The first fingers of light that managed to pry through my eyelids sent fresh waves of pain through my skull.

My temple ached where the mage's boot had collided with it. The skin was split, the cheekbone bruised and possibly cracked. I wasn't slumped by the sofa where I'd been before. Instead, I was in the foyer, thrown onto my side with my back against the wall and my face partially stuck to the floor.

I bore my teeth against the fresh sting that arose when I peeled my bloody skin free of the hardwood.

Lust was on her knees near me with her hands laced atop her head, surrounded by three sages of the Blue Fire Syndicate equipped with spelled lances. The tapered ends of the lances radiated a thick, dusty smoke, filling my dry mouth with the taste of hot iron. Whatever magic those arrogant mutts had channeling into their weapons wouldn't be enough to kill Amoroth, but it would impede her, and the last thing she needed now was to be impeded.

The Absolian would be coming.

Amoroth held herself stiff and alert, waiting for the mages to lower their guard so she could escape. Her hair was a tangled mess, and soot from the explosion covered her front, but her expression was livid.

Only a single mage stood at my side with his eyes on the room's center, discounting me as nothing more than a simple human who needed his memory wiped. Of course, to him, I was nothing. Some of my names may have found their way into the texts and grimoires of the syndicates, but my face was unknown. I was just a human to these men.

Cage was the main object of their attention. I was surprised, considering they knew Amoroth's nature. The Blue Fire mages surrounded him, each uttering a part of a communion spell being woven into a construct etched in haste beneath the black mage. He turned to each of his brethren and greeted them with the same unnerving grin.

"Did you enjoy your nap?" Amoroth sneered, drawing my eye back to her. My head throbbed from the movement. 

"Silence," the short, balding mage quipped. 

"I've had better," I returned.

"You didn't miss much." 

"I said silence!" The mage jostled the lance he held and earned a scalding glance from the Sin of Lust.

"I'm going to ram that thing through your chest, boy," she told him. "Before all is said and done."

He paled and laid the lance's end against Amoroth's face. She hissed and jerked back, revealing the swollen, bloody blister the weapon left upon her smooth skin. Seeing as it didn't immediately heal, they had to be channeling some form of theurgy to create such an injury. Theurgy was black magic according to the strict, ridiculous Blue Fire creed.

I didn't find their hypocrisy surprising. Mages were notorious for creating "loopholes" in their own conformities whenever the need for them arose.

Incensed, Amoroth nonetheless remained where she was, shooting a venomous look at the mage who'd wounded her before her sharp eyes landed on me. We couldn't converse verbally without one of the gray-coated men intervening, but—unfortunately for the mages—my memory of Terrestria's languages had survived my degradation into a mortal.

That included Morse code.

Amoroth wasn't as quick as I was, and I wasted several seconds blinking in rapid, disjointed succession until recognition dawned upon her.

"Why are they here?" I asked as I eased myself into a sitting position without provoking my attendee. I doubted it would matter if I jumped up and down, screaming my lungs out. I was only a human to him, and thus inconsequential. Weak.

The irony of my thoughts lay in the fact that I'd once seen humans in the same way as well. Still did, really.

"For Cage," was Amoroth's curt response. I'd already gathered as much and didn't appreciate her flippancy.

Before I could blink another retort at the Sin, the black mage opened his impertinent mouth. "I didn't expect you lads to be so timely," Cage crooned as the leader of this group latched a pair of shackles closed about the man's wrists. The shackles blazed with verdant color, and Cage's quick hands went slack as if numbed. "What with our, ah, feathered visitor in town."

"It is exactly because of the Absolian's descent that we have been sent to hunt you down," the leader—a stern, older augur with a graying beard—said. "We can't have you making this worse than it already is. We must contain the situation. We must contain the realm."

"If you're here for him," Amoroth called across the room, her words laced with implicit warning. "Then tell your men to back away from me before I lose my patience."

"We're not just here for the black mage." The leader twitched his thumb and forefinger, causing the sofa to fly back and hit the wall as he paced nearer to us in the foyer. I noticed the motion of his hands were stilted in a way that Cage's weren't. My knowledge of mage-kind may have been lax, but the infrequency of augurs—or dexterous mages—was well-known. It was reported to be a difficult skill to master, and one that most lost to arthritis or injury as they became older. "We're here for you as well, monster."

