Kaiden passes Thalia to me so he can climb over to the otherside of the banister. His eyes lock with mine as he takes her back, and the softness in his gaze pulls at my heartstrings. Is he having the same thoughts I did earlier?
“Ready?” he asks her.
Her “yes” is nothing more than a whisper.
I hold my breath as I watch them dive, but they make it as easily as Malik.
Rhett looks at the compass again. “You need to hurry. The portal is going to close soon.”
I help Sam over the rail.
Hand in hand, we leap.
Air rushes around me as gravity pulls us down. Then the world whirls.
40
Iris
The portal spits us out somewhere green. That’s all I can make out through the blur. Sam’s elbow stabs me between the ribs viciously as we roll in a flurry of tangled limbs on the ground at lightning speed. We bounce against something soft that stops our momentum, and it takes me a few moments to discern which way is up or down. I wait until my vision clears somewhat before disentangling myself from Sam and pushing up into a seated position, but the horizon is still doing pirouettes. I press the heels of my palms into my eyes.
“Fuck, I think you gave me another black eye,” Sam mumbles from beside me.
“And your freakishly sharp elbow almost pierced my lung,” I retort.
“You all right?” I startle slightly when Kaiden materializes in front of us. He offers a hand to pull me up.
“A little crumpled, but it’s better than falling from the sky,” I respond as I find my footing.
“Or drowning to death,” Sam adds dryly, waving her hand to retract the bed of moss she created for us to land on.
The humid air is thick with the smell of mud, something flowery, and rotting vegetation. Thankfully, it’s far from the scent of rot we encountered in the Wasting Woods, which seemed to permeate to the depths of your soul akin to an insidious shadow.
The lush canopy of gleaming leaves above us rustles. We all look up when Rhett floats through them on his way down as if carried by a gentle breeze until his feet touch the ground. “Everyone got here in one piece?” he inquires.
“Yeah,” Malik says while pushing away a giant fern so Thalia can pass.
“Good thing you guys got your powers back just in time, or our plan would have gone to shi—shasta.” Rhett cringes as his eyes land on Thalia.
She scoffs while rolling her eyes. “You’ve said far worse in my presence.”
We all gasp because this is the first time she’s let out more than a word in days, and she sounded so much like her sister.
“We were reckless thinking we could make it out without them, huh?” I say because I don’t want her to retreat into her shell again, and her cheeks are already turning cherry-red from being the center of attention. “Why do you think Mother Draia gave us our abilities back?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe it had something to do with us starting a riot and finally waking up the Seelie fae to stand tall against their oppressor.”
Malik wrinkles his nose. “So where do you guys think we arebecause if I don’t take a shower soon, I’m going to lose my sense of smell forever.”
“It’s clearly a rainforest,” I muse as I turn to take in my surroundings. Ropy vines are snaking down tall trees, while the sounds of beating wings, buzzing insects, and what I’m pretty sure are monkeys howling surround us.
“Well, judging by those heliconias and the emerald green epiphytes right there, we’re in South America—Costa Rica, more precisely,” Sam tells us while rocking on her feet to stand after refusing Kaiden’s help with a scowl. Guess he’s back on the shit list. She already looks better, and I assume it’s because of the abundant vegetation surrounding us, not to mention her magic being back.
“Malik, can you do a location spell so we can find our way back to civilization?” Kaiden asks.
Silvery strands oflight entangle in a dance on the ceiling I’ve been staring at forever. Even though the mattress is as soft as a cloud beneath me, and my body is screaming in protest that I should sleep, I can’t. The prophecy’s weight is heavier and far more crippling than the chains they used to shackle us in Faerie.
Not only that, but I stripped someone of their soul with my shadows. The fact that I can do that is mind-boggling. I don’t feel bad for killing the Seelie king because the bastard deserved it. Akin to a fetid, festering wound, his soul was poisoning everything in its path. But what followed is what wraps aroundmy throat like an iron vise until terror saturates my lungs. The way I wanted to reach over and take…
