I froze.
“Is there a problem?” he asked, catching my stare.
With a rush of fear, I realized the prisoner had never been a coldblood—he’d been a shifter all along. He was scratching his neck intently, the same way Bosen had done back on Mallarot. This shifter was about to shed.
“No, no problem,” I replied.
His attention turned back to his book, and I scoured the room for a weapon. A shard of bright red stone glinted from the desk to my right, the end just sharp enough to make a half-decent blade. With the right amount of force in the right place, I knew it might work. It was a little too reminiscent of the shard of glass that had killed Lazar, but I couldn’t think about that now. In one agile movement, I swiped the shard off the desk and lunged toward Sarrask.
“SHIFTER!” I screamed. The one masquerading as Sarrask shrank into his natural form, slipping out of my grasp as I pounced on the bed. He dashed toward the window, flashing a glare over his shoulder. I was up and after him in a split second, diving across the covers to intercept him. Behind him, the door to the bedroom burst open and Angie and Lauren piled in, flanked by Nisha and Rethela. They were armed to the teeth.
I edged toward the shifter with my blade of semi-precious stone raised, ready to hurl it at him. Nisha and Rethela blocked the doorway with their massive size, while Angie and Lauren raced to my aid. Lauren whipped out her staff and began to spin it, her eyes focused and terrifying. Even the shifter seemed mesmerized by the whirling staff. With the grace of a dancer, she flitted forward and cracked the shifter on the side of the neck, prompting a sheet of skin to break loose from his body. He crumpled for a moment before scrambling back up, his teeth bared. Lauren danced in again, smacking him hard on the jaw while I darted in with my makeshift knife. Realizing it would be useless as a blade after all, I brought the rock down hard on the back of his head.
This time, he fell to the ground and didn’t get up again. A dazed expression drifted across his red-veined eyes like a fog.
“Is he dead?” Angie whispered, peering down at the limp body.
I bent and pressed two fingers to his neck, hoping that was where his pulse would be. A steady pulse greeted me—faint but definitely still there. “Not dead, just unconscious.”
“I’m just going to get something to tie this worm up,” Nisha said, disappearing from the room.
“Wait… where’s the real Sarrask?” Rethela chimed in, glancing around the room.
Leaving the shifter under the secure protection of Lauren and her brutal staff, Angie, Rethela, and I did the rounds of the bedroom, searching everywhere for the missing Idrax brother. We looked in every closet and under every item of furniture. Wherever he was, the shifter had hidden him well.
“Here!” Angie shrieked, dragging a body out from under the bed. An enormous pile of blankets was stacked on top of the figure, looking like nothing but a mound of dirty laundry. Pulling back the fabric, Angie found a sleeping Sarrask. His eyes were closed, his chest rising and falling, his pulse beating evenly. The shifter had knocked him out and put him under the bed, but at least he was still alive.
Nisha returned a moment later, brandishing a length of thick cord. She strode toward the shifter and knelt beside him, making quick work of binding his wrists and ankles. “I think you should check him over before he comes around,” Nisha suggested. “I’ll hold him steady, just in case.”
Terrified that the shifter might suddenly wake up and lash out at me, I reached for the folds of his skin and flipped them aside. Below his ribs, a sleek, silver device was hidden away. Removing it, and trying very hard to hold onto the contents of my stomach, I turned it over in my hands. It looked suspiciously like a comms device.
“Lauren, can you read this?” I asked, chucking it to her.
She glanced at the screen for a moment, her eyes widening in horror. “There’s a message on it. Outgoing.”
“Who to?”
“It just says: ‘Boss. Found some insurgents. They’ve got plans to work against you. Coordinates attached to this message. Destruction is a priority.’ There might have been other messages on here, but they’ve been deleted. This is the only one—must have been sent just before you burst in on him.”
“Boss?” Rethela mused.
“Yeah, one guess who that’s going to be,” Angie muttered.
My heart sank. “Ezra. Or Aurelius, I guess.”
