I don’t ask what it costs him.
I already know.
We walk toward the faint pull in the dark, following the only thing that ever changes—small shifts in pressure, variations in the oppressive weight of nothing. They might mean we’re still inside time. They might mean nothing at all.
But it’s all we have.
Every once in a while the air shifts and I swear I smell her—vanilla, ozone, heartbreak—but it’s just the Void mocking me.
The ground trembles.
Subtle at first—barely perceptible. But I feel it through the soles of my boots, and my head snaps up. The darkness around us shivers, theoppressive black bleeding silver, like ink remembering how to be light.
Then a sound breaks the silence.
Sharp. Ragged. Too loud.
Theo.
I’m moving before I’ve finished the thought, crossing the camp in three strides. He’s sitting up, chest heaving, eyes wide and wild in the dim firelight.
“What did you see?” My voice comes out harsher than I intend, but I don’t soften it.
Theo’s gaze locks on mine, and for the first time in months, there’s something other than despair in his expression.
Hope.
Fragile and desperate, but real.
“She’s alive,” he gasps.
The words hit me and I can’t catch my breath. I feel the others stirring, moving closer. Rhett’s fire flares brighter. Gray abandons his hunt and turns toward us. Even Stellan lifts his head.
“Bree?” Wes’s voice cracks on her name.
Theo nods, frantic. “I saw her. Not—not like before. Not a memory. Avision.” He presses his palms against his temples, breathing hard. “She’s chained. Surrounded by mirrors. But she’s breathing. The air around her moves again.”
“Where?” Rhett demands.
“I don’t—” Theo shakes his head. “Deep. Deeper than we’ve gone. But she’shere, in the Void. We can reach her.”
For a moment, no one speaks.
The ground trembles again, stronger this time. The silver threads through the darkness multiply, spreading like cracks in ice.
The Void is reacting.
Because she is.
“Move.” My voice cuts through the shock, sharp and decisive. “Gather everything. We leave now.”
“Thane—” Jace starts.
“Now.”
They scatter, trained by months of survival to obey without question when my tone leaves no room for argument. Weapons pulled from makeshift sheaths—mirror-glass daggers, chains forged from scar-metal, anything that can hold an edge in this place.
Rhett extinguishes the fire with a flick of his wrist, plunging us into darkness relieved only by the faint silver glow threading through the Void.