"Why, you sure know what to say to a lady," Amoroth sneered, flinching when one of the lances was jostled near her face. "It seems you should have more pressing issues to handle than my presence here."

"Your ilk is responsible for that creature's arrival!" the mage growled from mere feet away. "We all saw the television broadcast. We saw that...thing kill that woman on international television. The syndicates have spun the resulting chaos as best we can, but there will always be doubters. Dissenters. The Blue Fire Syndicate will not tolerate the blithe behavior of your kind any longer when it threatens all of Terrestria."

"What a pretty speech," Cage said, earning a sharp word from one of his jailers. "I am so impressed right now, but what I'd love to know, Kiev—it is Kiev, isn't it? Forgive me if I don't know all the new faces in Blue Fire—is why they sent you. Where are the ferrymen? They are exclusively sent out after the Sins, and that exclusivity doesn't include you."

"Ferrymen" was a term for the assassins and death-dealers who made up the various chapters of the Cult of the River. They answered only to the authority of the Blue Fire Syndicate or the Blue-Iron wardens, and held a collection of the most cutthroat mages—and witches—of Terrestria among their ranks. Major cities around the world had different chapters of ferrymen, the very best of them being members of Itheria's Cult of the River. They were the ones who were normally sent to deal with Sins.

The men here were nothing more than accountants in comparison to the ferrymen.

A muscle in Kiev's jaw twitched as he addressed the other mages, ignoring the question. "Get him out of here."

What?

I swiveled on my knees, blinking in furious rhythm for Amoroth to see. "Where are they taking him?"

"The hell if I know."

The construct hastily lain upon the floor was adjusted, then it began to glow as the mage controlling it started funneling energy into the bindings. My heart pounded an ugly, staccato beat as I stared at Cage and he stared at me. The black mage smirked.

They can't take him. He can't go—not yet, not until he tells me—!

"Leave him be," I said to no one in particular as the totality of their actions dawned upon me. If Cage was taken and executed, I would never discover what he knew about resurrecting Sara.

"Silence."

"No," I snarled at the man who'd spoken to me. My own guard turned just as a filmy curtain of yellow magic rose around Cage and his captors. The leader of this band hadn't been encircled by the energy, but he didn't spare me an ounce of notice.

The short, balding mage glanced in my direction. "Get him under control, Nick."

"Don't give me orders," Nick—my guard—retorted. Even as he argued, he went to kick my side as if trying to topple me, and I reacted. Faster and more agile than an average human, I hopped upright, my arm swinging out to catch the man unawares. My fist hit him in the throat, lodging the unspoken spell in his chest as I punched him in the temple and allowed him to topple.

In a flurry of movement and brief, jilted screams, the three men guarding Amoroth were torn to pieces. The blood painted abstract designs across the pristine walls.

We didn't move fast enough, because by the time Nick crumpled upon the floor and the first of Amoroth's retinue began to shriek, the ugly yellow curtain of wavering magic was ascending into the air, and when it dispersed, the mages were gone.

Cage was gone.

The leader who remained, Kiev, uttered a harsh curse under his breath as he found himself alone, faced with an unbound and furious Sin.

"No!" resounded in the room as I stared at the spot Cage had disappeared from, where fine glimmers of putrescent light yet remained. Too late. Too late. I am too late.

The mage's hand wound in swift, clockwise gestures, but his fingers and enlarged knuckles were too stiff to form the proper motions. The kinetic energy was woven into a hasty containment field around Amoroth—but she had only to sweep her arm out to disperse the spell, elastic sparks zinging through the air. Kiev paled when she smirked.

He resorted to a baser spell, using the same brute force he'd employed to shove the couch aside to slam Amoroth into the wall. The air was pushed from her lungs on impact as the apartment trembled and the mage let out a triumphant shout—but he neglected to watch me. Like my guard, he discounted me as nothing more than a human nuisance.

I would enjoy making him regret that mistake.

The metal of Nick's dropped lance was hot beneath my palm, but the weapon yielded in my experienced grip, the iron end singing as I brought it up and then down in a sharp curve. I lunged forward as the mage's eyes bulged, and slammed the iron end of the lance against his right hand. The blow was met with a satisfying crunch of bone, and when he shrieked, I swiveled the weapon to lay the enchanted edge against his throat.

