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Detroit. Smaller, yes, but much closer. So why had they been sent out here?
    Like with most things, he didn’t question. The Prophets moved them where they wished, and the Hunters followed orders. Their duty was to protect the living. So long as the Prophets’ directives matched that one aim, the Hunters acquiesced.
    Dreya didn’t question further. She didn’t have the chance.
    Fire blossomed on the horizon, a red stain on night’s canvas. Thunder roared overhead.
    â€œThat is the first line,” Dreya said. She looked to Tenn. In this new light, her hair glinted rose. “The army is near.”
    Tenn closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He’d spent the last week waiting for the executioner’s ax to fall, and here it was at last.
    Dreya walked back to her brother, who stood with his hands clenched at his side, his eyes narrowed. Neither of them carried a weapon; their powers were weapons enough. Tenn ground the point of his staff into the concrete, let his adrenaline fire on all cylinders. The red on the horizon seeped closer, the whole town illuminated in its ghostly light. Tenn could sense the magic even from here. Somewhere out there, the necromancers were pulling out their big guns and spurring their army with fire and fear. Tenn counted the seconds in his head, like counting the space between lightning and thunder. He counted the seconds until death arrived.
    Deep in the pit of his stomach, the Sphere of Water simmered.
    Flames leaped higher, burning through the fields and stretching to the clouds above. The wall of flame burned white-hot, speeding toward the city in a ravenous wave. Years ago, magic had turned the tides of war. It wasn’t the most powerful who walked away from battle anymore, but the quickest. For the briefest moment, he felt fear prick the back of his neck at the thought that, this time, they hadn’t been quick enough. He prayed his comrades in the field had shielded themselves. He prayed Jarrett was close to base. The fire splashed closer, only a mile away. Its roar chilled his bones, and its heat threatened to melt him.
    And then, behind him, the twins began to sing.
    The sound sent chills up his spine, and he turned and glanced at them, the fire momentarily forgotten. The twins stood there, heads tilted back and hands outstretched. They were attuned to the elements of the tempest, and like many Air mages, they wove their magic with their voices. The Spheres blazed in them like ghostly lights—the slow blue of Water in their stomachs, the fierce red of Fire in their chests, and the swirling vortex of yellow-blue Air in their throats. Most mages could only handle the power of wielding one or two Spheres. The twins were terrifying exceptions to the rule. Air flared in the twins’ throats, and lightning crackled across the sky, a pulse of blue light that shattered in a dome above them, spider-webbing down to the earth. Tenn looked back just in time to see the necromancer’s fire billow closer, only seconds away. He winced.
    Fire hit the invisible shield, billowed across it with all the power of Hell before burning out into nothing. He blinked hard, tried to get the sear of fire from his eyes. When his vision cleared, he saw the army.
    They swarmed like a plague across the field, a black tide that screamed and howled like demons. More fires billowed around them, but none broke past the twins’ shield. Yet. It was time. Tenn opened to the Spheres.
    Earth surged in his pelvis, pulled him down through the concrete of the high rise, rooted him to the soil. He could sense the flesh of every creature, could taste their decaying feet on the earth as they ran. The Howls were hungry. Their empty, ulcerated stomachs burned with his; their need for flesh brought bile to his throat. Water opened under his fingertips, and he could feel the water in their blood, the droplets covering their festering skin. Then Water took over, and his head swam as the