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“As ready as I’m gonna be.” I sighed.

He squeezed my hand once, then let go. The team fell into formation—Bobby, Wade, and Ezra with their bags of tech, Rook’s people armed to the teeth, the wolves taking point.

I really hoped we weren’t about to cross over to face down something with more fangs than sense.

But the wolves went first. Rook opened the door to the larder, using his body as a shield in case something lunged through. Beyond was an eerie silence. No screams. No whispers. No sounds of things scurrying in the dark. Just... nothing. And somehow, that was worse.

Four of his guys followed him in before waving at the rest of us to enter.

The larder was a ruin. The long hall of doors was spattered with ooze and maybe blood, many of the walls broken as if they’d been hit by a battering ram. In the first room we peered into, jars lay shattered. Glass glittered like ice mixed with colored goo across the floor. And the air was so cold my breath fogged in front of my face.

I studied the weave, finding its array of warped chaos dizzying—but empty, save for a few stranded motes. Had everything escaped when we tore Erlik apart? Or had this happened when we’d stumbled here the first time and I’d accidentally opened a portal?

“Let’s see if we can get a location to Tiana,” Bobby said, setting his bag of supplies down on the floor beside the nearest wall. “Unless you all sense something headed our way?”

I sensed nothing at all. No life, at least. Not even a ghost. Could there still be anyone here, suspended in strange soul-absorbing juice? Maybe. But I couldn’t tell.

Angel shook his head at Bobby, his eyes swirling with the stars of his Bastion vision.

Rook tilted his head and said, “Smell rot. Not living.”

“Let’s hope,” Remi grumbled, shivering as he pressed himself closer to Ezra.

Nox pressed himself to my neck, purring up a storm as though he needed the comfort as much as I did. We wandered the hall together, the team searching for a signal, and me looking for life.

There were easily a couple hundred small tears woven throughout the building. Like someone had taken a section of the Veil and just dug its claws into it over and over. A scratching post for the grimmest shadow monster in history.

I reached for the first tear before I even realized I’d made the decision. It was small—barely a snag, really.

The threads responded to my touch, warm and familiar, and I pulled them back into place with a few careful stitches. It took seconds. But when I blinked, the hallway had shifted. The team had moved further down. Angel was watching me, his expression guarded.

“Everything okay?” I asked him.

He nodded, and held up his hand. A bunch of motes landed there, waiting. I knew they weren’t mine, but they would come with us to find where they belonged. I sighed, sad that this was all that was left of them.

“I’ve got more tears to fix.”

“Do we need Zhenjun?”

I studied the mess, but shook my head. Nothing was larger than I could handle, even if I had to fix hundreds of them. I headed toward the next tear, Angel at my back, determined to handle this myself.

I spent longer on the second tear, coaxing the threads back into alignment, reweaving the pattern that had been disrupted. A sigh drifted from the strands of the weave as it came back together without strain. Then I moved on to the next, knowing Angel watched over me, and the team, over him, while Bobby sought our location.

The world narrowed to the threads—the colors, the pattern, the rhythm of the weave. It was almost peaceful. Almost.

“Jude.”

I blinked. The hallway was dim. The team was gathered around me. Bobby was holding his tablet, his expression somewhere between triumph and worry. Rook was watching the dark. Remi was pressed against Ezra, pale and shivering.

I was on my knees. When had that happened?

“Hey,” Angel said when I blinked at him. “We have a location, and you need to eat.”

“Oh. Sorry.” I hadn’t realized how draining it was. And there were still so many more to repair.

“Are any expanding right now?” Victor asked from his spot by the entry door where his team coordinated search and rescue.

I looked around at the ruined hall. The shattered jars. The broken walls. The cold, empty air. And while there were a handful of tears remaining, none of them felt volatile. Nor were any of them large enough to let anything through.