Caleb exhaled, then gave us a weak smile. “That’s it for now. We’ll continue monitoring the situation as best as we can, given the circumstances,” he said, his voice trembling. “We haven’t seen any sign of Derek and the others, but we’re keeping our hopes up. Like you said, Ta’Zan needs them because of their genetic material. So, they have that working for them, at least for the time being. If you manage to find them and get them out, then that’ll be one fraction of our problem solved. We’ve got allies coming in from all three dimensions, to discuss options and resources going forward.”
“Oh! And Draven, Shayla, and Bijarki are out on the fire star, seeking Sherus and Nuriya’s help in finding Bogdana,” River replied.
Caleb smiled, then nodded. “Yes, true. You see, they found these ridiculously old scrolls in the Druid Archives after you left. The language is old, but Draven recognized two words—Draenir and Bogdana. Bogdana is the oldest fae known to still be alive, and there’s reason to believe she was on Strava at some point, since she’s mentioned in a scroll about it and the Draenir. Word has it she’s somewhere on the fire star, so they’ve gone out there to find her. Perhaps she’ll have some knowledge to share about what’s going on there. We don’t know for sure, but we’re exploring every avenue.”
“Please send us a message as soon as you can. Whatever updates you can provide, we’d be most grateful. Also, if you need anything, anything at all, let us know, okay?” River said. “I know you’re not leaving until you get Derek and his crew back, but I need you guys to be careful, okay?”
She was tearing up. My eyes were stinging, too. Looking at Ben, he was seconds away from unraveling altogether. Rose was just as distraught, her lower lip trembling as she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Rose, I love you, okay?” Caleb said. “I miss you. I think about you every damn second, and I’m doing my best to run the ship here, but I am useless if you don’t come back to me soon. Please, be careful. Come back to me in one piece. We were planning a vacation ourselves, remember?”
Rose chuckled softly, as more tears streamed down her cheeks.
River smiled on camera. “Ben, baby, you know I love you, right? I mean, I’m sure you do. We say it to each other every day. It’s weird that you’re not here now, so I can say it to your face, but… I love you. I miss you. We all miss you. Be the fighter you’ve always been, baby. And I’ll see you soon.”
Caleb nodded. “We love you all. Ben, Rose, Kailani, Elonora, Hunter, Dmitri, Nevis, Vesta, Zeriel… We love you all. Good luck, and let us know as soon as you find Ridan. The telescope follows the majority of the blood spell. We couldn’t find him from here. Be smart and, remember: if it bleeds, it can also die.”
The video ended with Caleb and River smiling at us. My heart felt heavy all of a sudden. It felt good to know we had this link with GASP, since it made us all feel like we weren’t really alone here. At the same time, it reminded me that we were pressed for time. If they were already considering the potential destruction of the planet before the Perfects took flight, it meant that we had to go the extra mile to get Derek, Sofia, my grandparents, and the others off Strava before that last-case scenario came to fruition.
“Well, you have at least one good update to give them,” Ridan said, smirking as he pointed both thumbs at himself.
Rose then took the phone and opened the list of items they’d sent over. She nodded as she went through it, and pointed at each object as she went along. “Okay. So, the dark red leather bags… six of them… interplanetary spell ingredients.”
Kailani took them first and shoved them in her backpack, while Dmitri and Vesta offered theirs to hold the rest of the swamp witch stuff that Caleb and River had sent with the crate. She then gave the blood vials to Rose and me. I looked forward to popping them open the next time we came across some Perfects.
“Black leather bags… upgraded invisibility spell,” Rose added. “There should be fifty of them, of which only one is mixed, with the incantation scroll tied to it.”
“Got it,” Kailani replied, lifting the small pouch in question for all of us to see. She unraveled the scroll and smiled as she read it. “This is easy. Three words to turn it on, and three words to turn it off. They only work once you swallow the paste.”
She handed all fifty pouches to Dmitri, who then distributed them to our group and Amane as evenly as possible. He kept the extras. “If you need more, you know who to call.” He grinned.
