It all seemed inexorable. Inevitable, the djinn and their cowering mage wardens dragged close to the road in front of the infirmary by a few curt waves of Percival's casting hand. Mirk was by how terrified the mages looked as compared to the djinn huddled together behind them. The mages knew their lives depended on the outcome of Percival's gambit. The djinn knew that just as well, Mirk suspected. But unlike the discarded third and fourth sons who made up the rinks of the Third Mage, the djinn were more than willing to give up their lives, if only for a few final moments of freedom. Or for the chance to finally see their captors brought low.

  Am-Gulat's back was tense and shaking against Mirk's knees. Even without being able to see his face, or feel any of the nuances of his emotions through the haze of chaos and fire around his mind, Mirk could guess at what he had to be thinking. His grip on his war hammer was certain, its pointed end flipped around and ready to strike. Still whispering, Mirk leaned in close to be certain the djinn heard him. "There'll be a chance. I'm sure Gen understands."

  Standing at a distance of three dozen paces from Percival, Genesis appeared, to anyone who knew nothing more than what could be seen with eyes alone, to be the opposite of the djinn. Alone, composed, perfectly in control. But Mirk knew that the chains that weighed on him were just as heavy as the djinn's, even if they were thin white scars carved into the flesh of his forearms rather than an iron collar around his neck. And even if his master was willing to grant him more latitude, provided his ambitions didn't get in the way of the Empire's designs.

  Mirk had to wonder about that. But the situation didn't give him much time to think, to consider whether or not Percival understood the desires of Imanael and the rest of the Imperial angels better than Ravensdale had. Percival wasted no more time grandstanding as he stepped out onto the road, drawing more and more power from the djinn. Several of them fainted dead away from the strain.

  One of the mages stooped down beside the fallen djinn to check to see if Percival had killed them with his greed. Richard. Or Hervé, or whatever his true name was. He decided not to get back to his feet, remaining down on his knees beside the djinn, out of sight and out of mind. Mirk doubted it would save him, if it came to that. Genesis was never one for forgetting details.

  "Well?" Percival prompted. An annoyed frown had come onto his face. Probably because he had to look up to meet Genesis's eyes. And because Genesis was entirely unmoved by both him and the terrible well of stolen potential he commanded, his face still utterly blank. "Call up yours. I don't have time to waste."

  "My...what?"

  Percival jerked his chin at the crowd of onlookers gathered by the parade ground transporter, the men of the Seventh and a few scattered ladies and Orest and his fellows still atop their horses. The riders were too busy trying to keep their horses from bolting to keep their attention fixed on the impending fight like the others.

  Finally, a slight frown broke through Genesis's composure. "No."

  Snorting, Percival spiraled his casting hand in the air, drawing even more potential out of the bound djinn. The mages in front of them did nothing in response to their curses and groans. Aside from Richard, who got back to his feet. He gave them a hasty once-over and shuffled three of them aside, still hunched over to present a smaller target. "And you people have the gall to call me arrogant. Your pride will be the death of you."

  Genesis wasn't watching Percival. His eyes were locked on the multi-colored potential swirling above the mage, ready to be brought crashing down on them all with a flick of Percival's wrist. "They have done their part," Genesis said, more to himself than to Percival. "I must...now do mine."

  "Enough!" Percival snapped, clenching his hand into a fist. "Defend yourself or don't. You'll die either way."

  Percival jerked his hand downward, bringing a bolt of his stolen magic down on Genesis along with it. It was a trial assault, judging by the amount of potential left hanging above Percival — he was taking no chances with Genesis, not running straight for the kill like he had with the others he'd faced on the parade grounds. But if Percival had been hoping his spell would be matched by Genesis's best, he was left disappointed. Rather than countering it, Genesis merely dodged. One moment he was in front of Percival, the next he'd flickered out of existence, reappearing in the center of the cracked and scorched cobbles that were the aftermath of Percival's bolt.

