Hold on, he begged his body.
And then an electric buzz filled the air, and whatever was holding August up disappeared. The chains went slack, and he crumpled, hitting the ground hard, his wrists still raw and wrapped in chains.
“Sloan,” warned the other Malchai.
August tried to get to his feet, and failed. The warehouse twisted and blurred until it was a bedroom, an alley, a school. Someone was calling a name, his name, and then he was standing in the forest brushing his fingers against the trees and he could hear music, humming, and Kate looked back with a frown and then—
Pain exploded against his side, and he crumpled. He tried to roll onto his back, but the concrete was cold and rising over him like water and he was in the bath his fingers curled around the edge and Kate’s over his while the water fell like rain and he was burning burning burning from the inside and the darkness was waiting waiting waiting just beyond the light.
Sloan was towering over him, all shadow save for those vivid red eyes. He raised the bar to strike, but as he brought it down, August’s hands flew up and caught the metal.
Darkness curled up around his fingers like steam.
“Let go, August,” said Sloan, putting his weight behind the bar. Cold wicked along the metal, meeting the heat of August’s touch. His grip tightened, his vision fixed on his fingers, wishing he had the control to slide between the forms like his brother.
Leo could turn a part of himself without losing the whole.
Because there was no whole left.
Nothing human.
Nothing real.
Somewhere beyond the pool of light, metal scraped across the concrete. August squinted and saw that the darkness wasn’t solid after all. Massive objects loomed in the shadows, and a corridor branched off toward the noise, a pair of doors at the very end giving way to the paler dark of night.
“Oslo,” said Sloan, still leaning on the bar above him. “Go see to Kate.”
August’s pulse pounded in his broken chest. Run, he willed her, even now.
The other Malchai turned to go.
“And don’t kill her,” added Sloan.
“Don’t worry,” smirked the monster, “I’ll leave you some of—”
“You’ll leave me all of her,” warned Sloan. His tone was icy and slick, his dead lips tight over his teeth. Heat flared through August’s skin.
“You can end this,” said the monster, his attention back on the bar. And August knew he could, but he also knew that the moment he did, the Malchai would drive the metal down into his chest, and it would tear past what had been flesh, and what would be smoke and shadow, and into his burning heart.
And he would be gone.
Whatever he was made of—stardust or ash or life or death—would be gone.
Not with a bang, but with a whimper.
In with gunfire and out with smoke.
And August wasn’t ready to die.
Even if surviving wasn’t simple, or easy, or fair.
Even if he could never be human.
He wanted the chance to matter.
He wanted to live.
By the time Kate got the last screw free, her hands were shaking, and sweat was running down her face.
She yanked the screw out, grabbed the metal frame, and pulled.
It didn’t move. She swore and wrenched, putting all her weight behind it, but the bar was still stuck. Exhausted, Kate leaned her head against the metal, and felt it slip forward off the base. Her breath caught in surprise, then relief, as she gripped the metal and shoved. The bar ground forward, scraping over the concrete with a screech, and Kate cringed—so much for stealth. She managed to torque the bar enough to get the cuffs beneath, and scrambled to her feet.
Footsteps echoed in the hall beyond, and she held her breath, back pressed into the wall beside the door, wishing she had a weapon. Something. Anything. But she wasn’t going down again, not without a fight.
The metal door slid open, casting a skeletal shadow into the room.
Thin light fell on the warped bar, the cast-off screws, the place where Kate should be.
The monster hissed and started forward, but something wrenched him back into the hall.
There was a choking sound, and the wet slick of a wound, and then nothing. Kate held her breath as a second shadow passed before the door, then disappeared.
In the distance, Sloan’s voice echoed, sickly sweet.
Kate counted to ten, then peeled herself away from the wall and went to find him.
August was slipping, edges blurring into shadow. He lay onto his side, his face against the floor, and listened for the heartbeat of the world.
He didn’t hear it.
But he heard footsteps. Soft, steady.
And then a shadow moved beyond the ring of light. He squinted.
It wasn’t the Malchai.
It wasn’t Kate.
It moved too slowly, its stride was too even.
The shadow drew itself together out of the darkness and became a man, tall and handsome with blond hair and eyes as flat and black as night.
Leo.
His eyes found August’s, and black blood dripped from his fingers as he brought them to his lips in a command for silence. His expression was even, assessing, as he drifted silently forward to the edge of the light.
August coughed, tried to push himself onto his hands and knees as Sloan loomed over him, red eyes fixed and waiting.
Look at me, thought August tiredly. Look at me.
Leo stepped noiselessly into the light as darkness pooled beneath August like smoke.
A smile crept across Sloan’s face. “It’s over, little monster,” he said, lifting the metal bar.
August braced himself, but before Sloan could strike, the pole was gone. One moment it was in his hand, and the next it was in Leo’s, and then, in a single, fluid motion, his brother drove the metal up through the Malchai’s back. Sloan let out a strangled scream and staggered forward, nails clawing at the jagged metal edge protruding from his collar as black gore dripped down his shirt. He spun toward Leo, but lost his balance, staggered, and fell to one knee.