“All right. Now, smoke bombs in the dark brown pouches. Twenty pellets per bag, twenty bags,” Rose said, as Kailani took them out and handed them around, like Dmitri before her. “Good. Rejuvenation potions for our fae. Four dark green leather bags.”
Vesta spotted them first inside the crate and took them out, keeping two for herself and giving Ben the others. “These will come in handy,” she said.
“Okay. Next, there’s a black box for you, Kale,” Rose said, reading from the list. “Says here Arwen made it especially for you. You can mix and match for attack or defense spells, knockout powders, and so on.”
Kailani smiled as she took the box out. She looked as giddy as a kid unwrapping presents on Christmas Day, and I couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. She’d momentarily put her thoughts about Toris aside. I could see the guilt dim down inside her, the dark red and dirty yellow being gradually replaced by bluish swirls of hope. We needed her at her full potential here. She couldn’t dwell on Toris’s death forever. She just needed to understand that she wasn’t at all responsible for it. Toris had gotten himself in this mess the moment he and his Faulties had chosen to attack us.
His loss was a shame, since he would’ve been useful, but I sure as hell didn’t plan on letting it ruin my sleep later. We’d been through nothing but pain and misery since we’d met the Faulties. They were, for all intents and purposes, still our enemies, just like the Perfects. The only difference was that we could maybe try to persuade them to consider the Perfects enemies, too. The enemy of my enemy was always a reasonable approach in times of war.
“These will come in handy,” Kailani murmured, opening the box and briefly checking its contents, before she locked it and stuffed it in her backpack. “What else?”
“Um… Oh!” Rose exclaimed as she checked the list. “Soul-eater blades.”
Dmitri grinned, then grabbed one from the crate. Each of the short swords had swamp witch magic engraved on its blade. “Like the one Shaytan used on Harper, back on Neraka. Sweet!”
Amane frowned, watching our expressions light up as each of us took a sword and added it to our arsenal. “What’s a soul-eater?” she asked.
“Each cut drains the life force out of your opponent. Having your soul eaten leaves you weak. It eventually kills you,” I explained. “It’s powerful swamp witch magic. These will definitely be put to use,” I added, then tied the sheathed blade to my belt, right next to my usual sword.
“And shields,” Rose replied.
They were the last items in the crate, and they looked weirdly small—each about the size of a large watch, with leather bands mounted on the inside. Rose took one out and clipped the bands in place around her wrist, then motioned to Dmitri.
“Hit me with your sword,” she said.
Dmitri stared at her for a second. He was confused. “Why would I want to hit you?”
“Good grief.” Zeriel rolled his eyes, then took out his regular sword and swung it at Rose. She put her arm up in a defensive gesture. The small disc was instantly activated and expanded through a series of large segments until a three-foot-wide shield was fully formed, just in time to block Zeriel’s attack.
I was stunned. “That’s impressive,” I mumbled.
Rose grinned. “They respond to specific movements,” she explained. “The leather bands are threaded with nerve-reading wires. They recognize defensive motions and instantly activate the shield expansion, making them much easier to carry around.”
“That’s awesome,” Dmitri said. “How do
you make it small again, though?”
Rose balled her hand into a fist, then wiggled her wrist back and forth twice. The shield deconstructed and reduced itself back to its original watch size. These gadgets were definitely a game-changer, considering our enemy’s caliber.
“Well, hello, my new best friend.” Zeriel chuckled and took one.
We all geared up and packed everything away, ready to get moving. Something tugged at my stomach, and I felt the need to ask Rose: “Can we see the list?”
“Oh… Yes, sure,” she replied, then flipped through the phone and opened the list of GASP agents who had been on the two ships taken down by the Perfects. We were all thinking about it, but none had the courage to ask. In all fairness, had it not been for that dark feeling creeping up on me, I would’ve avoided checking it, too. We weren’t emotionally prepared to put names to the destruction we’d witnessed in the sky.