Lauren turned to me. “If the shifter got a message to the rebels, we need to get the hell out of this house.”
There was no telling how much time we had before rebels descended on us. Lauren was right—we had to move, and we had to go now.
“Nisha, can you grab Sarrask and put him in one of the ships?” I asked, thundering out onto the landing. Everyone’s eyes turned up to look at me. “The prisoner was a shifter. He sent word to the rebel leader, telling him where we are. We need to get out of this house, right now!”
“What about the equipment?” Navan called up.
“Everyone, get instructions from Navan and Jareth about what we need, and grab every little piece of equipment you can find. I’ll get Kaido from his hut and see what I can do for him and his plants,” I replied frantically. “We need to split up into the four ships we have, and decide where we’re going to go once we’re in the air. Our priority is loading equipment for the anti-elixir, and getting out of here before the rebels arrive.”
Bashrik raised a nervous hand.
“Bash?”
“We only have three ships—the Fed vessel, Szayan’s ship, and Kaido’s. Sarrask’s might have to be docked for the time being. It’s in bad shape, and the repairs will take too long.”
“Okay, so we have three ships. Let’s get everyone on board with all the equipment safely stowed away. Everyone clear?”
A rumble of agreement echoed back. Even Jareth, who’d appeared in the doorway of the lounge, nodded in agreement.
“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” Garrik bellowed, and everyone in the room dispersed to execute the escape plan.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“Can you please explain to me why, every time you are around, my plants and I end up being forced to run for our lives? It is most unsettling for my blooms. It shall take months for them to recover,” Kaido muttered sourly, tending to the plants he’d hastily loaded into the docking bay of his ship. “It is a good thing I am a logical, prepared thinker. After the last time this happened, I ensured that all of my belongings—those of true importance to me—could be easily packed up and transferred to my ship.”
It was true. Kaido had managed to pack up the majority of his belongings, and everything in the hut, in four minutes flat. The others had taken a couple more minutes to get the equipment packed from the upper rooms, but we had everything safely on board. Now, we were flying low over the Vysanthean landscape, heading for familiar territory.
“In that case, you’ve got something to thank me for,” I replied, trying to lighten the mood between us.
“I do not think congratulations are in order, Riley. My work shall be set back by this, I am certain of it. I should have known, the moment I saw you, that it would be prudent to pre-pack my things in the eventuality of a repeat occurrence.”
I paused in alarm. “Do you have the stardust vial and the serums to create the visions?”
“I am not a novice. As I have already told you, I am well-versed in making quick getaways.” He shot me a withering look.
I decided to leave him to his organization and headed through to the cockpit. Navan was flying, with Ronad in the co-pilot’s chair. Seraphina, Nova, Lauren, and Stone were with us, alongside Kaido, while Sarrask, Nisha, Rethela, Jareth, Angie, and Bashrik were inside the Fed vessel. Szayan, Lojak, Garrik, and Harko were gathered together in Szayan’s ship, all three stretched out across the sky so as not to attract attention in a group.
Unable to risk the shifter wriggling free again, Navan and Rethela had dealt with him. Since the immortality elixir was coldblood
-specific, the shifter minions hadn’t been granted the same gift of eternal life. I’d watched them carry the shifter’s body to the lake and dump him beneath the waters. Another ghost to add to Navan’s list. There’d been talk of leaving the shifter to his fate, and letting the rebels deal with him, but, in the end, we’d decided we couldn’t chance it. Meanwhile, the comms device had been crushed to pieces beneath Nisha’s hefty boot.
“Almost there,” Navan said. I glanced through the windshield, the ruins of the opaleine concert hall appearing in the near distance. The surface of Lake Tristitia rippled as the ship sailed low across it, the houses surrounding the shore even more derelict than they’d been the last time we were here. Patches of forest had been reduced to ashes, though much of it remained. It seemed, with the landscape already in ruins, nobody had bothered to bomb this part of Vysanthe. Now, it was nothing more than a ghost town, hinting at bygone glory days.