  Genesis was thinking. Mirk could tell by the way his long, delicate fingers were twitching at his sides. How his eyes flicked back and forth, like he was still reading the grimoire from Mordecai's grandparents. As if Percival himself was the least of his concerns.

  Percival’s frustration smacked hard against Mirk’s mind. He cast no more experimental spells, resorted to no other theatrics. He drew all the power he could from the djinn, both arms flung high above his head. Mirk's eyes watered at the strain of so much ordered elemental magic collected into one place and found himself clutching at his chest again to keep his own potential from being drawn to it, the pull of like to like. Through his half-shut eyes, Mirk could see several ordered mages, both among the men of the Seventh and those standing between the djinn and their freedom, doing the same.

  And he also saw Richard. Shoulders drawn up to the level of his ears, he slunk around behind the three djinn he'd selected, doing something to their collars. As a group, they fell. Then Richard disappeared, after calling something else to him with an arcane gesture and a flash of red fabric over plain gray skirts. Mirk didn't have time to do anything about it, to go to the djinn to see if they were still alive or warn anyone that Richard had fled.

  He had been expecting a terrible fight. An unending, unrelenting exchange of blows, ruthless and brutal, that would leave both men reduced to nothing but heaps of broken bone and torn flesh, piles of meat that had once been people. But that wasn't what happened. With some bellowed arcane word, Percival called half of his stolen potential down into the palm of his casting hand, forming it into a lance made of prismatic light too bright for Mirk to look at. He flung it at Genesis, face twisted up in a vicious grin of triumph, of satisfaction at what he'd wrought. Fatal judgment, brought down on the guilty by the firm hand of the righteous.

  Genesis brought one hand up at the last possible second. The shadows rose along with it, a wave of darkness that boiled off the smoking cobbles, as if drawn up from the very cracks between them. It swallowed Percival's bolt of stolen potential, leaving nothing behind in its wake. The commander made it look simple, as easy as breathing. But Mirk could see the strain it caused him. His eyes had gone pitch black.

  Snarling in frustration, Percival brought another bolt down on him. And another. The shadows devoured them all, forever hungry for warmth and life, incapable of being satiated, even by the magic of three dozen djinn. Genesis was ignoring Percival's shouted insults, his curses and his wild gestures. The whole of his attention was fixed on the chaos swirling around him.

  Genesis flung both arms outward, calling beyond himself, to the chaos and shadows that were the essence of the City of Glass. He spoke in the language of its long-dead creators, hisses and clicks that echoed off the stone facades of the building, amplified by the cold pillar of the Glass Tower looming above them on the far end of the parade grounds. Genesis greeted the City’s chaos like an old friend who’d journeyed far; he spurred it back to life. Blood from beneath his sleeves rolled down his beckoning hands.

  The grates shot off the street's drains. The shadows rose from them, curling, writhing, seething. Swarming around Genesis and awaiting his command. In the center of them, impervious to Percival's continued attacks, Genesis began to shift with a growl that was no longer human.

  Claws slid from his twitching fingertips. His teeth, bared either in a hiss or a grin, multiplied and lengthened. Then he hunched over, wracked for a moment by pain that came through to Mirk clearly, despite all the masses of writhing shadow between them. Spines ripped through the back of his overcoat along the length of his back, and horns, curled and black, stabbed out of the sides of his head above his temples.

  Mirk wasn't certain whether the wings were real, or if they were only a trick of the shadows. It didn't matter. All that mattered was that the truth had been laid bare for all those who'd come to the parade grounds to fight for the djinn and the future of the K'maneda. Genesis was not human, and never had been.

  Something deep in Mirk's chest ached for him. Had Genesis not been driven to that point by the need to stop Percival before he killed all the djinn still under his control, he never would have allowed anyone to see him in such a state. Not even him.

  Mirk was jerked from his thoughts by screaming. Percival. He hazarded a glance in the mage’s direction and immediately regretted it. Percival had thrown his hand up to call down even more magic, one final bolt meant to break through Genesis's wall of churning shadows. Those shadows had come for him before he could attack them once more.

