Rise up is not going to be tolerated. Cronus’s phrases rattled round my head, louder every time. I numbly accepted a backpack from Em, hooking it over my shoulder. What had been the probabilities that each world chief left alive stated certain Cronus, we’ll roll over and allow you to invade us? No probability. No fucking manner. However anybody who stood in opposition to him can be slaughtered. He killed his personal allies—he ate Aphrodite, for fuck’s sake. It might be wholesale homicide, nobody left alive and—

I jumped when cool fingers linked with mine, interrupting my panic with a comforting squeeze.

“We’ll be alright,” Wane promised, rubbing his calloused thumb over my knuckles. His regular eyes dispelled the sharpest fringe of my concern, and I held his gaze like I’d been drowning and he was air.

Wait, was his thumb calloused or was this pores and skin marked with my identify, too?

“Everybody prepared?” Wynvail requested loudly, drawing my consideration away from Wane.

Wyn’s again was straight, a critical, succesful look on his face that gave me inappropriate butterflies as he scanned our household, making eye contact with every of us. “I’ve three secure homes in Hell—an condominium in Vollisaw, a home in Jinsevia, and a cottage close to the mines within the Kyora mountains. The final home is the one I’ve shielded the strongest, and it is the largest so it’s in all probability the most effective suited to our wants.” He seemed to me for enter. “Is that okay, honey?”

“Wherever however Jinsevia is okay by me,” I replied with a shrug, as a lot as I might with a heavy backpack. I might quite not return to town that housed the struggle camp I endured for 2 years. I received out of that place as quickly as I might, and I by no means deliberate to go inside ten miles of the place once more. I did not need Verena wherever close to these bastard troopers, both.

Judging by the way in which Wyn’s eyes darkened, he knew that a part of my historical past. “Kyora mountains it’s. Everybody seize maintain of me.”

“Aren’t the Kyora mountains purported to be haunted?” Kai requested uneasily, air rippling round his inked arms as his magic manifested.

“Scaredy snake,” Harvey coughed.

“They don’t seem to be haunted,” Emlyn interrupted, a growl nonetheless threaded in his voice. “There is a defunct portal there; it is echoes of Earth you possibly can hear.”

“Not creepy in any respect,” Kai muttered, however he grabbed Wynvail’s arm and the remainder of us adopted go well with. My fingers locked with Wyn’s, and I let my eyes shut, trusting him to get us out of right here. Trusting him, full-stop.

Mild pressed by way of my closed eyelids, and chilly bit at my pores and skin by way of my garments, raking claws by way of my wings till a shiver ran by way of me.

“Do not let go,” Wynvail barked, and grunted once I tightened my bruising grip. “Not you, honey. You’ve got already received a stranglehold on my hand.”

“So you do not drop me,” I bit out, my wings shuddering arduous as energy raced previous my feathers.

“I might by no means,” Wyn swore.

I did not dare open my eyes to see the maelstrom of magic dragging us throughout realms. It wasn’t authorized, per se—we had been supposed to make use of the portals—however there was one thing to be stated for door-to-door journey, and Lucifer could not precisely punish us for it, might he?

Fuck, was he useless? Or was he nonetheless alive in there? Was our king struggling and screaming in Cronus’s abdomen? My very own intestine twisted. I wasn’t certain I needed the reply to that query.

“We’re right here,” Wynvail murmured, to a refrain of relieved groans. I opened my eyes, squinting in opposition to the prick of lilac daylight. Fuck, I’d missed this gentle, this realm. Even with all the pieces, I used to be glad to be dwelling.

“Your magic is bullshit,” Verena instructed Wyn, decidedly inexperienced beneath her freckles. “Simply so you realize.”

Wyn tugged on a lock of her hair. “The nausea will solely final a couple of seconds.”

As if to show him fallacious, Kai twisted apart and vomited into the grass. I squeezed Wyn’s hand and let go, striding throughout a paved path to Kai’s aspect, and stroking his again whereas he retched.

“I hate him,” he stated in a low moan.

“I do know,” I soothed, pulling wine-red hair out of his face when he heaved once more. “I do know, my evening. He is simply terrible, how dare he get us to security.”

Kai shot me a betrayed look as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “I am sensing sarcasm.”

I leaned in to kiss his brow. “You sense appropriately.”

“There’s water within the backpacks,” Wynvail stated, turning to take a look at the home he’d introduced us to. “Simply in case somebody needed to eliminate the style of vomit.”

Kai scowled, however I knew it was much less as a result of he hated Wynvail and extra as a result of he hated being helpless, and illness fell into that class. With out remark, he fished out the bottle of water and rinsed his mouth, showing to take nice pleasure in spitting it out on the trail.1

I peered on the home on the finish of the brick path. A low, inset pool interrupted the trail the place a fountain would possibly sit on a flowery French manor, the water reflecting the pale lilac sky like an oblong mirror. On both aspect of the pool, a double staircase swept up in the direction of a pale, towering construction with columns, arches, and massive bay home windows. The mountains had been seen within the close to distance, however bushes framed the home, reminiscent sufficient of the house that burned down for my eyes to sting.

“Cottage,” I stated pointedly, staring on the mini-mansion. “What number of bedrooms does this cottage have?”

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