I went through the list, recognizing some of the names as former trainees with whom I’d sparred in my early GASP days. I felt sorry for them and their families, but I held on to the hope that some were still alive, and that we were going to find a way to get them back.
Then my heart stopped for a second. “Oh, no…” I murmured, going through the names. “Jax and Hansa were up there. And Heath. And…” My voice trailed off as I looked up at Dmitri. “Jovi and Anjani.”
Dmitri froze. His aura turned yellow, then bright red as his breathing faltered. Silence fell heavily over us. I couldn’t find the right words. There were no words for this. The horror and grief that Dmitri was experiencing was something I didn’t wish upon anyone, not even my worst enemy.
“Give me the phone,” he muttered, then put his hand out. His calmness was bordering on creepy, considering what I could see blazing through him at maximum power. His emotions were turbulent and intense, the complete opposite of how he presented himself to the others.
I did, however, give him the phone. He checked the names again, then exhaled.
“Dmitri, Jovi’s missing,” Rose said gently.
A minute passed, as none of us could find anything to say that would make him feel better. Dmitri kept his gaze fixed on the phone, then nodded slowly.
“He’s missing,” he repeated after Rose, his voice low and barely audible. He cleared his throat and put on a faint smile. “He’s missing. You’re right. He could be alive and well, with Anjani even, serving as Ta’Zan’s genetic supply. You’re right.”
His tone went flat toward the end. “I can’t tell if you’re being serious or sarcastic,” I said.
“What do you think?” he replied, his greenish eyes burning with rage. His aura exploded in crimson fumes, and my heart just broke for him.
“Dmitri, we’ll find him, I promise. We’ll find all the survivors,” Nevis interjected, then squeezed his shoulder in an attempt to calm him down. By that point, Dmitri’s body was shaking, no longer able to contain the anger. “I know Jovi well enough to say with a full and honest heart that he wouldn’t go down so easily,” Nevis added. By contrast, his calm nature was almost soothing, given the circumstances. “We keep going. We figure it out and get smarter, until we find a way in. Ta’Zan has more interest in keeping his prisoners alive. But we need you to stay strong for this.”
Dmitri shook his head. “Easier said than done, but thanks,” he said, then handed the phone back to me. “FYI, Lenny, Varga’s on there.”
I paused. He’d said those words so quickly that I’d almost failed to register them. An invisible knife cut through my stomach. My gaze shifted back to the list. Somewhere closer to the bottom, I saw the name, clear black on the white background. Varga Elliott Goode.
“He’s… He… He was supposed to be on Neraka,” I managed.
My temperature soared. My entire body burned, as blood rushed through me and threatened to melt me like a stick of butter left in a frying pan. I didn’t even notice Nevis as he reached my side and slipped an arm around my waist—but he was right on time, because my knees got weak, and I had trouble standing.
I leaned into him, mainly because there wasn’t much else I could do. There was something about Nevis… something that slipped through my emotional defenses and beckoned me to hold on to him, to let him get close, even though I didn’t quite understand the change in his behavior. This wasn’t the first time he’d surprised me. I’d painted a picture of him in my head—cold, arrogant, and with a sarcasm as biting as his frost.
However, he was letting me see a side of him I hadn’t thought existed. It felt… odd.
“I’m sorry, Lenny.” Dmitri sighed. “I know how that feels.”
It felt as though I’d swallowed a bucket of nails. Pain burst through me like an unstoppable whirlwind, tearing at my insides with extraordinary viciousness. That was grief combined with fear to levels I’d never experienced before.
My brother, blood of my blood, was missing. He could be a prisoner of Ta’Zan’s now. But he could also be dead. That thought broke me in ways that I would never be able to mend. Dmitri was right. Just by looking at his tormented aura and comparing that to everything that was going on inside me… He was right.
I knew exactly how he was feeling.
Kailani
There wasn’t anything I could say or do to make anyone feel any better—especially where Elonora and Dmitri were concerned. Ridan was affected upon hearing Heath’s name on the missing persons list, but he was nowhere near as devastated as Elonora and Dmitri. Their siblings were gone, either dead or prisoners of Ta’Zan.