“My brother’s death,” said Leo as Sloan doubled over, retching blood, “wasn’t part of the deal.”
Sloan’s lips curled back, teeth bared as he tried—and failed—to form words. And then his body shuddered, bones twitching before he finally collapsed to the concrete.
August rested his forehead on the ground. Leo’s shadow fell over him, and he rolled onto his back, and looked up, meeting his brother’s gaze. For a moment, all he felt was relief. And then, for some reason, a prickle of fear. The look in Leo’s black eyes wasn’t shock, or vindication. It was disappointment.
“Hello, little brother.”
Leo knelt, and tore the duct tape from August’s mouth, and August gasped, choking on the cold night air. He coughed, spit black blood onto the floor. He tried to speak, but the words had no sound.
Leo tilted his head. “What was that?”
August tried again. “I said . . . ,” he managed between ragged breaths, “what deal?”
Leo gave August a pitying look. As if it should have been obvious.
A deal with Sloan. A deal between two monsters who wanted to start a war.
“What have you done?”
Leo took hold of the chain around August’s wrists and hauled him to his feet. “What needed to be done.”
August swayed. “You . . . you told them about me . . . you sent me to that school and then you told Sloan I was there.” He didn’t deny it. “Does Henry know?”
“Henry Flynn has grown tired and weak,” said Leo. “He is no longer fit to lead us.”
“But Ilsa—”
“Our sister should have stayed out of the way.” He shook his head. “Her loss hurts our mission, but I have hope for you.”
August started shaking his head and couldn’t stop. “You betrayed our family.”
“They lost sight of our cause,” h
e said, grip tightening on the chains. “The city needs us, August. Not just South or North. The whole city. Poison spreads. Violence spreads. Everything spreads. We cannot hide behind these truces and Seams, and wait. We are Sunai. We were made to cleanse this world, not hide and let it rot. We have a purpose, August. It is time you rose to it.”
“Henry will never forgive you.”
“I do not need his forgiveness. He is a human.” Leo sounded disgusted. “He cannot see beyond his own fear. His own desire to survive.”
“You’re just another monster.”
August tried to pull free, pull away, but Leo didn’t let go. “I am Sunai,” he said. “I am holy fire. And if I have to burn the world to cleanse it, so help me, I will.” He took August’s face in his hand, a gesture that could have been gentle, but wasn’t. A thumb beneath his jaw forced August’s gaze up to meet his own, the black of his eyes at once flat and endless. “Where is she, little brother?”
Kate.
August saw the truth in his brother’s eyes. Leo was going to finish what he started. He was going to kill her. But August couldn’t answer what he didn’t know. He shook his head.
Leo hissed. “You protect a sinner.”
“To protect our family. Our city. Killing her will start a war.”
A small, grim smile. “The war is already starting. And I’m not going to kill her, little brother. You are.”
The first thing Kate saw was the body.
The second Malchai was slumped across from the open door, black gore dripping down its front where its chest had been torn open, the shield of its ribs shattered. Kate crouched and picked up a shard of bone, slick but sharp in her fingers. It wasn’t a knife, but it would have to do.
She straightened, looked around: In one direction, beyond the warehouse’s open doors, the night waited, an empty dirt lot giving way to fields. In the other direction, slumped in a pool of light, knelt August. August, bruised and bleeding, smoke trailing from him like a dying fire. Someone was standing over him, and at first she thought it must be Sloan, but as she drew closer, she saw the Malchai’s body crumpled on the ground. And then she registered the new figure’s height, the breadth of his shoulders, the glint of light on fair hair, and realized it was Leo.
Relief flooded through her at the sight of August alive, and Sloan dead, but then Leo hauled his brother to his feet, and she saw the pain written on August’s bloody face, heard it threading through his broken voice as he pleaded with his brother, and tried to pull away.
Kate took a step back, and it must have been the blood-shined surface of the bone in her hand, or her movement against a still backdrop, but August’s eyes found hers in the dark, and even from the distance she could see them widen, not with relief, but fear.
An instant later, Leo’s head swiveled, too, his black eyes narrowing.
There was no kindness in that look. No mercy.
Kate stumbled backward and nearly fell over the body of the other Malchai as Leo let go of August and drew something from his coat. At first she thought it was a gun, the metal glinting in the pool of light, but then she saw.
It was an instrument. A flute, no bigger than his hands.
He raised it to his lips, and Kate drew in a breath, waiting for the music before she realized it was meant for her.
“Run!” shouted August, throwing himself at his brother.
The two went down on the concrete as Kate turned and sprinted out toward the night.
August was no match for Leo. He was too young, too hungry, handcuffed and broken, and the older Sunai threw him off and stormed out of the circle of light into the corridor. August struggled to his feet and surged after his brother with the last of his strength.
“Stop!” he called as Leo stepped out into the night. August stumbled after him, one knee buckling as he reached the doors. He dragged himself back up, but fell again as Leo lifted the flute to his lips, and played the first note.
A soft, sweet sound that whistled through the air like wind.
“No!” screamed August, trying to break the melody, but it was no use.
Kate was running, her hands up against her ears, but as soon as the music started, her steps faltered, slowed, stopped. Her hands slipped from her head, drifting calmly back to her sides.