A few minutes later, we arrived at a very familiar clearing in the woodlands. Ianthan’s cabin still stood in the center of the clearing, frozen in time. I longed to return to Navan’s cabin—the one he’d taken me to a lifetime ago, where we’d spent the most beautiful evening in a glass igloo, nestled beneath the stars. I’d suggested it as a place to hide, but the idea had been vetoed. If anyone knew the location of Navan’s home, that would be the first place Ezra would check. It was too risky. At least here, at Ianthan’s secret cabin, we were less likely to be discovered. Nobody but us knew about this place.
Even now, it looked like the cabin had avoided the war completely. Everything was caked in a thick blanket of ash, yet the structure remained intact. A few sections of forest had been hit around it, presumably by a stray bomb or projectile, but there was enough to keep the cabin masked from sight. The fires hadn’t touched the cabin itself; they hadn’t even come close.
“Land as close as you can and meet us inside,” Navan instructed, over the heavily firewalled frequency that Ronad had installed between the three ships. “Hide the vessels if you can. Use the protection of the buildings nearby.” He kept his words vague, in case anyone did happen to be listening in.
“Copy that,” came the voices of Bashrik and Szayan.
We landed in the shadow of the forest, edging the ship as far into the tree-line as it would go. Navan cut the engines, the machinery whirring a moment longer before falling silent. Gathering everyone together, we paused in the main space of the ship and waited for the hatch to open.
“I will stay here. My plants require my immediate attention,” Kaido said. “I shall continue to work on a new serum for you, Riley, though I imagine you will want to wait until the danger has subsided before we make another attempt.”
I nodded. “Thank you, Kaido.”
“Than’you Kayo!” Nova giggled.
Kaido froze. “What did she say?”
“She was thanking you.”
He frowned. “Impossible… What would she have to thank me for? I have done nothing for her.”
I grinned. “I think she can sense the good in people, especially good deeds.”
“Nonsense.” He paused, reaching out a tentative hand. Nova snatched at his finger and squeezed it hard, prompting his eyebrows to shoot up in alarm. “She is… intriguing. I will admit that.”
“She likes you,” I said.
“How can you possibly know that? You cannot read the minds of babies. I have often thought to create a serum that might improve babies’ speech or allow adults to understand them better, but I have since learned that such things are bordering on immoral.” He cast me a shy look, letting me know his thoughts on what Ezra and Aurelius had done to me and to Nova.
I shrugged. “Call it a mother’s intuition.”
“You believe her to find me a positive presence?”
“I do, Kaido. We all do, and that’s how she learns. She absorbs sights, sounds, and senses from the world around her.”
“I am aware of babies’ development,” he said bluntly. “However, they are not my forte. Although… if you would be willing, I should like to interact with her more often. An observational study, perhaps, as I presume you will not allow me to study her brain?”
I laughed. “Absolutely no brain experiments. But you can interact with her whenever you want. She’d like that.”
All of a sudden, she sneezed. The results splattered on Kaido’s hand, prompting him to recoil instantly. His face was so horrified I struggled to suppress a laugh.
“On second thought, I may leave my observational study until she is older… and in better control of her bodily functions.” He backed away as though she were a venomous snake. “Excuse me, I have to return to my own responsibilities. Fortunately, they do not expel their mucus on me. Sap, on certain occasions, but never bacteria-ridden mucosa.”
“Sorry, Kaido!”
He frowned. “My plants are in a terrible state thanks to our swift departure, and now I may unwittingly contaminate them with external entities. I do hope they can withstand it,” he muttered, retreating without another word.
He disappeared into the room at the back of the vessel, and the smile faded from my face. There was sadness in his voice that twisted the knife of guilt in my stomach.
He was right—wherever I went, people ended up running for their lives or struggling to put things back into place again. I wasn’t arrogant enough to think everything revolved around me, or I’d directly caused all of this, but my paranoia was on the rise. All of Orfaio’s pieces seemed to involve me in some way, and everyone was putting themselves in harm’s way to see the vision fulfilled. How could I not feel responsible?