  They had all of Percival's limbs in their grasp, coiled tight around them. His casting arm had been twisted so far around in its socket that something in it must have broken, though Mirk hadn't heard the crack over the hiss of the shadows' static against his mind. The shadows twisted Percival’s arm further, pressed harder. With a hungry snap, they ripped Percival's casting arm off his body. Mirk looked away, cringing, too much of a coward to witness all that Genesis’s magic was capable of.

  Genesis. He was impervious to Percival's screaming, face still locked in the same rigid, humorless grin. His words came out in a hiss through his too-many teeth, again projected and echoed by the chaos that continued to tear Percival apart.

  "This is our City. I will not...allow...any royalist mage to take it again. No more slaves. No more...masters. All empires must...fall."

  Bracing himself, Mirk chanced another glance back at Percival. He'd fallen silent; Mirk had hoped he'd screamed himself hoarse. It was worse than that. After pulling off each of the mage's limbs, one after another, the shadows tore his head off the remains of his body, just as Percival himself had cut the heads off the fathers and mothers of the Irish company Mirk could see watching from across the street. None of them had a wince or a curse to spare over the grotesqueness of Percival's end.

  Mirk hoped that was the end of it, all the scores settled and the djinn unburdened of anyone who had designs on their potential. But it wasn't. The shadows lashed out further with a cutting gesture from one of Genesis's pale, spidery hands, darting across the street toward the mages that still stood between him and the djinn.

  Some of the men tried to run. They didn't get far. The shadows moved with the same uncanny quickness that Genesis himself did, cutting off every last possible avenue of escape. They grabbed at flailing arms and straining legs and immediately set about tearing all the mages who'd stood with Percival apart just like they had their former commander. Mirk looked past the screaming and begging mages, searching for some indication of what needed to be done.

  None of the djinn tried to run, either too exhausted to try to escape or confident that the shadows wouldn't come for them. They only watched as the mages were dragged into the mess of chaotic magic surrounding Genesis, as unflinching and pale as the Irish company back on the parade grounds.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Mirk spotted a flicker of motion near the end of the street, at the place where it curved behind the parade grounds and the Glass Tower. The mass of reinforcements he'd seen arrive earlier was retreating, evaporating back into the silent streets of the City.

  Something about that turn of events shook Mirk out of his stupor. He nudged Am-Gulat in the back. The djinn turned to him, a hint of uncertainty in his triumphant grin. Mirk didn't need to feel Am-Gulat's emotions to know why that uncertainty was there. Genesis was a Destroyer. And that — that mess of ripped off limbs and bleeding bodies scattered all over the street in front of the infirmary — was what Am-Gulat was becoming. "Allez, monsieur," Mirk said, speaking just loud enough to be heard over all the yelling and the meaty sound of flesh being squeezed apart. "Go take care of your kin."

  Am-Gulat nodded, rising smoothly to his feet and bolting off across the street. He prudently gave the mass of feasting and writhing shadows a wide berth, even though they didn't pay him any heed, too distracted by their prey to notice Am-Gulat's passage. Mirk knew, in the pit of his stomach, that it was time for him to leap into action as well. The mages from the noble divisions who'd stood with Percival were all dead or dying, and the Watch guardsmen and infantry who'd also answered Percival's call had all run rather than rising to the challenge of Genesis's shadows. Which left no one on the parade grounds for Genesis's magic to pursue other than the men of the Seventh and Fatima's ladies and the unfamiliar, unarmored fighters who'd joined them.

  Mirk wasn't sure whether Genesis would be able to stop the shadows before they got to them. He was still staring at where Percival had been, motionless, face locked in the same humorless grin.

  He sought out K'aekniv across the street, just to be certain. The half-angel was already on his way over, pushing his way through the others who were still frozen in either shock or fear, his left-hand sword sheathed to keep the shadows away from it and the right-hand one burning bright with all the order and fire magic K'aekniv had left in him. It wasn't a lot. Even K'aekniv, as unstoppable as he seemed, had been exhausted by the battle. But it was enough to pique the shadows' interest.

