“I don’t know.” Stellan’s honesty somehow makes it worse. “But wherever it is, she’s not unconscious. The bond is too active for that. She’s… processing.”
Processing. Like her disappearance into whatever space the Ether carved out is some kind of therapeutic retreat instead of a cosmic-level emotional breakdown.
“We have to bring her back,” I say. The words come out steadier than I feel, but they’re true. The panic is still clawing at my chest, but something else is building underneath. Something sharper.
“How?” Rhett asks from his spot by the door, where he’s been standing guard like he expects Phil to burst through any second.
I look around the room—at Gray, whose eyes have that wild edge that makes my instincts go quiet, at Jace pacing like a caged animal, at Theo sitting too still, that careful blankness he gets when he’s forcing himself not to feel. At Rhett by the door, hands flexed like he’s ready for a fight.
They all feel it too. The wrongness of her absence. The way everything in this room feels half-formed without her presence to anchor it.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “But we figure it out. Together.”
The words taste like a promise, and something in my chest settles into place. Like a decision made. Like a vow sworn.
Stellan nods slowly, something that might be approval flickering in his expression. “Good. Because wherever she went, she’s going to need all of us to find her way back.”
He pauses, glancing at each of us in turn.
“And something tells me we’re going to need her more than she knows.”
I can feel it then, faint but unmistakable—like an echo of her presence somewhere far away. For the first time since she disappeared, I let myself believe it might be possible.
She’s out there. Somewhere in whatever space the Ether carved out for her to process the weight of our failures.
And we’re going to bring her home.
She’s ours. We’re getting her back.
Chapter 13
Thane
I fucked up.
Bad.
The words hit hard, partly because I’m thinking them and partly because I just said them out loud. No silver tongue, no calculated deflection, no strategic positioning. Just raw, unfiltered truth.
“I fucked up. Bad.”
Bree’s still shaking beside me, silver mist snapping and crackling around her like live wire. But it’s not just silver anymore—dark threads weave through it in patterns that make my skin crawl, black veins spreading through her Ether like infection. She doesn’t seem to notice, lost in her fury and betrayal, but I can see it. The corruption threading through her power, turning something pure into something… else.
She’s not looking at me—can’t look at me, probably—and I don’t blame her.
“Okay,” I say to the endless black around us, voice pitched higher than usual. “Okay, so. This is new. This is definitely not covered in any Council handbook I’ve ever read.” I run a hand through my hair, feel it shaking slightly. “Which is concerning because those handbooks are very thorough. Disturbingly thorough, actually. They have chapters on interdimensional travel, but nothing about—” I gesture vaguely at the star-dotted space. “Whatever this is.”
A laugh escapes me, sharp and brittle. “Though I suppose ‘how to survive after accidentally betraying a Source’ wasn’t exactly a priority topic when they were writing the manual.”
That’s when I hear it.
Soft. Amused. Predatory.
Laughter.
Not mine. Not Bree’s.
Something else.
