I shielded my eyes to track where they were thrown, and the second the light faded to a safe level, I pointed them out to my mate. The grin she wore brought my butterflies back.

But within a minute the guards were unconscious, and it was time to move. My heart picked up again, blood roaring in my ears.

“I’m right beside you,” Wane reminded me, earning an exasperated glance. “What?”

“How are you not affected?” I demanded, pushing to my feet and skidding down the hill with my mate and brother. Kai raced ahead, the air quivering with power and scattering tiny stones around him.

Wane laughed, low and rolling—a laugh of warning. “Not affected? I’d rather open a hundred wounds on my body than go inside that cave.” His gaze drifted to Haley, and mine followed. “But I’d follow her anywhere.”

I sighed, my shoulders slumping. “So would I.”

“You guys are sickly sweet,” Verena remarked, her nose wrinkled as she eavesdropped. “I need to blow shit up.”

“Time check,” Emlyn called in the deep, serious voice that sent me back to a hundred different memories. A hundred different jobs. Locke had been hunting us then, but now he was dead. They were both dead.

“Nine, exactly,” I answered, glancing at my watch, my stomach flopping. Oh gods, we were really doing this.

“We’ve got two minutes,” Kai pointed out, and picked up his pace, racing full-pelt down the hill.

I had a really, really bad feeling about this. I was going to throw up.

Sunlight pouring through my veins, I twisted towards my mate, my mouth open to beg her to run away with me forever.

But she kicked off the ground and a sharp air whipped me from a powerful wingbeat, blowing my hair off my shoulders and into my face. Fuck. She stirred balmy air into sharp wind as she flew, and I had no chance of catching up to her as she flew ahead.

Emlyn leapt into the air too, but I remained on the ground, my entire soul screaming at me to follow them. I wasn’t leaving Wane. I wouldn’t be another reminder that his wings had been severed from him.

Shit, the cave was huge from up close, the opening three times my height and as wide as one of Wynvail’s fancy houses. It was entirely black inside. My stomach cramped tighter, nausea flowing through me.

Haley paused in the air, glancing back, but I threw my arm up and gestured for her to fly, to race towards the cave. We needed to get inside at 09:02, and we were running out of time. It was 09:01 already.

“One minute,” I yelled, my chest tightening until I could barely breathe. I swivelled my head, counting—Wane, Verena, Kai, Wynvail, Emlyn, Haley. All here. All safe.

But for how long?

I’d voted to come here, to get Renna to safety, but right here, in this moment, I wished I’d voted against it. We were racing right back into danger, and even though our safety had been tentative and breakable at best, we had been safe.

What were we doing?

I caught my breath when Emlyn and Haley plunged into the true black of the cave.

My heart stopped beating for a second of pure, undiluted panic. There was no turning back now.

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