I catch the faint scent of smoke in his shirt and the earthy trace of salve. I breathe it in. I breathehimin.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, the words catching as they leave me. “For earlier. For all of it. I shouldn’t have…pushed you like that.”
Declan doesn’t answer. He just keeps his hand around mine, thumb drawing the same steady arc over my pulse.
That hum in the base of my spine is back. The tug in my chest. The one that feels like something ancient and knowing is threading an arrow through my ribs and drawing back the bow.
I shove myself to my feet so fast the blood rushes in my ears. My gaze snaps to the tent’s entrance. The silk flaps shiver in the breeze, but the air inside the tent is heavy. A low sound builds, the crackling of flames, distant at first, then swelling, rushing closer.
Declan’s attention turns toward the noise outside, and he goes to stand, but like his limbs suddenly weigh twice as much, his motions slow. His movements take too long. His breathing is so slow, it nearly stops.
The edges of the tent opening ripple as if submerged, silk moving like fabric under water. The air thickens, turning viscous, syrup-slow. Like time itself is falling asleep.
“Declan,” I whisper, panic crawling across my skin.
The familiar bite of burning wood and smoldering ash fills my nose.
It’s happening again. The world around me is stopping.Just like the last time Fortune came. Just like the last time she had a message for me.
“Declan,” I say again, more urgently now.
It takes full seconds for his dark gaze to drag to mine.
I lunge and grab his hand.
The moment I make contact, heat pulses through me like lava. A pop of static at my fingertips. The air shifts again.
Declan jerks the rest of the way to his feet, sways, catches himself on the edge of the bed. He blinks hard. Shakes his head like he’s coming out of a daze. “What the fuck was that?”
“Don’t let go.” I tighten my grip on his hand. “Please. It’s her. It’s Fortune.”
Around us, the world is suspended in a viscous hush when the smoke thickens.
Fortune glides past the tent, leaving behind a trail of scorched earth, her silhouette flickering like a flame. My body jerks toward the flap before I fully register moving.
“Come on,” I hiss, dragging Declan with me.
He pulls back. “Wait.”
I spin, breath swollen in my lungs. “She’s literally right there, Declan. She has the answers. We need her help. She’s the only one who can tell us how to get back.”
But he’s already moving, dragging me across the tent, dropping to one knee in front of the trunk at the end of our bed. He flings aside a pile of clothes and an unraveled silk sash until he finds what he’s looking for.
He lifts a scorched scroll, edges curled and blackened.Thescroll. The one we read aloud in the only realroom in this kingdom. The one that made the torches flare and set something ancient inside me on fire.
“You stole this?” I ask, half shocked, half impressed.
“I rescued it,” he says with a shrug. “Figured it might come in handy.”
I take it from him, already turning toward the exit. “Fortune led me to that room. This scroll. There’s a reason for all of it. She knows what that reason is.”
We shove past the curtain into the night. The air is thick and gray with smoke. The torches lining the caravan flicker unnaturally slowly.
Dav stands outside our tent, one finger jammed halfway up his nose.
The ground crunches beneath our feet as we sprint through the camp, following the trail of scorched earth left in Fortune’s wake. Its embers glow faintly beneath the moonlight, charred footprints seared into the sand like a brand.
We weave around frozen fire dancers locked mid-spin and jugglers with their flaming torches suspended in fiery arcs. A woman lurches toward a dropped tray of honeyed figs, the glistening fruit caught in the air like falling stars. Ahead, heat curls into a shimmer where Fortune walks like a dream barely tethered to earth.
