The veins in the walls writhe faster, some flickering black. The temperature drops.
Gray moves without hesitation—noses beneath Bree’s shoulder, wedging his body under hers until she’s draped across his back. Then he’s already walking, following the lights.
The lead Nightmare’s voice flows through our minds.We hold the chamber. Follow the lights, bonded ones. We will find you when the path clears.
Theo moves toward Seth, hands still raw and weeping. “Come on.”
Seth blinks at him, still disoriented. “You—I shoved you—”
“You freed her.” Theo’s voice is matter-of-fact. “Move.”
The familiars pulse brighter, drifting deeper into the Void.
And we follow them into the dark.
Chapter 8
Jace
The Void is lying to us.
I don’t trust it. The air’s warmer—not much, but enough that my breath doesn’t fog anymore. The familiars slip ahead through the dark—black smoke shaped like foxes and ravens, glimmering silver only when they move. They light nothing, but somehow still show the way.
I don’t buy it.
Gray carries Bree steady on his back, massive paws silent on the nothing of darkness. Seth walks beside him, hollow-eyed, but upright. The rest of us trail behind in varying states of exhaustion and barely-contained panic.
But we’re moving. We’re breathing. For the first time in what feels like years, we’re not running from something that wants to eat us.
So obviously, something’s about to go catastrophically wrong.
“On a scale of one to doomed,” I say to no one in particular, “how screwed are we right now?”
Rhett glances back, fire flickering faintly around his knuckles. “You’d know. You keep the scale.”
“Fair point.”
Wes’s stomach growls—loud enough that everyone hears it.
He presses a hand to his ribs, looking embarrassed. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize for being alive,” I say. Then, because the silence is worse than the fear: “When we get out of here, first order of business—pancakes. None of that thin-as-paper garbage. I want stacks that violate the laws of physics.”
Theo doesn’t look back, but his voice carries. “With blueberries. She likes blueberries.”
The mention of Bree settles something in the air. Like acknowledging she’s still with us—unconscious, corrupted, butwith us—makes it real.
“You flip them, I’ll light the stove,” Rhett mutters.
I grin. “Last time you lit something we lost half a kitchen.”
Gray huffs—a sound that might be wolf laughter if wolves could laugh.
Stellan walks at the front with Thane, both of them scanning the darkness like they’re waiting for it to remember we’re trespassing. But even Stellan’s shoulders have dropped an inch. Even Thane’s stopped looking like he’s three seconds from ripping someone’s throat out.
Hope is a dangerous thing.
Especially here.
