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Indigo fingers, just barely discernible in the infinite night.
She lifted her chin, and there was the rest of them. Tenebris Nox seemed somehow taller, even more imperious as they looked at Kit with concern in their crimson-black eyes. But any relief she felt at seeing the nocterrian again was quickly buried beneath her building unease.
“Where are we?” she asked, and the sound floated out in front of her, an echo carried on a cloud.
“The in-between,” Nox replied, their unique voice drifting into Kit’s ears in the same eerie way. “We have stepped into the shadows, just for a moment.”
“How did you—”
Nox shook their head. “There is no time. You must warn the others. Malakar’s forces come this night. They seek the Revenant.” A pause. “They seek the Sunfyre Heir.”
Questions formed so quickly Kit could barely throw one off her tongue before the next one appeared. “How do you know? How do they know where Ellie and Ric are? How are you here?” Her eyes fell to where Nox’s hand was still wrapped around her arm. “How did you pull me into the in-between if shadow magic is curtailed by Elderglade’s protections?”
Nox’s mouth pressed into a hard line, though they did not answer, and Kit understood.
“The protections . . . They really are faltering.”
“Yes,” Nox said. “And they will not be enough to stave off what is coming for you all. You need to get out. Get them all out.”
Kit’s pulse pounded in her ears. “Come with us. Help us.”
“I cannot. I have already risked much in doing this. But you needed to be warned . . . and I needed to give you this.” They raised their free hand, their fingers weaving symbols in the dark, the low hum of their voice filling Kit’s ears with lyrics in a foreign tongue. She blinked against a sudden swell of brightness, her eyes watering against the shape emerging from the dark.
Sharp golden spires. Two jagged edges.
Tenebris Nox had half of the Crown of Concord in the palm of their hand and was holding it out to Kit.
“Take it,” they said. “Protect it. Protect them. You know what needs to be done next.”
“Come with us,” Kit repeated. Pleaded. “Come with me.”
Nox shook their head, and even here in the void, Kit would’ve sworn the motion seemed sad. “Would that I could,” they said. “But there is no more time to waste. Go.”
They uncurled their fingers from around Kit’s wrist, and she was falling again, but forward—or was it upward?—this time. Either way, it lasted only a second, and then Shep’s stricken face was in front of Kit’s again, his mouth moving, his shoulders tensed. It took another moment for his voice to register in her ears.
“Thank the Earth Mother. My lady, are you back with me?”
“Shep? I . . . Was I . . . ?” Realization had Kit sinking to her knees.
“What happened?” Shep lowered himself into a squat beside her.
“I was about to ask you the same thing.”
“We were talking and you said, ‘Did you feel that?’ and then you simply disappeared. Swallowed by the air. I was about to run for aid, but then”—he pursed his sage-green lips to one side—“you were back.”
Kit blinked at him. “How long was I gone?”
“Logically I know it must only have been a few seconds,” he said with a frown, “but it felt like much longer.”
“And Tenebris?”
A crease formed on Shep’s forehead. “Tenebris Nox? What about them?”
She looked from side to side, a frown pulling at her mouth. “Are they still here?”
“My lady . . .” Shep’s voice was soft, his movements practiced and restrained when he stood upright, as though he realized he was handling something very fragile. “Tenebris Nox is not here. They never have been. You . . . you know this, yes?”
Another blink. The scrambled pieces of Kit’s mind were fighting to settle into place, and her face felt suddenly hot. Was that . . . ? Did she just . . . Kit shook her head. She must have had some sort of exhaustion-fueled hallucination. Her concern over Elyria must have pushed her to some sort of unrealized breaking point, and here she was, imagining being swept into the shadows by the only other person she . . .