  K'aekniv ran across the parade grounds, taking a path opposite Am-Gulat's, circling around to Genesis's rear and approaching from his right side. His weaker side, though not by enough to really matter. Mirk shoved himself up off the infirmary steps, staff raised, approaching Genesis head on, from the left, opposite K'aekniv. Something about their combined presence was just enough to draw Genesis out of the destructive trance he'd slipped into. He straightened, his arms dropping to his sides as his face fell back into its usual blankness. But before either K'aekniv or Mirk could reach him, he blinked his eyes, gone pure black with his magic, and vanished along with the shadows.

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  "Shit," K'aekniv grumbled, looking back at the fighters assembled in front of the transporter. He rubbed the back of his neck as he squinted at them, as if viewing the world with eyes half-closed would grant him some kind of arcane second-sight. "Pasha! What do you see?"

  Across the field, the Seer shook his head, leaning hard on his polearm as he stared up at the Glass Tower. "Nothing. Too much chaos still," he yelled back to K'aekniv.

  "Ah, fuck. We'll have to look for him street to street." K'aekniv meant to look back at him, Mirk thought, but his gaze was drawn by the remains of the Third's mages who were loyal to Percival scattered across the street and the parade grounds. Mirk was doing his best not to look at all the arms and legs and great swaths and smears of blood. The heads, their eyes bulging at the strain of being ripped from their necks, unseeing. Guilt burned its way up Mirk's spine as he wondered if, had he taken the time to get to know any of them like he had Elijah, they would have all become friends. If some part of this massacre could have been prevented.

  "Is...is he going to be all right?" Mirk asked K'aekniv, straining to lift his voice over the wind. As soon as Genesis had disappeared, it had begun to howl. Some manifestation of the City's chaos that was still hungry for more, screaming to be released.

  "Maybe, maybe not," K'aekniv replied. The half-angel looked profoundly tired, more exhausted than Mirk had ever seen him before. His winglight was down to almost nothing, his right-hand sword dead and cold. Even his emotions, which were usually so loud Mirk could sense K'aekniv coming from rooms away, were quiet. Though Mirk could tell by the grimace on his face, the crease above his brow, that he was feeling something. Worry, perhaps. "Ah, I hate this. He's so good at hiding. And I'm shit at listening for it when I'm tired."

  "What needs to be done?"

  "You remember what happened when we first got the little angels, yes? When he went off?"

  Mirk nodded. But things were different now. There'd been no sign of the white light that had formed shackles around Genesis's limbs, no hint of that ghostly, distant voice that had tormented him into striking out at him and K'aekniv. This time, Mirk had the impression that Genesis's lapse into darkness was entirely his own doing.

  "It's the same. You beat him until he stops." K'aekniv flipped his sword experimentally around his wrist. And ended up dropping it instead of catching it in one of his giant palms. Cursing to himself under his breath in his native tongue, K'aekniv stooped down to pick it up.

  Mirk sighed, taking one last look around at the shredded bodies, the wounded limping toward the infirmary. The three ladies who'd been knocked off the roof by Percival cold and still on the steps, Alice among them. Am-Gulat was kneeling among his fellow djinn, breaking the last of their collars as Am-Hazek and Er-Izat worked their way through the wounded, deciding who needed the most help first. "Methinks I can manage it, Niv."

  "Eh?"

  "It's...it's like he said. We all have to do our part."

  And this was his. He felt it in the warmth of the staff in his hands, in the certainty that kept him from falling to pieces on the ground in the face of all that'd been lost. Providence made no mistakes. He'd been put there for a reason.

  With a heavy sigh, K'aekniv closed the gap between them and clapped Mirk on the shoulder, offering him the best smile he could muster. "Make some sign when you find him, eh? We'll help how we can. But you're smart, Mirgosha. It'll be fine."