Suddenly, my previous anguish regarding Toris’s death began to pale in comparison. We were all torn by that list. We’d hoped that none of our loved ones, that none of those we held most dear were among those fallen. The list proved us horribly wrong. It made everything a million times worse, and we were still trying to wrap our heads around it all.
Amane was the first to break the minute-long silence that followed after Dmitri’s words to Elonora. “We need to get somewhere safer than here,” she said. “There’s an urgent matter we need to attend to, but we can’t do it here. Perfects are getting closer. Soon enough, one or all of them will feel me.”
I sighed, then stood up and put my backpack on. “Okay. Where to?”
“Do you remember the islands around the resort?” she asked.
I nodded. “Which one do you have in mind?”
One by one, the others finished gearing up, while Dmitri stood quietly to the side, watching Elonora as she found comfort in Nevis’s arms. If the situation hadn’t been so dire, I would’ve smiled at the sight of her with the Dhaxanian prince, especially after all that banter between the two of them. I would’ve loved to have Harper and Avril see this. They would’ve had a field day with it.
“A small place, about one mile in width,” Amane explained. “It’s two miles to the southeast from the resort, and it has a stony mound rising in the middle, its base covered in thick jungle. It’s dark and a lot safer than here.”
“I think I know which one you’re talking about,” I replied. “It’s surrounded by a coral reef, isn’t it? The barrier is tall enough that you can see it from the beach, parts of it poking through the water.”
“That’s the one,” Amane said.
I took Rose’s and Ben’s hands, then waited for everyone else to link up. Once we were all connected by touch, I zapped us to that island. I’d only seen it once, though, in passing, so I didn’t have any specific knowledge about its jungle.
We appeared in the middle of it, beneath the luscious tree crowns, surrounded by darkness. The moon was going to set in a few hours. I could hear the ocean waves in the distance. The tide was higher tonight, splashing against the beaches.
“That feels weird,” Amane muttered. “I mean, you were right, it doesn’t hurt, but I have no control over my body. It’s strange.”
“Cut the chitchat,” Elonora said, a muscle throbbing in her jaw. “What’s the urgent matter we need to attend to?”
“We need to set up a p
rotective perimeter first,” Amane replied, then pointed at a cave opening just fifty feet away from us. “That will make a good safe spot to come back to.”
“What makes you say that?” I asked.
“Faulties are not too keen on caves, in general,” she said. “I guess it has something to do with our stasis. There’s little chance Faulties will be roaming this area.”
I walked over to the cave opening, swiftly joined by Elonora, whose eyes glimmered gold as she scanned it from top to bottom. The cave slit was naturally framed by bushed and wild saplings, with plenty of greenery that made it more difficult to spot. In hindsight, had Amane not pointed it out, I probably would’ve missed it.
“It’s empty,” Elonora concluded.
I could hear the tension in her voice. I would’ve given anything to be able to sit down and talk to her about what she was going through, but there wasn’t time. Not at this point. It really bugged me.
“Kale, Hunter, can you two do a quick check of the area? It’s best if we set up a perimeter, so you can place a cloaking spell over us,” Rose said.
“Yeah, I’ll get right on it,” I replied.
Hunter motioned for me to follow him, then pointed to his right. “Let’s go this way, then up the mound, and come down on the left side of the cave,” he suggested.
My heartbeat became erratic. I was about to spend some time alone with Hunter. We hadn’t had a moment since the big party—and that had ended poorly, since I’d stumbled upon him making out with some succubus chick. My cheeks flared, but I couldn’t avoid this.
I took a deep breath and walked behind him as we traced a perimeter.
I dropped small crystal pellets along the way, delineating the edges of what was going to be our safe spot. For a while, Hunter didn’t say anything, and I didn’t rush into starting a conversation. I was too busy focusing on dropping crystals on the ground for this modified cloaking spell—when I wasn’t gazing at his broad frame and wondering what his pale blond hair would feel like if I ran my fingers through it.
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