But there’s more this time. Crane needs something specific. A healer. Storm-touched. Someone who can stabilize the pathways he’s forcing open. Someone like…
I gasp back to consciousness to find myself in Magnus’s arms. Again. He’s pulled me against his chest, one hand cradling my head, the other steady on my back. I’m shaking violently, and he’s murmuring something in the old Mountain Cat dialect, words I don’t understand but that sound like comfort, like protection, like promise.
“What did you see?” he demands once my breathing steadies. “Lyra, what did you see?”
I pull back just enough to meet his eyes, and the concern there—real, deep, personal—nearly undoes me. “A laboratory. In the ice. Rows of cages with... with things like Jace but worse. Somuch worse. Someone is doing this deliberately. Creating these Broken things.”
“Broken?”
“That’s what my vision called them. Beings broken between forms.” I turn back to Jace, who’s watching us with desperate hope. “I can help you, but not here. You need real medical facilities, sustained treatment. Elena, Dr. Ashford at the aerie, she’ll know what to do.”
“The aerie is five days from here,” Magnus points out.
“I can stabilize him enough to travel.” I’m already pulling supplies from my pack, mixing counter-agents with hands that still tremble slightly. “But Magnus, there are others. Other prisoners. We can’t just?—”
“We won’t.” His voice is firm, decisive. “We’ll get Jace to safety, then find the laboratory.”
I work on Jace for the next hour, using every technique Elena taught me, every bit of integrated healing I’ve learned. I can’t undo what was done to him—that will take time and resources I don’t have here—but I can ease the locked pathways enough to reduce his pain, stabilize the cellular damage, make it possible for him to walk.
Magnus helps, following my instructions without question, supporting Jace when the boy needs to move. The three of us work in focused harmony, and I’m struck by how natural this feels—Magnus and I operating as a unit, anticipating each other’s needs without words.
When Jace is stable enough, we help him outside. Magnus produces emergency flares from his pack—Storm Eagle design, meant to signal for rescue flights.
“This will bring help from the aerie,” he explains to Jace. “They’ll get you to Dr. Ashford. She’ll help you heal.”
Jace grabs my hand with his human one. “The others... you’ll find them, right? Please help them!”
“We will,” I promise, squeezing gently. “Can you tell us where? Which direction?”
“North,” he whispers. “Always north. Down into the ice where the world goes blue and cold. Follow the screaming. You’ll hear it before you see it.”
Magnus and I exchange grim looks. North, into the deep ice wastes where even Mountain Cats rarely venture. Where the visions show Magnus dying in blood-stained snow.
After we send Jace off with the flares—knowing Storm Eagle patrols will find him within hours—we stand in the morning light. The moment of decision.
“We could go back,” Magnus says quietly. “Report what we’ve learned. Let the council send a proper force.”
“How long would that take? How many more would be transformed into Broken while we debate and plan?” I shake my head. “You know we can’t.”
“It’s dangerous. More dangerous than we thought.”
“I know.” I touch the carved leopard in my pouch, drawing strength from its cold presence. “But those people need help. And we’re here. We’re capable.”
Magnus studies me for a long moment. “You’re terrified.”
It’s not a question, but I answer anyway. “Yes.”
“But you’re going anyway.”
“Yes.”
Something shifts in his expression—respect deepening into something more, something that makes my heart race. “Then we go together.”
Together. The word hangs between us, weighted with meaning neither of us is ready to examine. But as we turn north, toward danger and darkness and the laboratory of my visions, I find unexpected comfort in that word.
Whatever comes next—whatever horrors await in that blue ice laboratory—I won’t face it alone.
8