  Mirk wished he could share K'aekniv's confidence. But he returned K'aekniv smile with one of his own, equally weak, and set out in search of Genesis.

  - - -

  He hadn't left the City. Genesis hadn't retreated into the Abyss to hide himself, nor had he slipped past the walls of the City, to seek further revenge on the guild mages who'd enslaved their own djinn just like Ravensdale had. He was still hiding there, somewhere. Mirk could feel it in the City's magic twisting beneath the cobbles. It was unsettled, seeking, the shadows the lamp posts and the buildings cast over the street in the early morning light too long and dark to be natural. Out of the corners of his eyes, Mirk glimpsed occasional tendrils of darkness snaking out of the gutters, eager to snap at ankles and knees, awaiting a call that hadn't yet come.

  But the City's magic felt different than Genesis's — not quite as alive, and a bit too warm, just like Am-Gulat's was. The strange anti-patterns in the City's chaos didn't match the ones Mirk had memorized from hours spent staring at Genesis's broken body. Its hissing static wasn't sharp enough. As always, Mirk found himself resorting to listening and feeling rather than seeing, plodding down the City's street with eyes closed in search of the cold tinge of Genesis's presence.

  At least he could say to himself then, confidently, that all his time spent brooding over Genesis like a lovesick debutante who'd had her ambitions thwarted, would come in useful.

  Mirk had decided to strike out toward the East Gate once he'd walked past the parade grounds, down the main road that led past the Academy building. The djinn had been imprisoned at the edge of that part of town, and it was the preserve of the K'maneda's richest and strongest mages, especially nearer the Gate. Genesis's final words still echoed in Mirk's mind: no more slaves, no more masters. If it was his deepest desire to see those things done away with, Genesis would find the worst among the K'maneda's masters in that part of the City. The worst that were still among the living, anyway.

  He was near the high-born officers’ dormitory when Mirk first felt it. A brush of coldness against his mind, a hissing counterpoint to the City's native chaos. Something sharper, more determined and focused. Mirk followed it down the ring road second in from the City's wall, then further on through a warren of alleys and side streets. If Mirk had to guess at what was happening, Genesis was arguing with the City's magic. Or with himself.

  There was still no one out on the streets. Mirk could feel the other K’maneda secreted away in the buildings that lined them with his mind fully open and his empathy no longer clouded by any trace of the pain-blockers. There was the same worry and fear as before. But hunger and boredom was beginning to rise up too. The sort of people who lived and worked near the East Gate weren't accustomed to lying low and being patient. Either good sense or self-preservation was keeping everyone locked up inside, at least for now. Not that it'd help them, should Genesis come to a decision.

  Mirk supposed he shouldn't have been surprised to find Genesis in the narrow alleyway behind the Third Mage Division's headquarters building, the footpath usually only traversed by the Supply Corps and the mages' personal servants as they tended to their masters' needs. The building was entirely empty at the moment, Mirk could sense. But it worried him nevertheless.

  The shadows were gathered thick across the alley's entrance, obscuring everything that lay down it. Yet Mirk was certain from the sound of the chaos, the way it rippled between the buildings, almost like it was drawing its own slow, hissing breaths, that Genesis had to be there. The cold radiating out of the alley was a physical weight that pressed hard on Mirk's shoulders and made him wish that the wind had been quieter and the sun brighter, so that his justacorps might have dried some on the walk over.

  Mirk looked down at the staff in his hands. It was warm, at least. But it wouldn't do to go into the alley while drawing on its power. Instead, he shifted his hold on it, leaning on it like a walking stick like his grandfather so often favored. After tapping it against the side of the Third’s building, pressing a bit of his magic along with the rap to leave a mark if anyone came looking for him, he pushed his way through the chaos.

  It didn't try to force him away. It drew him in, wrapped him up like a useless, icy second justacorps. Mirk didn't know whether that was a good sign or not.

  "Genesis?"

  Mirk waited for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. They never quite did. With freezing fingers, Mirk fumbled for the magelight strung around his wrist.

