The figure stood fixed at the edge of the nternlight, as if waiting for him.

  Rocher stepped forward to meet it, but it lifted a hand, stopping him cold.

  A sound reached him. A murmur, low and indistinct, as if spoken through cloth or water. He leaned forward instinctively, straining to catch it.

  "Cire?" His voice sounded thick to his own ears.

  But the figure didn't lower its hand.

  So Rocher stepped again—

  Or tried to.

  He frowned and tried to put more weight into the movement, to force his leg to obey. It refused. Confusion surfaced, slow in his mind. He looked down.

  His boots were sinking.

  The stone beneath them was giving way, turning soft, flowing around the leather as if it were mud. He jerked backward, but the sensation followed him, crawling up past his ankles.

  "What—" he said, and the word came out wrong, stretched.

  The ground dissolved.

  The camp vanished in a rush of air and vertigo. He dropped straight down, stomach lurching, the world tearing loose above him. There was no sense of distance. No warning. Just the sickening certainty of falling.

  Then impact.

  He crashed through something brittle and hard. A sharp, explosive sound filled his ears. Gss shattered around him in a storm, slicing and ringing as he hit the ground hard enough to drive the breath from his lungs.

  He y there, stunned, chest heaving, surrounded by glittering shards.

  Light poured down from above.

  He blinked grit from his eyes and stared up through a ragged hole in a gss ceiling. Fractured panes caught the light, scattering it into bright, uneven bands.

  A greenhouse, his mind supplied uselessly. Or something like one.

  It was warm. Humid. But the air smelled green here, in contrast to the dead city he'd been in.

  He pushed himself up onto his elbows. Gss crunched under his weight, biting through cloth and skin.

  Movement.

  His heart jumped painfully as he caught sight of someone between the leaves. Freckled skin. Chestnut hair. She stood half-hidden behind a dense rosebush, watching him.

  "Cire," he said. Relief surged so hard it made him dizzy. He reached without thinking.

  She flinched back.

  The roses shifted, branches parting as she withdrew.

  "Wait," he said, and scrambled to his feet.

  The greenhouse was gone when he turned.

  In its pce was a hedge maze.

  Tall walls appeared on either side of a narrow path, dense with roses and thorns and glossy leaves. The air hummed with insects. Sunlight filtered down in warm patches.

  He heard the patter of bare feet ahead of him, already moving.

  "Cire," he called, and started after her.

  If she heard him, she made no indication.

  He followed her through turn after turn, calling her name until his throat burned. The hedges pressed close, the path winding and deceptive. Every time he thought he was gaining on her, she slipped around another corner.

  Then the path straightened.

  She stood at the center of a small clearing, panting.

  He stopped short, breath coming fast.

  A sheer veil of fabric clung to her, thin enough that it might as well not exist, torn in the pces it had caught on thorns. It left nothing to the imagination. Her dappled skin glowed in the sunlight, stark against the green.

  Desire fred, immediate and overwhelming, tangled with relief and something like reverence. She looked as much a part of the garden as the roses around her.

  "Come here," he said, the words clumsy and inadequate. "You're going to get hurt."

  She didn't answer. She simply stared, wide-eyed.

  Then she turned and ran again.

  He went after her, faster now, urgency lending his legs strength. The maze blurred past him as he pushed through turns, branches cwing at his arms. He ignored the scratches. All he could see was her, always just ahead.

  He caught up to her at the next straightaway.

  This time, he didn't hesitate. He scooped her up into his arms, her weight familiar and solid against his chest.

  She gasped, startled, and then clutched at him, fingers digging in.

  He held her tight, heart hammering. "I've got you," he said. "I've got you."

  She shook.

  The tremor ran through her entire body, fine and relentless. He shifted his grip, pulling back slightly to look at her face.

  That's when he saw them.

  Bands of gold encircled her wrists and ankles, gleaming and unyielding. They bit into her skin, the metal etched with fine runes that pulsed faintly. She pulled against them without thinking, and the movement made her flinch.

  "I'm sorry," he felt compelled to say, though he wasn't sure for what.

