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Ezra gambled on it working against Bondrot to allow them to save Rae.

Before the escort arrived for his next palace visit, he gave Cyn and Zeke the stolen potions.

The vallant Ezra had manipulated into helping him lowered the front wards for his departure. The wards took at least ten minutes to restore themselves, giving Cyn and Zeke time to leave through the same opening, avoiding the back wards and their active surveillance.

The vallant agreed to keep their departure quiet until they’d had time to reach Rae.

Ezra knew they’d face consequences when Cornaith found out, but finding Rae before Bondrot killed me mattered more.

They’d explained how close Bondrot had brought me to death and how fast I recovered once Rae was put in bed with me after they returned. They’d placed me in her bed, hoping her scent would keep my Bondrot at bay while giving her a familiar place to wake.

I remembered very little after a few days in.

Pieces came back if I thought hard enough about the early days. Time spent watching Zeke deteriorate. Listening to Cyn’s angry voice but never seeing him. Ezra moving around like a ghost. The constant pain.

Then nothing.

Several times I thought I saw Rae, but as soon as I reached for her, she disappeared and the blackness pulled me down again.

According to my brothers, I’d stopped breathing several times and slipped into seizures, making it clear how close I’d come to death’s door.

I brushed my thumb over Rae’s cheek again.

I didn’t know what scared me more—that I’d almost died without realizing it, or that whatever eternity waited for me after my death didn’t have Rae there with me.

But she was here now.

Safe and sound.

Alive.

Somewhere I could protect her.

The wards were active again by the time I woke, keeping us bound to the house while Cornaith’s guards supposedly searched for those responsible for Rae’s abduction.

They didn’t believe Rinlora.

Ezra told me she’d come to them and admitted she never received a message from Lymsrana. She’d grabbed Lymsrana’s phone and sent the message herself.

She claimed her mother wanted to perform tests on Rae like Cornaith but didn’t elaborate, insisting she wasn’t aware of the details.

Zeke had narrowed the search to the fish market in the Jinphni District. Rinlora gave them the exact building in the Dens where her mother held Rae. On the day they rescued her, she warned them that the escort would arrive that night to take her northeast.

When Zeke had questioned why they’d taken her in the first place, Rinlora admitted Cornaith threatened her sister Roandra if her mother didn’t comply with his demands.

He wanted to offer Rae as a trade to strengthen his alliance with the Sephra clan, which explained why someone planned to take her northeast. Rinlora didn’t know about the trade until after she’d delivered Rae to her mother. She also wasn’t sure what the Sephra clan wanted to do with Rae—another thing her mother never told her.

I suspected her mother kept a lot from Rinlora.

What reason would the Sephra clan have to bring Rae to northeast Elyrdin? Was it all to weaken the council by allowing Bondrot to disable or kill me and my brothers? Why would Cornaith agree to that?

Something about the entire thing unsettled me. There had to be more to the story that either Rinlora wasn’t telling us or she truly didn’t know.

Then there were Cyn’s wings.

We’d lost our wings when Rae summoned us because there hadn’t been a soul or tiisra stone to cross Kalthea without sacrifice. Our backs bore scars that proved our wings had been cut from our bodies to facilitate our crossing of the slipstream.

However, when Cyn leapt after Rae, his actions sparked the return of something I believed was impossible to regain.