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From the corner of my eye, I saw the streak of Rayna’s friends running past, weaving through the monsters to get to the prison doors: Emelle, Lander, Rodhi, and Wren, followed by none other than Dazmine…
And Quinn.
They’re coming for you, little hurricane, I sent out through the din of battle.
I couldn’t deny that something too powerful for me to resist was luring me toward her, too. Urging me in her direction.
My grip on my sword tightened. My shoulders twitched.
And I added, So am I. Soon.
CHAPTER
58
RAYNA
Okay. Almost there. Almost to the top floor.
Together, Gileon, Bren, and I had been racing up hallways and stairs, freeing any other prisoner who stirred beyond their bars. This place was a maze, so whenever we hit a dead-end, we had to skirt around and try another split in the corridor until we hit the next stairwell.
Thankfully, all the elites seemed to be preoccupied with Coen’s attack up above. By the time we’d reached a level where shouts and screams seeped through the ceiling directly above us, we had a dozen other prisoners limping or staggering after us, groaning with the relief of almost making it…
“Don!” I cried, skidding to a stop at a cell I’d nearly sprinted past. Bren lockpicked the door, and I flew inside to the figure on his knees.
My father looked up through bleary eyes, training them on my face for the first time in three years. Such raw, relieved emotion melted in them that I almost sunk to my knees, too. But no, there was no time for that.
I grabbed his hands and pulled him up. “Can you walk?”
“Just as much… as my frumpy ass… ever could,” Don coughed. He tugged me toward him, squeezing me tight. “God, it’s good to see you, kid. When they dragged you past earlier… I thought… I was finally losing my last marble.”
“Not yet,” I assured him with a soft punch to his shoulder that made him wince. I winced back. “Sorry.” My own fingertips should have been screaming from the action, but the pain never came.
Which only meant one thing: Dyonisia’s antipower was weakening even more. My magic was returning to me like sludge through an hourglass.
“Come on!” I called to everyone behind me. “We’re almost there!”
We started forward again, aiming for the last stairwell—
When a cacophony of clanking footsteps came pounding down instead.
Shit. I backed away, arm flying across Don’s chest as if that would block him from whatever the elites would do to us when they found more than a dozen prisoners trying to escape. Maybe if our magic returned to us full-force we’d be able to put up a valiant fight, but as it was, we were near defenseless.
Not to mention battered and bruised and…
It wasn’t an elite who flew off the last step. It was Emelle.
My knees wobbled, and she caught me before I could fall.
“Rayna! You’re okay. It’s okay. We’re here now.”
She crushed me in a hug. Lander and Rodhi emerged from behind her, and Wren cried out, “Gil! Oh my God, Gil! Is it really you?” and then we were all wrapping our arms around each other. Quivers racked my lungs, the harrowing force of their presence and the way they held me finally giving me a second to break apart.
“You came,” I croaked out to them, voice muffled.
“Of course we came,” Lander said.
“There isn’t a world where we wouldn’t, darling.” Rodhi pulled back and glanced over my head at all the other prisoners while I glanced over his shoulder at two people I hadn’t expected to see.