  He held her hand up, as if to test the restraint, rolling her fingers gingerly in his.

  Her eyes flicked past him.

  Shadows stood at the edges of the clearing, stepping out from between the hedges. One. More. They moved with purpose, closing in, their gazes fixed.

  On Cire.

  "Stay back," he growled, taking a step back.

  They didn't slow.

  He turned and ran, tearing through hedges, no longer following paths so much as carving them.

  The maze resisted him. Branches sprang back after he passed, closing ranks, funneling him forward no matter how he turned. He crashed through thorns that ripped at his face and arms, tearing skin, snagging fabric until it hung in shreds from his shoulders.

  He felt Cire's breath hot against him. She squeezed in, making herself smaller, the gold bands knocking into his chest.

  His own breath came ragged now. Each step jarred through his knees. His grip tightened unconsciously as his strength began to fail, his arms burning with the effort of carrying her and fighting the garden at the same time.

  He ignored all of it, focused on the sound of pursuit behind him.

  They were gaining. Slowly. Inexorably.

  He burst out of the maze into an open space and skidded to a halt.

  A cage rose before him.

  It was enormous, fashioned of thick gold bars that curved overhead, enclosing the space like a dome. He ran its edge, searching in vain for a door.

  He didn't find one.

  Leaves rustled.

  He backed up until cold metal pressed against his shoulders. Cire twisted in his arms.

  The shadows approached, spreading out, cutting off any hope of escape. And when they were near enough—

  Recognition hit him like a blow.

  They were all him.

  Not exact copies, but close enough to be unmistakable. Different expressions. Different postures. Some wore armor. Some were bloodied. Some looked hollow-eyed and desperate. All of them watched Cire with the same hunger he felt cwing at his own chest.

  He tightened his hold on her without thinking.

  The shadows stirred. Their focus sharpened, their slow circling drawing a fraction closer.

  Something cold settled in his stomach.

  He looked down.

  His arm was locked around Cire, possessive and unyielding. His hand pressed hard against her back, fingers digging in as if she might vanish if he loosened his hold.

  Her breath hitched. She shifted, trapped not by the cage, but by him.

  Understanding came quietly. Terribly.

  They had come not to harm her. They had come because of him.

  Because he had taken her.

  His grip loosened at once, as if burned.

  "I'm sorry," he said again, and this time he knew why.

  He swallowed and lowered his arms.

  Cire slid down on her feet. For a heartbeat, she remained there, swaying slightly.

  She took a single step forward. The space in front of her yielded, shadows thinning, thorns drawing aside. She turned, looking back at him once.

  Then the roses closed around her.

  The shadows moved toward him. They closed in from all sides, step by measured step, expressions calm now. Complete.

  The world began to narrow. Pressure mounted, not crushing but compressing, as if his outline were being pressed inward. His breath came shallow. His edges blurred.

  Desire and restraint. Fear and resolve. Want and containment.

  They folded into him.

  The st thing he felt was weight. Immense and anchoring. As if something essential were being driven down into the bedrock of him, pinning him in pce.

  When he opened his eyes again, he was back at camp.

  Or what was left of it.

  The tents were gone. The stones bckened and shattered. The ground churned and scarred, as if something enormous had torn through it in a frenzy. The air smelled of smoke and ozone.

  He looked down at himself.

  Gold runes crawled across his skin, etched into flesh like armor. They wrapped his arms, his chest, his throat, pulsing faintly with contained power.

  He felt heavy. Anchored. Heat still bled through his muscles, the dull burn of effort with no memory attached to it.

  He lifted his head.

  The figure stood a short distance away, bent slightly at the waist, supporting herself with her staff as she caught her breath. She straightened when she saw him looking.

  "Seraphine?" he said, throat dry.

  "Finally." Her voice carried clearly now, annoyed and familiar.

  Rocher opened his mouth, but no sound left it.

  She reached into her sleeve and produced a small orb, smooth and dark, no rger than a plum. It throbbed faintly in her palm, and he could feel something pulsing in the air between them.

  "Brace yourself, Rocher," she said. "This is going to hurt."

  She pressed her thumb into the top.

  The world went white.