  The magelight might have been a bad idea. A light was needed to cast proper shadows, at least ones not summoned by magic. It only served to deepen the blackness that filled the alleyway. But the magelight also illuminated the alleyway just enough for Mirk to be able to see what he was dealing with.

  Genesis. Still in that odd other form of his Mirk had only ever caught the barest hints of before, the one with too many teeth. He had hidden himself in an alcove, his hands gripping the edges of it hard enough to drive his claws into the narrow gaps in the brickwork, his back pressed against the wall. As if he was caught between shoving himself into the Abyss and launching himself out into the City to finish what he'd started. His eyes were still filmed over black.

  Genesis must have been trapped there for some time. Blood streaked the walls of the alcove, from the wounds hidden beneath the sleeves of his overcoat. The binding runes had opened again.

  Mirk approached him, being sure to scrape the staff against the ground as he walked. He didn't want to take Genesis by surprise. K'aekniv had said that the only way to reach Genesis when he'd gone off was a beating. But even if that was the sensible course of action, Mirk didn't have the heart for it.

  There was nothing Mirk feared in the blank face looming above him in the shadows. The horns, the fangs, the eyes gone black — none of it mattered, none of it deterred him. All he could feel was sympathy for Genesis, a deep sadness over the fact that the commander felt this other form of his was so shameful, so dangerous that he needed to keep it hidden from everyone except in the most dire of circumstances.

  "Can you hear me, messire?"

  Mirk didn't know whether Genesis heard the words. But he must have felt his presence. Genesis dug his fingers harder into the wall, his claws making a terrible grinding noise as they pierced through mortar. The single word came out in a low hiss, Genesis's lips still stretched tight over a snarling grimace. "Leave."

  "I can't, messire. You know that. It's time to come back."

  "There...is no...coming back."

  "What do you mean?"

  It was as if even tiny magelight around Mirk's wrist cast too much light for Genesis to bear, like it was as brilliant and unforgiving as the noontime sun. His face tilted upwards, and Genesis pushed himself harder back into the alcove. "This is...what I am."

  "I know. You're very clever, of course, but even you can't hide everything. This..." Mirk trailed off, looking him over again, studying his limbs that were as taut as a pulled-back bowstring, ready to rain down hell on whoever challenged him. He could see the faint spiderweb of his veins through the pale skin of Genesis’s neck. Like his very blood had turned into shadows. "This doesn't matter."

  "I will...kill...them. All of them. You. This is...what I am. K'amskec."

  That clicking, hissing word in the commander's dead mother tongue that Mirk knew he didn't stand a chance of saying right, with the proper gravity and emphasis. The one that had no real human equivalent, other than Destroyer. That word was as graceless and inelegant as Genesis's own word for himself was sharp and dark.

  Mirk still didn't know what all he meant by it. Whether being a Destroyer meant being the end of everything, the final darkness that snuffed out all light and life, or whether it meant something closer to how Genesis's people meant it — a person who came to break all the chains that kept others in bondage. The sadness in Mirk's chest gave a sharp twist at the cruelty of it all.

  No matter how hard Genesis struggled, no matter who else he freed, the chains cut into his arms, still dripping their blood down the walls, would still bind him.

  He couldn't stand it a moment longer. Rather than lifting his staff to strike, Mirk set it aside, propping it against the wall. He faced Genesis with empty hands, his wrists turned outward and neck bared. "You're Genesis. That's all that matters to me."

  Genesis didn't look down at him. But he didn't move either. Mirk didn't know if it was some breach of Genesis's long-dead code of politeness, of ethics, to touch a person who hadn't returned that strange gesture the commander had taught him meant being open to closeness. He didn't know if Genesis could have returned it then, even if he'd wanted to. All Mirk knew was that he didn't have the heart to strike Genesis.