"Try me," I jeered when the man's left hand jumped to counter my blow. It froze mid-motion. Amoroth sagged to the floor, groaning as she brush bits of broken stone and dust from her shoulders. "I know more ways to kill a man than you could ever imagine."

His eyes, yellowed with either age or disease, were on my face. I had the man's full attention now.

I let the lance's blade ease over his flesh and leave a bloody scrape in its wake.

"Where did they take him?" I queried, feeling the familiar chill of confidence enter my voice. I wasn't utterly powerless. I was weaker and had lost much of my more convenient abilities, but I still had my knowledge and the memory of a million sword swings burned into my veins and limbs. It was enough.

I had the mage at my mercy, and that was exactly where I liked them.

His lips parted, hesitant, and I sense the inner stirring of a spell being knitted together. I pressed on the lance until it split the first layer of skin, the grin on my face harsh and unbending. "Try it, boy. I'll pry out your teeth and shove them down your throat."

The Sin of Lust snorted. "He'll do it, too. I saw him rip a mage's arms off just for breathing in his direction," Amoroth said as she approached, her presence bringing a sudden chill to my exposed skin. Her eyes were black with hunger—and with fear. "We haven't got long, Darius."

"Where did they take him?" I asked again, more insistent this time. Amoroth was right. The transport spell utilized by the mages would attract the Absolian's attention—or, more accurately, would spur the creature to come investigate quicker once he was done demolishing the Gate. "Where?!"

"It doesn't matter!" the mage barked, his breath acrid and foul against my face. "It doesn't matter; you won't be seeing that bastard again. We've returned him to the Facility, where he belongs!"

The Facility. I'd expected as much. It was a common shortening of the name Blue Iron Internment Facility, a prison for mages, witches, and other undesirable Aos Sí or Valian elements who broke the syndicates' precious laws. I'd never seen the prison, having been smart enough to stay away from a place that specialized in capturing dangerous, deadly creatures, but I knew where it was. It was in Itheria on the eastern seaboard.

Kiev was right. I wouldn't be seeing Cage again. It was impossible.

Denial raged in my chest and expanded like an unchecked wildfire, burning with abandon until my arms were trembling with rage and pain. I should've demanded the black mage tell me what he knew. I'd thought I had time, time to see Amoroth out of the realm and to ensure the survival of the Sins before I pursued my own selfish agenda—but I hadn't considered the bastards who were chasing the escaped convict. I'd been mistaken. I'd missed my opportunity.

With an incoherent yell, I smashed the lance into the mage's jaw and sent him sprawling to the floor. I wanted to kill him. I yearned to rip the man's throat out with my bare hands, to force his words into his lungs and to shred them to bits just to relive the last few minutes—but I restrained myself. Barely.

I drove the lance through his unbroken hand, earning a howl and a swift kick to the shins for my efforts, but the weapon pinned the man in place as he panted and swore.

"Darius," Amoroth warned, her hungry gaze wavering over the rain-splattered window. Yes, I could also sense the Absolian's chaotic power rising with him into the storm. He was coming. We had to leave. Now.

"I won't kill you," I promised the mage named Kiev as my mouth tipped into an unpleasant smile. He glared as he panted and tried to pry himself loose, but I'd rendered his hands useless. "I'll just leave you to a fate far less...enjoyable."

His ugly eyes widened, and his fear was so potent I could taste it on my tongue.

"No—! No, you can't—!"

But I could, and I would. As Amoroth grabbed her bag from where it'd fallen and I followed her through the lake of blood filling the foyer, I anticipated my winged brother would be distracted by the mages left behind and we would be allowed to escape. I could only wish the righteous deliverance the Absolian promised would be punishment enough for Kiev and his ilk.

I'd held hope, fragile and fleeting, for but a moment before the mages stole it in a rush of hasty constructs and forceful words.

Three thousand miles away, in a city built by magic and ruled by men with blue fire in their souls, Cage was being tossed into a dungeon beneath the earth. Hope for Sara's revival was being held in the most secure prison known to Terrestria with no way out. My salvation now lay at the heart of a maze more dangerous and convoluted than anything I'd faced before.

How was I supposed to get it back?