Can’t—don’t have enough. Can’t push more out or I’m going to go down.”
I was out, too. Nothing left but the hungry pit inside me. Where Nina’s hand gripped me, her skin touching mine just below the sleeve of my jacket, I could feel her power—the tiniest hint of magic left. The image of the boy in the practice room flashed before my eyes—his heart stopping as the power left him.
Out here, if Nina used all her power, there was nothing in the air to sustain her. She’d die.
But if she didn’t, we’d all die.
“You have to!” I shouted, kicking out as a badly wounded shadow tried to drag itself over to us. My foot connected with its face with a crunch. “I’ll get you back inside—you’ll only be out for a few minutes, I swear!”
Nina’s face was ashen despite her color. “I can’t—Lark, I can’t.”
How do you will yourself to stop breathing? How do you order your heart to shut down?
I looked up to see Parker on his back, wrestling with a shadow inches away from his face—Marco was still missing, but to judge by the swarm of shadows by the far wall, he was too far to help us. And they were both too far away for me to touch their magic.
My gaze snapped back to Nina. “Forgive me,” I whispered to her and then closed my eyes.
I let the hunger flare up, and it snapped greedily at the tiny threads of power I could feel where Nina’s body touched mine. The power flowed into me, and I turned toward the door, feeling every bit of stolen energy pushing outward, warming my fingers, my toes, singing through my body. Nina’s body stiffened, then sagged, and some part of my mind screamed at me to stop. I had enough—I had to let her go.
Let her go!
I threw her hand away from mine and she slumped down, motionless, in the snow. I turned my attention to the door and threw the magic outward. It met the door with a deafening slam, and the entire thing was ripped from its hinges and sent shattering inward. I caught a fleeting glimpse of terrified faces in the darkness.
“HELP US,” I screamed at them, then turned to use the last of Nina’s magic to throw back a shadow bounding toward her motionless form.
The cowering Renewables inside were slow, far too slow, to react—but once they did they streamed out of the building, meeting the battle without further hesitation. It was all a blur, but I could tell they could fight—we’d taken out enough of the shadows that they could fight back, pushing the line of monsters further and further away.
My head spun with magic as I fought the urge to succumb to the euphoria, the delicious warmth spreading through me. Every time I tasted new magic, the hunger grew. Everyone’s was different—Nina’s tasted like cinnamon. And I wanted more.
I threw myself down at her side, uncertain even as I moved whether I was going to finish her off or check to see if she was alive. I reached for her, turning her over—her eyes stared blankly skyward.
No. No. There was still something there—the tiniest flicker. I could feel it within her, like a dying flame.
I pressed my cheek to her chest and heard nothing but the sounds of battle surging around us, felt nothing but the vibrations of feet running past. I could feel no breath coming from her lips. As I bent over her, the image flashed before me of Wesley, before I knew who he was, breathing for the fallen Eagle until his body remembered how to do it on its own. The Eagle I flattened. He died, yes, but only later—Wesley had managed to find his breath, find his heartbeat again.
Frantic, I bent my head, forcing Nina’s mouth open so I could press my lips to hers and force a lungful of air into her. Her chest rose, then fell as I pulled away. I tried again, and again—then felt across her chest for her breast bone, thumping at it the way I’d seen Wesley restart the Eagle’s heart.
We’re just machines. Parker’s voice came over the sounds of battle. Machines that run on magic. And machines sometimes needed a jump-start.
I kept at it, some part of my mind realizing that the sounds of battle were waning—there were no more howls, fewer shouts. I could hear the wet, horrible sounds of blades entering flesh, but I recognized them as knives—not claws, not teeth. The tide had turned, the hiding Renewables had made the difference.
But I couldn’t spare the time to see, growing lightheaded and dizzy as I kept blowing oxygen into Nina’s lungs, willing them to remember how to work.
Please, no. I didn’t choose this. I’m never choosing this again.
Dimly I realized that the others were standing around me, watching.
“I saw what she did.” It was Marco’s voice, hushed and terrified. But that wasn’t right—the shadows had been beaten. There was no reason for him to be afraid now. “I saw her—I saw her tear the life out of Nina.”
“No.” That was Parker. “It can’t—it’s impossible. She’d have to be . . . she’d have to be empty inside.”
She’d have to be no more than a shadow herself.
I gasped for a full breath, the air sobbing in and out of me as I thumped my hand down on Nina’s chest again.
This time her body jerked. Her lungs expanded in a rush—on their own—and I half-fell back, staring, uncomprehending. At some point her eyes had rolled up into her head, and now her eyelids were mostly lowered, flickering lightly. She was unconscious—but she was alive.
I groaned, crawling back away from her until I could collapse, my arms shaking, my face pressed into the freezing snow. I felt hands reach down to pull me up, gentle. A voice I didn’t know said something in my ear—only I did know it. It wasn’t Marco’s, it wasn’t Parker’s. It was farther away than that. A more distant memory.
I struggled to focus, letting the hands prop me up as a face swam into focus in front of mine.
“It is you,” the voice whispered. I saw brown eyes gazing into mine, and for a wild moment my brain tried to make the face become Basil’s, and my eyesight warred with memory.
But it wasn’t Basil—the eyes were brown, yes, but lighter than Basil’s, and he was older than Basil would be now, and his hair a different color. Nevertheless, I knew him.
“Dorian?” I gasped.
The leader of the Iron Wood cupped my face in his hands. “We found you,” he whispered, hope and joy on his haggard, bloodstained features. “We’re saved. Finally.”