His voice cracks, cuts out.
“We went to the temple,” Callan says quietly. “Merrick had friends there. We tried to beat the rest, but we were on the third ship into the harbor. If we had been the first, perhaps we might have had a chance.”
“Too late,” Merrick chokes out. His eyes are wet. “We were too late to save them. Any of them.”
Callan shifts. “We tried to get inside. The gates were… men were already there, and we could see there was no hope. So we went through the gardens.”
I freeze. “The gardens? To the kitchens?”
Merrick’s voice trembles. “There was a door there. We saw—we saw a single faeyte, and she ran. But the door was locked, and we could not get through.”
But it’s not Merrick I’m looking at.
Bronze eyes capture mine. Bright, swirling. Familiar. As if he knows. “How did you escape that day, Selene?”
There is desperation there.Need.
Merrick is lost in memories I remember all too well.
“All those lights,” he whispers. “We couldn’t save a single one.”
I wet my lips. “But you did.”
My hands are shaking. I squeeze my legs tightly as Merrick turns to me. My words, almost silent, somehow sound impossibly loud. “You did.”
I swallow. “There was a girl. In the garden.”
They had looked like creatures, the oddly shaped metal plates covering them entirely. Only their eyes were visible.
Merrick pales further. “You—,”
“It was you,” Callan says. Steady, and quiet, as if he had somehow already known. And those eyes—familiar eyes, they stare at me. Eyes that I saw only once, glinting beneath a metal face.
“Impossible.” Merrick is shaking his head, eyes wide in stunned disbelief. “That’s impossible, Selene. The carnage, the chaos—you could not have escaped that. Impossible—”
“You put your hand on Callan’s arm,” I breathe the words out, barely able to speak at all. “And you said something. And Callan, you told me to go.”
They had stood aside, as I ran past. Had not raised their swords.
I tear my eyes away from him. “You bought me time to run.”
And I ran. Through grief and fear and pain, I ran.
I force out a breath. Both of them stare at me, eyes wide. “What… what happened after that?”
Callan’s throat works, searching for the words and dismissing them. He looks as if he’s not breathing, his eyes still scanning my face as if he’s looking for something. “The Shift.”
I frown. “I thought that was the name for the invasion?”
The air changes, then. Turns darker. As if clouds gather above us, and I glance up to confirm the sun is still shining down.
“You truly don’t know.” Callan sounds stunned. “How could you not know, if you were there?”
“Tell me.” I don’t look away this time. “Tell me all of it.”
“I—”
Neither of us look away at the first shout. Nor the second. When the third comes, Callan twists, a hissed curse escaping him as he curves his hand over his eyes and looks up. “It’s Leo. We’re in sight.”
