Page 100 of Veil of Night & Flames

“Hang tight,” Whistler says, then turns to Chase. “Stuff to tell you.” His eyelids droop, and he shakes his head as if forcing himself to focus. “Something in the water,” he murmurs.

“Sleep good,” Solenne says. “Talk now. Hurry before sleep draught work.”

“I’m listening,” Chase says.

Whistler nods, his neck loose as the drug begins to work. “Kali. Training soldiers.” His eyes flick to the side as if he’s looking into the Nightmare Realm. “Hundreds. Maybe more.”

“No way,” I blurt. “Adric would never⁠—”

“Not his. Secret.”

Chase goes very still. “Where?”

“South. Cloaked by magic.”

“From the Realm of Others?” Chase asks.

Whistler winces as he shakes his head. “No. Not sure where they’re from.”

Chase frowns. “She’s recruited an ally from somewhere,” Chase says, but I can tell by his expression that he doesn’t have even the remotest idea who.

I shudder, remembering the men who rebelled. The men who were executed. Men who probably have some pretty pissed-off friends.

Adric put his trust in Kali ages ago. She’d been his advisor, his consort. His right arm. I know he doesn’t love her, but he does trust her. And this is going to completely wreck him.

Not to mention putting all the realms at risk. And from what I know of Kali, her first target will be the Real, because we’re the weakest.

And because I’m here.

“The bitch never truly cared for him,” Chase says.

I shake my head. “She did. She loved him. In her own screwed-up way, she really loved him. Maybe still does.”

“Then why the hell would she do this?”

I look at him, thinking of all the years Adric watched me through a scrying pool. “Because at some point she realized that he didn’t love her. That he never would.” I shrug. “She had nothing left to lose, everything to gain, and could get her revenge in the process.”

Chase rubs his temple. “And he has no idea.” Then he tilts his head, his brow furrowing as he turns to Whistler. “Did you escape? Or did she let you go?”

Whistler shakes his head. “Not sure. I was out of it for a long time. But once I came back to myself, I started rattling the door each night. And one night, the bolt slipped. The bastards that shoveled the stuff that passed for food—I figured they didn’t latch it properly.”

“But it could have been on purpose,” Chase says, and Whistler nods, his face pale from exhaustion. His eyes flutter shut, and Solenne gestures for us to go. “He rest now,” she says, as Chase steers me to the stairs.

We don’t really talk on the walk back. We don’t have to. We both know that Whistler might be a lever in Kali’s trap. Or he might be our secret weapon, having clued us in ahead of Kali’s game.

Either way, Adric needs to know, which means a trip to the Nightmare Realm for me, and schoolwork once again abandoned. That’s the way it has to be, of course, and honestly, I should probably just drop out this semester. But I can’t seem to get my ass over to the admin office to do that. Neither can Tia or Riley. We’re all sticking with it, for better or worse—the work, the war, the management of an apocalypse on a college schedule.

Which is why I’m not at all surprised to see Tia and Riley camped out at Chase’s kitchen table the moment we step through the door.

Riley’s busy on her laptop, and Tia has the Liber Tenebris Liminis open beside her, dozens of colorful scraps of paper marking pages in the book. They both look up when we come in, but it’s Tia who catches my attention with her cocked head and very unsubtle raised eyebrows. I’d texted her about my night of triple-the-fun debauchery, of course, and now she wants the deets. I frown at her, then give the slightest shake of my head as she mouths, Later.

I nod, then mentally bang my head against the wall. The girl really needs to work on subtlety.

And speaking of, Riley isn’t looking too subtle, either. Only her look isn’t a sex look. It’s an I’m seeing scary shit on my computer look. And the glance she shares with Tia only underscores that conclusion.

“Oh, no,” I say, tightening my grip on Chase’s hand. “What now?”

“Show them,” Tia says. “It’s gotten way worse.”