“Come on, we should get into the cabin and wait for the others,” Navan said, putting his arm around my shoulders. I held Nova in my arms, her eyes staring up at me in wonderment.
Leaving Kaido to his work, we hurried across the clearing. Ronad ducked to retrieve the key from beneath the fake rock, where we’d found it before.
“Still glad Ianthan decided not to move this.” He laughed, casting me a conspiratorial look. We’d shared so much during our time at the Idrax house; it was nice to be reminded of the paths our friendship had taken.
Navan smiled sadly. “I’d forgotten Ianthan kept it there.”
Sliding the key into the lock, Ronad let us inside. Drifting motes of dust tickled my nostrils, and the scent of smoke hung in the air. It was as musty as it had been the last time, our previous footsteps covered in a layer of more dust, like snowfall in winter. Mold had begun to edge across the ceiling, a damp smell lingering beneath the top note of smoke and mustiness. The cabin was still like a time capsule, frozen in the last moment that Ianthan had spent there, barely disturbed by the visit Ronad and I had made. The scattered blood vials remained untouched, everything in its place.
Navan looked around with mournful eyes, drinking in the environment. I realized he had been here countless times before—in happier days. He trailed a hand along a bookshelf. At the top of the narrow corridor leading to the bedrooms, he froze. It was almost as though he could see the ghosts of his friend and his former self, moving around the cabin as they’d done before.
“Are you okay?” I asked, resting a hand on his arm.
He nodded. “Just a lot of memories.”
“Do you want me to leave you alone?”
“No… no, I’m okay.” He gazed down at me, planting a soft kiss on my forehead. “I can’t help thinking that he’d be here, standing side by side with us, if he were still alive. I’ve had a long time to think about it, and I know I judged him harshly. Fathers have a way of coercing their sons. Back then, I’d forgotten how true that could be.”
Everyone sat around the front room, cramped on the sofa and squidged against each other on the floor. Nisha was standing by the fireplace, her arms folded across her chest, leading the conversation about what we were going to do next. Seraphina stood beside her, her scarlet eyes alert, listening in like a true chief. She might have been enormously pregnant, but that wasn’t going to st
op her from getting involved. I stood on the other side of Nisha, who was discussing tactics.
“So, we’re all agreed that we need ships, and we need a lot of them,” Nisha said. In order to disseminate the anti-elixir, we needed to drench the rebels in a haze of it, the same way the queens had done with the sleeping mist.
A mutter of consent rippled around the group.
“I was not idle during my time stuck with that cretin, Aurelius. I listened and I learned. The only people who have that quantity of vessels are Brisha and Gianne,” Seraphina added. “They have the combined numbers of the Northern and Southern fleets, and plenty of the ships are already in use to dispense the sleeping mist. These ships are the ones we need to go after, as they are already equipped to expel product.”
Nisha nodded. “On the journey from Sarrask’s house, I sent word to my contacts in the Defiance. They want to help us in whatever way they can, so we can dispense the anti-elixir as soon as possible. Many of them are willing to take to the ground and air, using the modified sprayers Harko’s people provided to manually drench any rebels the mist won’t reach. We’re talking aircraft personnel, tank commanders, and those who haven’t ventured across the border yet.”
“What if the queens stand in our way? What if they know something is up and intercept us before we can steal their ships?” Rethela asked suspiciously. “Harko and Nisha’s absence can’t have gone unnoticed, and they won’t have easily forgotten the smoke attack on the lab. And then there’s the debacle with Lazar and the shifter to think about.”
“Excellent questions, Rethela,” Bashrik replied. “We can determine from the lack of harassment we received at Sarrask’s cottage that they do not suspect outside interference. They have every reason to believe the rebels were responsible for the palace attack, as a means of reducing their chances of creating the elixir. I imagine they thought Nisha and Harko were taken, too. Perhaps they believe they have been killed or kidnapped. They have likely used that same assumption of rebel involvement where Lazar and the shifter are concerned.”
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