Page 270 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

I turned, one hand flying to my mouth as my eyes flooded.

Because there, inside the glass, stood my sister.

“Impossible,” I breathed. “An illusion.”

“No,” she panted, tears pouring down her cheeks. “I’m here. The book—the book required the Bellpost key and payment for the magic.” She held up her bleeding forearm, then the journal beside it, now marred by a second smear of crimson. “Are you okay? Where are you?”

My mouth dropped open as I tried to process what the hell she’d just said.

“Blythe?” she demanded, but I was too busy watching her pass the blank journal to thin air.

“I…”

In a breath, Aren stood beside her.

Tears scorched hot trails down my cheeks as I shook my head. “No,” I sobbed. “No, you were dying.” A trick. A cruel fucking trick. Moros’ magic, not their mothers. “I hoped. I felt like a mental patient clinging to this fool’s chance in hell that I was right—that she saved you—but I…” I’d seen the thread. The third anomaly. Seen it glow like the ropes of deities, but this… this couldn’t…

“No,” I said again, dragging in ragged breaths. “Your heart stopped. He said your heart stopped. They celebrated.” I was blubbering now, sobbing every tear I’d held back—refused to give them—as both hands flew over my mouth.

“I did,” he agreed with a nod. “But this one came for me.” Aren jerked his head toward Mags, a weak smile lifting his cheeks as tears poured down hers. “She brought me back.” Their hands found each other just as the journal was tugged out of Aren’s grip.

In the next breath, Lana joined them, hard eyes flicking over me. “You’re in one piece.” She licked the blood from her arm, magic sealing the wound behind it. My favorite kooks.

I nodded. “They haven’t touched me.”

Mags and Lana both visibly eased, but Aren’s eyes narrowed. “And Ally?”

I shook my head, lip trembling as tears kept coming. “It’s not good, Aren. They broke her.” He nodded stiffly, but the agony in those winter blues went bone-deep. I wanted to crawl through the frame. Wrap my arms around his massive chest and yank Mags to my side. “I’m so sorry.”

“What do you mean ‘broke her?’”

Shivering hard enough to ache, I shook my head. “Moros—he’s a mentalist. Illusions are his weapon of choice. I don’t know. I only saw her in the beginning, when the torture was physical and they needed a healer. I saw her today, though, and…”

“Talk to me, Blythe.”

A disbelieving sob cracked across my lips. I searched the room for tissues before the snot pooling in my face became a crisis. A box appeared on the table, and a hysterical laugh bubbled through my sobs as I lunged for it. The sound that came out of me was not remotely flattering.

But he was alive.

They were alive. Reunited. The rebels had the best of the best at the front. Something Ally kept repeating scraped through my mind like a rusted fork tine.

At the front. She knew, somehow.

Still sniffling, I wandered back to the three expectant faces. “It is unbearably good to see you guys. Where are you?”

“Bellpost, in The Middle,” Mags breathed. “This place is crazy.”

“I’m sure. You look… well?” She did. She certainly didn’t look like Adrastos, who’d seemed two breaths from death.

“I’m… okay.”

“Did something… did something happen?” I prodded.

She shrugged and shook her head. Her grimace said otherwise.

“Explain.”

“She collapsed,” Lana said haughtily. “We assume something happened to Adrastos and the motherfucker pulled on her life force through that idiotic Bond of theirs.”