I turn back around. “How do I get out of the city?”

“The gate,” Crixus responds unhelpfully.

I stride away as best I can with my injuries. The pain has lessened—possibly because being awake in Tenebra distances my mind so much from my physical body. Or maybe the pain is lessening because I’m dying. How deadly is a shoulder wound like mine?

I think I leave Crixus behind, but then I hear footsteps following.

“Leave me alone.”

“Are you injured, Cain?” This is the first note of true concern I hear.

“What’s it to you?”

“You’re a citizen of my city.”

“Your city?” I jab. “Are you the Emperor now?” I don’t know why I’m so irritated. It’s this blasted Nightmare world heightening every negative emotion. It makes me angry, which the Nightmare will exploit.

Crixus doesn’t bite. I don’t give him any information about my injuries. He stays right behind me as I slowly walk. My shoulder hurts the most and breathing is labored, but I gain energy with every step.

There should be several gates spread around the exterior wall of the coliseum. I suppose all of them are fair game for the citizens, but then I see crisscross chains across the face of the first one. No handle in sight. There’s a crank on the wall, but before I can give it a try, Crixus speaks up.

“You’ll be killed in minutes if you go out there.”

I round on him. “Have you been assigned to watch me or something?” It can’t be coincidence that he’s always popping up wherever I am. And now he’s following me. Trying to deter me. I get it. Luc wants to find the base of the Spores. But he asked me to do that. If he’s sent Crixus to follow me, that means Luc doesn’t trust me.

“You’re injured, Cain. And you’re a new citizen, not able or ready to fight for survival out there. Even seasoned citizens don’t go out.”

“I thought the whole point of the Arena was to teach me to survive in Tenebra.”

“That was the hope. You’ve taken an unconventional path.”

“Meaning I got out because I murdered someone, not necessarily because I learned anything.”

“You said it, not me. But you’re valuable to the Emperor. I can’t let you throw your life away with your recklessness.”

“I’m dying already!” I kick the door crank, but it doesn’t move. “We all are!” My ribs scream. “Now open this gate.”

“You may have done us a great service, killing that Spore, but I don’t think that makes you any safer to our society. Your emotions are still beyond your control, and who’s to say they won’t lead you to killing a citizen next?”

If I had it my way, I wouldn’t kill another person, Spore or citizen, ever. “The Emperor is training me.” I have to believe it’s possible to become safe. Controlled.

“To be frank, that was my job.”

Ah, so it comes down to ego. Luc walked on Crixus’s turf by training me, and Crixus doesn’t like it. “I think I prefer the Emperor’s teaching methods to your practice of handing me a spear and shoving me in an arena.”

“You were safe.”

“Safe like the noxior who was eaten by the giant snake?” He opens his mouth to reply, but my irritation—or is it desperation?—grows, and as much as Crixus annoys me, I don’t want to prove him right by losing control and attacking him.

I pound against the door and chains. It’s not going to accomplish much, but it feels good. Then I see the enormous ancient padlock tucked behind the crank and chains. I turn to Crixus, breathing hard, and my voice comes out in an utterly different tone. Serious. Pleading.

“Let me out, Crixus.”

He stands there, arms crossed, unchanged. There’s nothing more I can do at this point except hope he bends. I’m a citizen—I have this right.

“Say please.” I think he means it as one final jab, but it comes out flat.

I’m tempted to say please with my fist.

“Please,” I spit out.

He pulls a key from a cord around his neck that was tucked beneath his tunic. He opens the lock. This time when I turn the crank it needs only a nudge before gaining momentum, and the doors swing open with unearthly shrieks.

Billows of fire greet me.

I hesitate. Behind me, Crixus chuckles.

“I just walk through them?” What about being a citizen has suddenly made me immune to these flames? I feel no different.

“As long as you have your citizenship scroll with you.”

I pat my belt. The scroll is tucked tight. Okay then. One hesitant step and the flames dart away from my sandaled foot. I take another step. The fire seems hungry but reluctantly slinks backward. A strange sensation of power fills me. My strides turn confident. The flames part.

And then I’m out.

Out of the coliseum and into the wild, deadly night.

This is a different location from where I entered after the Spore battle. No broad cobbled road here. A dusty path winds into a section of abandoned houses, like an invitation to step from dusk into full night. A haunting promise of deep shadows. Otherworldly. It brings me back to when I first arrived at the coliseum with barely the blood left in my veins.

“Get out before they get in.” Crixus doesn’t bother to clarify who they are.

I take the final step, and he hauls the doors closed. I thought he’d come with me. Luc’s lackey and all that. Or it’s just a stroke of good luck.

I turn and face the darkness like I would a nightbeast in the Arena. I enter it at a jog. The jolt against my shoulder keeps me alert. I could be going in the complete wrong direction, but I have to move.

Once I’m several yards from the coliseum, I call out, quietly against the threat of the shadows, “Stranna!”

The Spores don’t live in the coliseum. Stranna arrived at the Arena on a giant phoenix, which tells me she probably flew a distance. I try to remember which direction she originally came from, but there’s no sun or mountains to navigate by.

I unsheathe my kris dagger. I need something—anything—to help me find her. I rack my brain for any piece of information she might have given me during our brief conversation. Anything Luc might have said when he first told me about the Spores.

Nothing.

“How do I find her?” I speak the words to the sky, as if they’ll float up through this dark misty ceiling of Nightmare, into the Real World, and up to the heavens. As if God would hear. He never heard me before when I asked him to drag Mom out of her depression and wake her up.

But is that true?

It’s almost like hearing Nole in my head—challenging my bitterness. I mean, if you want to get technical, Mom eventually got out of it, with the help of Nole’s reading to her and the small family church she found. But by then it was too late. For me, anyway. Her indifference and darkness had already cracked my heart beyond repair. We never really had a relationship after that.