Find out what? What am I missing?
The woman is finally getting to her feet, and Layden and I both reach out to help her up. She sways once she’s standing, and I keep a steadying hand on her elbow.
“Find out what?” I demand, looking between them. “What the hell is going on?”
“Kharon’s a plane-crosser.” Layden says it like it explains everything. Like those three words should make sense of the chaos around us. “He’s the Horseman of Death.”
Sabra’s mouth drops open. Actually falls open like a cartoon character. “You’re the Horsemen—” She shoves Layden in the chest, hard enough to make him stumble back a step. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“Will someonepleasetell me what’s going on?” My shout comes out more desperate than I intend, but honestly? I think I’m entitled to a little desperation right now. “In words that a normal human can understand?”
Sabra finally tears her gaze from the cyclone to look at me. Really look at me. There’s recognition in her eyes—not like she knowsme, but like she understands what it’s like to be the confused mortal in a room full of supernatural chaos.
“Vlad must have figured out that feeding off a plane-crosser might give Phoenix the extra juice she needed.” She talks fast, words tumbling over each other. “To help the spirit she contacted on the other side make its way across the barrier between worlds.”
She gestures wildly behind her, and I finally get a good look at her face. She’s pretty in an unconventional way, with sharp features and intelligent eyes that are currently dilated with shock. There’s chalk dust on her clothes and blood—Phoenix’s blood, I realize—on her hands.
“Wait.” I hold up a hand, trying to process. “So Vladpurposelyattacked Kharon? And somehow that— That gives Phoenix more power?”
“Looks like it,” Sabra says.
“But how did he even know?—”
“Oh my god, she did it.” Sabra’s voice pitches up in horror. She shades her eyes with her hands, squinting up at the sky. “Look!”
I follow her pointing finger, craning my neck back to see Phoenix.
Except I can barely see Phoenix anymore. She’s so high up, so far away. Just a tiny silhouette against the roiling gray clouds.
But I can see something else.
Something massive and dark moving in the clouds above her. Something with too many limbs and a shape that makes my eyes water when I try to focus on it.
“What the fuckisthat?” My voice comes out as a whisper.
THIRTY-ONE
LAUREN
I blinkagainst the white-gray sky, squinting until my eyes water. Just beside where I can barely make out Phoenix—that tiny speck at the top of the funnel cloud—something else is emerging.
Somethingbig.
My brain tries to make sense of the shape. It’s massive and curved, moving with an undulating motion that’s almost hypnotic. The color is wrong though—gray and semi-solid, shifting like smoke given form. It’s appearing as if emerging through an invisible door. Or— Or a?—
Or a mirror in the sky. My eyes widen with sudden understanding.
Like when Kharon and Ksenia’s baby accidentally took us to the realm of dragons when she was born.
“Is that awhale?” The words come out of me in absolute shock, because what else could it be? That’s the only thing in my limited human experience that even comes close to matching what I’m seeing.
Beside me, Sabra gasps and reaches out to clasp Layden’s arm like she needs something solid to hold onto. “I didn’t think they were real.” Her voice shakes. “What the hell did she think she was doing?”
“It’s done now.” Layden’s tone is grim, flat. It’s the voice of someone who’s just watched a plan spiral completely out of their control.
The huge gray whale-thing fully emerges from the top of the funnel, and then—oh god—another one follows. And another. And another.
They keep coming, pouring out of that swirling portal like they’ve been waiting on the other side for millennia. Four, five, six of them. Maybe more. I lose count as they separate from the funnel cloud and spread out across the sky.