  Instead, he stepped forward and embraced him. Slowly, carefully. Trying to mirror the way that Genesis had embraced him back at Fatima's, in an effort to banish the pain that had made his magic so unstable. Mirk wrapped his arms tight around Genesis, closing his eyes as he leaned his head against his chest and pressed his palms flat against his back, one on either side of the spines his fingers had brushed against while searching for the right position.

  Mirk felt the shadows rise around them. Heard their static, felt their coldness as thick tendrils curled around his ankles. They squeezed tight, but they didn't hurl him into the wall behind him or jerk his legs out of their sockets, ripping and tearing him like they had Percival and the other mages of the Third. They remained still. Waiting. Thinking.

  "It's all right, Gen," Mirk murmured against his shirtfront, somehow still crisp and dry and faintly scented with orange and lily despite everything that had happened. Though Mirk could smell the blood from the binding runes on his arms too, if he strained his senses. "It's over. The djinn are safe. All of us are. You can rest now."

  All the tightness left Genesis's body. He slid down against the wall, the spines along his back scraping the stone. Mirk didn't let him go. He only shifted position. He stooped over Genesis, taking his head in both hands.

  For once, Genesis didn't recoil at being touched skin to skin with fingertips that were streaked with the mess of the living, blood and dirt and sweat. The commander only stared up at him, an unreadable expression on his face, his corners of lips curled upwards but his brow furrowed, his pitch black eyes narrowed against the glow of the magelight on Mirk's wrist.

  He was still balanced on the brink, Mirk thought. Uncertain of whether he was telling the truth, the shadows around them still thick and writhing. Mirk couldn't blame Genesis for not trusting a show of kindness, for expecting him to pull a knife or wrap a hand around his throat the instant he lowered his guard. Mirk stooped down lower, pressing their foreheads together.

  He didn't know what that gesture meant to Genesis. But it was as close as Mirk dared to come to a kiss.

  Mirk repeated the words again, soft and indistinct. To reassure himself even more than Genesis. "It's over."

  The shadows vanished with a rush of coolness, leaving behind nothing but the warm light of morning and the distant sound of water from last night's rains dripping from the City's eaves. Genesis's eyes slid closed as the last of his inhuman strength left him and he slipped off into unconsciousness. As Mirk eased the commander's head back against the wall of the alcove, he was struck by how fragile Genesis looked then, without all of his protective coils of living shadow. He was nothing but skin and bones, like using so much of both his and the City's magic had nearly erased him.

  He couldn't help himself. With one fingertip, Mirk traced the curve of one of the thick, black horns above Genesis's temples. They suited him, in an odd way. Though Mirk suspected that Genesis must hate them, considering how he'd kept them locked away so tightly that it took straining his magic to its limit for whatever spell that usually hid them to fall away.

  "Psst!"

  The noise was unnaturally loud in the stillness that had fallen over the alley now that the shadows had faded. Jerking his hand away, Mirk turned to face it. Mordecai was peeking around the edge of the alley’s mouth.

  Mirk knew he needed to say something. But he was at a loss to explain what had happened, what he'd done to talk Genesis back from the edge.

  Mordecai didn't give him any time to think. The teleporting mage had never been very patient, even under the best circumstances. Instead of waiting for confirmation that it was safe to come out, he leaned out further around the corner, straining to see what Mirk was doing. "Oy, Mirk! What happened? Where is he? I found your mark. Well, Pavel did."

  A second later, he heard Pavel scold him. Though Pavel was sensible enough not to come any closer yet. "Get back here!"

  Mordecai ignored him, trudging down the alley to meet Mirk, his hands crammed in the pockets of his overcoat. He gave a low whistle at the sight of Genesis slumped on the ground within the narrow sliver of protection offered by the alcove. "Wow! You must have really got him good. Usually he goes right back to normal after. I've only seen the horns stick once. What'd you do? Sneak up behind him, surprise him?"

  Mirk sighed, picking up the staff from where he'd propped it against the wall of the alley. The wood was cold again beneath his fingertips. "I'm not that fast. But methinks I did surprise him, maybe."

  Just not in the way that anyone had suspected. Genesis included.