“I said call them off!”
“I didn’t do this!”
“Briana—”
“Please, Sel!”
His jaw clenches as he stares me down, fresh doubt at my plea warring with the fury in his eyes. A flash of blue-white aether, and then Sel is murmuring while aether streams rapidly into his hands. It collects into spinning globes in his palms. Then the globes expand and elongate until they form two long staffs that harden into shimmering crystalline weapons, dense and heavy.
Instead of retreating, the foxes snap their jaws eagerly at the sight.
“What are they doing?” I breathe, but Sel’s eyes are only for the demons.
Suddenly, all three hellfoxes release bloodcurdling screams, the sound bouncing in the courtyard and droning on and on until I cover my ears in pain. Then I see that it’s not a scream at all.
It’s a call.
I know the Shadowborn use aether to grow solid, but I’ve never seen it happen before now. The aether from Sel’s weapons unravels and flows in the air toward their open mouths like a stream spilling into a lake. He gasps, squeezing each staff in a fist, but it’s no use. His weapons dissolve before our eyes until he’s holding nothing but air between his fingers. The foxes flicker, but the silver-blue aether he called turns green when it reaches them. Sel is already calling another batch of aether, but the foxes scream once more and take it before he can form anything in his palms. He roars, cursing as they take his power from him, siphoning it as fast as he can call it.
The sharp burn of his casting fills the air. The foxes take it all and use it to grow larger, stronger. Aether swells from within their bodies, bloating them outward until there’s the sound of splitting skin. Dark green, foul-smelling ichor oozes out of the openings, turning my stomach. Sel begins calling a third batch of aether to make a weapon against them—but they’ll be corporeal soon, and visible to any passing Onceborn.
“Stop!” I shout. “They’re just using it to go corp!”
I didn’t need to yell; he’d figured it out too, and realized his efforts would be futile. His face turns feral with frustration, and he growls at the creatures with canines bared.
In my vision, the world trembles, but it’s not the world that is shaking, boiling, rising. It’s me.
Time slows, and I see the prowling foxes with new eyes. Their outstretched claws and rows of teeth, their eyes gleaming with bloodlust. Everything about my perception of them—sight, smell, sound—is suddenly crisper, brighter. Their cracked-lava skin is in high definition, every shift and ripple of their muscles clear beneath the surface. I can taste their sour, rotten aether bodies, the smell thick at the back of my throat. A rumbling growl is coming from one, I know, because I hear the air building to produce it, deep in its chest.
“What the hell is that?” Sel’s voice breaks my focus, and the world speeds back up.
I blink and look down. I’ve taken two steps toward the foxes without even realizing I’ve moved. My hands are outstretched at my sides—and bright crimson flames stream from my fingertips. A short scream escapes me, then a whimper. I shake my hands to try to toss the flames away. “I don’t, I don’t—”
The hellfoxes don’t wait for me to explain. The one on the far left is already moving, dashing for me at breakneck speed. I dodge at the last minute, and it collides into the wall. While it recovers, another screeches, braces for a leap—
Strong arms grab me around the waist and pull both my feet off the ground. The graveyard, the ground, the trees fly by in a dizzying blur of colors, and then I’m released. The world goes hazy, dark…
“Datgelaf, dadrithiaf… datgelaf, dadrithiaf…”
The ground beneath my face comes into focus. My stomach feels like it’s somewhere up near my lungs. My fingers curl in the dirt—the red mage flame is gone. “Ughh…,” I moan, rising to my knees. I couldn’t have been out for more than a minute.
“You’re welcome,” Sel grumbles, before returning to his chant. “Datgelaf, dadrithiaf…” He stands beside me, his fingers and hands contorting in the air over the massive roots of an oak tree. I look up to find that we’re on McCorkle Place, the northernmost quad. Maybe a ten-minute walk from the graveyard. “Datgelaf—”
A hellfox scream rends the night air.
“Oh God.” I use the tree to stand. “They’re coming.”
“I’m aware.”
Another scream, louder this time. “They’re getting closer!”
“I have ears!”
“We’ve got to run.” I take a halting step, but the world is still adjusting itself after Sel’s snatch-and-grab.
“No,” he says, “we’ve got to hide.” There’s a whoosh of air, and low, translucent double doors appear over the tree’s roots. Sel yanks his hand backward, and one of the doors opens, revealing a dark bottomless pit below. “Get in.”
“I’m not going down there!”
Without a word, he wraps an arm around my middle and lifts me up, tossing me down into the gloom. I land ass-first, pain shooting up my spine. At least the dirt floor is six or seven feet below ground level instead of the unfathomable descent into nothingness I’d imagined. Sel drops down beside me and lands like a cat—silent and light. He yanks down again, and the door slams shut, plunging us into darkness.
30
“WHAT THE F—”
“Shut up.”
“Why—”
One of Sel’s hands shoves me back against a dirt wall and the other claps down over my mouth. Hard. When I make a muffled noise, that hand presses even harder. “Shh!”
A loud snuffling noise reaches us from no more than two feet above my head. I suck in a breath, heart pounding so loud that I’m certain Sel can hear it. The question is, can the hellfox above us? I pray that it can’t, because if Sel has chosen to hide rather than fight, it means he doesn’t think he can beat these creatures. The other two foxes join the first. We freeze in the darkness while the three demons try to sniff us out. Their paws are silent, but the weight of their aether bodies sends soil showering down over my hair, down the back of my T-shirt. I shut my eyes and let the pebbles rain over my cheeks and Sel’s fingers, still covering my mouth. What if they start digging? My mind races, questions coming faster. Do they know the hidden door is here? Can they sense the aether that hid it, just like Sel can sense the aether that makes them solid? Wait. Why didn’t Sel notice the foxes approaching in the first place?
I must make some sound, or maybe my breathing changes against his knuckles, because he leans against me as if in warning. My eyes snap open—and meet his glowing yellow ones in the dark. Definitely a warning. One I can read clear as day: Don’t. Move.
After a minute, the sounds of their snouts grow distant as the hellfoxes move on. Sel waits a beat for good measure, then a second, and releases me. He snaps his fingers, and a small blue flame appears over his palm, illuminating the cave he’s put us in. No, not a cave. A tunnel.
“Let’s move.” He walks forward, the blue mage flame casting eerie shadows against wide exposed roots, crumbling dirt walls, and ancient beams holding the earth up above us.