“No.” August tried to stand again, but couldn’t. He knelt there, watching the red light drift to the surface of Kate’s skin as she turned back toward them, Leo’s music unmooring her soul and August’s mind at the same time. When Ilsa had hummed, he felt peace. But when Leo played, he felt like he was breaking apart, dissolving into darkness.
Which he was.
Somewhere beneath the heat and pain, he felt the scratch of a new mark, another day, four hundred and twenty-four, and none of it mattered because he was burning. Falling.
Kate’s lips moved, and as she drifted closer, he could hear the words. Her confession.
“. . . thought he was going to hurt me. I didn’t have to shoot him, but it seemed like the easiest thing to do . . . He could have been lying. I’ve forgotten what the truth looks like. I don’t know who to trust anymore. . . .”
“Let her go, Leo,” begged August. “Please.”
The Sunai stopped playing, and Kate stood there, a few paces away, her features lost beneath the blaze of light.
“Take her.”
“No.”
“Her soul is red.”
“No.”
“You, too, have sinned, little brother,” said Leo. “Sinned against your nature and against our cause.” His words forced their way into August’s fracturing mind. “You have such potential. Together, we will do great things. But first, you must atone. Now stand up.”
August rose, shaking, to his feet. Darkness curled around his body and drifted like steam from his limbs. The tally marks across his skin were fading one by one.
I am not a monster.
“Enough, little brother.”
I am not . . . his heart lurched in his chest.
“Give in to it.”
I am . . . he could feel himself crumbling.
“Embrace your true form,” ordered Leo, and his words rolled through August, sweeping away the last of his strength.
August knew that he was right, knew what he had to do.
He stopped fighting.
And as soon as he did, the pain dissolved, and the fire went out, and he fell down, down, down, into darkness.
Kate stood alone in the night, and felt . . . nothing.
No panic. No fear. Even when the music stopped, it kept playing in her head, twining with the light . . . the red light. . . . Did everyone have the same amount, like blood? There was so much of it. . . .
She heard herself speaking, but couldn’t focus on the words, couldn’t focus on anything but the man in front of her, and the boy behind him.
The boy knelt there on the ground, wrists bound, looking so hurt, so scared, and she wished she could give him her calm. The boy . . . who was he . . . not a boy, but a monster . . . not a monster, but a boy . . . and then the music finally began to fade, withdrawing from her head, and Kate’s thoughts seeped together into a name.
August.
Why was August on the ground? And who was the man? Kate fought against the haze. Everything was far away, but her mind was shifting and sorting, finding order. It was Leo, standing before her, and August behind him. Only he wasn’t on his knees anymore. He was getting to his feet, darkness wicking off his shoulders like steam.
And then, between one moment and the next, he changed.
His face went smooth, and all the tension vanished from his mouth and eyes, the weight falling from his shoulders. His head tipped forward, the black curls swallowing his face as shadows rolled across his skin. They spread out from his chest, spilled down his limbs, blanketed flesh and bone, and for a moment, he was nothing but a plume of smoke. And then the smoke drew in like a breath, began to shift and tighten, carving out the lines of a body, its edges traced with firelight.
/>
Where there had been a boy, now there was a monster.
Tall, and graceful, and terrifying. The chains crumbled from its wrists, blew away like ash, and when it lifted its head, its black eyes gazed wide and empty, lightless, shineless, matte as the sky on a moonless night. Smoke trailed up over the creature’s head into horns and billowed behind its back into wings that shed curls of fire like burning paper. And there, in the center of its body, cracking through the darkness like a smoldering coal, its heart pulsed with fiery, inconstant light.
Kate’s eyes watered as she stared at the creature. She couldn’t look away. The fire crackled and burned in the cavity of its chest, and its edges—limbs, wings, horns—wavered against the dark, and it was mesmerizing, the way the blaze had been in the chapel that night. A thing made, and then set free. That fire had started with the flick of a match, and this, this had started with a boy.
Leo stepped out of the way, and the creature craned its head toward Kate.
“August,” she said.
But it wasn’t him.
There was no August in its face, only shadow.
No August in its eyes, only ember and ash.
Kate tried to retreat, but under the monster’s gaze, she couldn’t. She was frozen, not from fear, but from something else, something deeper. Her body was no longer listening, not to her. The red light still danced across her skin, and she marveled at the way a whole life could be distilled into something so simple. The way a death could be folded into a touch.
The Sunai took a step toward her. It didn’t move like other monsters, didn’t twitch and shudder like the Corsai, or slither and strike like the Malchai. No, it moved like smoke, dancing forward on a breeze she couldn’t feel. A song she couldn’t hear.
Its hand floated up, fingertips burning. The heat brushed the air before her, and the fear finally caught up. She tried so hard to pull away, to fight the hold of the red light wrapped around her skin. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but she didn’t close her eyes.
“I’m not afraid of death,” she whispered, meeting the creature’s gaze as it reached for her. She didn’t know if August was still inside, if he could hear her, if he would care. “I’m not afraid,” she said, bracing herself for the Sunai’s touch.