And Owl was the one to answer. “Leaving,” she said simply. “I know the way.” Then she turned to the smaller stone pile and levitated a boulder. It crashed onto the other pile with such force, the ground shook. Snow fell from the trees.

“The bat found me,” Leopold explained. “I was surrounded on all sides, and he scared them off. Then Owl was there, and I followed her.” He shook his head, incredulity in his Threads and on his face. As if he still did not understand what had happened or why.

Crash, crash. Rocks gathered. Owl’s Threads shone. The wind blew on and on.

“What is she, Iseult?” Leopold asked, watching the girl. “She is no mere child.”

“No,” Iseult agreed, but she had no answer beyond that. Owl was special, and that was all she knew.

“This way,” Owl interrupted, and in a burst of stone and speed, she launched the final boulder away, revealing a hole in the earth like a bear’s den that emanated blue light.

Before Iseult could stop her, Owl smiled again—a flash of pink amusement in her Threads—and crawled into the hole. The blue light swallowed her.

And Iseult, with Leopold just behind, pitched in after her.

FIFTY-NINE

Lightning dominated the darkness. Safi’s eyes sizzled. Her heart fried, and each breath tasted of burning death. But she and the Hell-Bards did not stop running.

It didn’t matter that Safi couldn’t spy the path beneath her feet, it didn’t matter that all she saw was a storm-spun galaxy far below—and it didn’t matter that this unnatural storm clashed harder and harder by the second. The Hell-Bards ran true, and not once did Caden let go of Safi’s hand.

Until suddenly he did. Until suddenly he had no choice because the earth was shaking and tearing Safi from his grip. A great sideways crunch that sent the bridge lurching.

And sent Safi flying headfirst into the darkness.

She screamed, a sound lost to the winds. A sound swallowed by the eternal crack! of lightning. Or maybe it was the mountain still breaking that stole her voice. There was no telling what crashed around her, no telling what death might hit her—or when or where or how.

Then her body slammed against something solid. Something frozen. Except she wasn’t dying and her life wasn’t sapping from her veins. Instead, strong arms were flinging around her and a man was bellowing, “HANG ON.”

So Safi hung on, even as her mind fought to catch up. Even as her eyes fought to see and her fingers fought to hold true. She had no idea who she was pressed against. All she knew was that he held her tight and that he soared.

Winds charged beneath them. They rocketed up, up while the storm pressed down. The squall tried to squash them and boil them and keep them from rising.

Then lightning slashed. A mere arm’s length away, so bright that the world turned to day. And so bright that, even as her eyes winced shut, Safi glimpsed the face before her.

Impossible, she thought at the same instant that her magic screamed, True!

And he must have glimpsed her face too, because his magic skipped a beat. Their flight faltered. The world dragged, and in that space between frenzied, storm-swept breaths, Safi saw everything she needed to see.

For the first time in a month, she saw Merik Nihar. She saw the man she had believed to be dead.

Angry red scars webbed up the side of his face, crawling above the hairline. Eating into his shorn, dark hair. Half an eyebrow was missing, and he’d lost weight. Gaunt bones poked against scorched cheeks, while strange shadows undulated beneath his skin.

But it was him. Safi would know Merik’s face anywhere. She would know his eyes anywhere. True, true, true.

Then time and storm plowed into them. Safi lost all sight, all sound. Static expanded inside her, scratched against her skin. Merik’s flight resumed.

Higher they hurtled, while the storm thrashed against them. Frozen, relentless, alive. And the earth trembled too—a bass vibration that chattered in Safi’s lungs and sent rocks coursing by.

When at last their ascent slowed, Merik’s winds dumped them roughly onto a crude staircase carved into the mountain wall. The storm still raged, and the stones still quaked. Safi could barely keep her knees steady beneath her as she clutched for a handhold against the side of the cavern.

Merik braced himself on the step below hers, one arm against the rock. The other still looped around her waist. He gazed up at her, his eyes as brown as she remembered, even in this lightning-lit world. He was alive. He was right here.

“How?” she tried to say at the same instant he said, “You died.”

She shook her head, a frantic movement that matched the wildness in his own shaking head. Yet before she could ask, could move, could do anything but stare, a voice carved through the storm. Made of ice and nightmares, it sang, “You cannot run forever, Merik. Wherever you go, I will find you.”

Then wind pushed against Safi. It kicked at the snow and weaseled beneath her clothes, like hands fumbling, searching—

“Go,” Merik said. He released her and pulled away, and new winds—strong and true—gusted. “Go,” he repeated, louder now. Eyes wide and pleading. “Safi, please. Go.” And before she could stop him, before she could beg him to stay or explain or at least tell her how to find him again, he launched into the darkness.

She watched Merik leave. Watched him shrink until he was nothing more than a shadow. She watched lightning and cyclones steal him away. And she watched until falling rocks forced her feet to move.

The staircase was collapsing beneath her. Booming eruptions of noise and dust that punched upward, punched nearer. Soon, she would be standing on thin air.

So Safi spun on her heel and ran. Her hands grabbed at the higher steps, the only thing she could do for balance. The only thing she could do to hang on while hell-storm and earthquakes pummeled against her.

Boulders fell. Scree shattered. Safi’s knees rolled and her ankles popped. Until abruptly, the stairs ended. Her hands met empty air, and a ledge stretched before her.

“SAFI!” roared a voice she knew. Then a second voice, “Safi, faster! Safi, this way!” So that way Safi charged, dead ahead to where two figures materialized in the shadows and a blue light glowed.

She reached Caden, who grabbed one arm. Then Zander, who grabbed her other. Together, they heaved her toward the doorway.

Safi had just enough time before tumbling through to look back. Just enough time to search for one final glimpse of Merik.

It wasn’t Merik she saw sweeping by, though. It was an old crow, black and sleek, winging through the storm.

Then blue light frizzed over her, time stopped, and Safi and the Hell-Bards were transported far, far away.

* * *

Merik did not watch Safi leave. He couldn’t. The Fury was almost to her; Merik had to keep him away.

And now Merik also had a plan.

It was neither cohesive, nor perhaps even possible—but it was the only option before him. The only thing he could do that might calm the Fury once and for all.

“Do you want these?” Merik bellowed, pumping all his magic into that sound. “You’ll have to come and get them.” Then he lifted two jagged rocks, remnants of the mountain that he hoped, from afar, might look like the Fury’s missing tools.

Like a razor in one hand, and broken glass in the other.

A screech ripped across the cavern, borne on lightning. Swollen by the storm. It slashed over a mountain that would not stop its quaking. Then the Fury himself appeared within the squall.

Merik moved. He zoomed toward the ice-bridge, fueled by starlight and a need to protect Nubrevna, no matter the cost.

And also fueled by the lure of a mother’s call and by a sleeping ice Esme had said would suck you in.

As Merik had hoped, the Fury followed him.

Merik reached the ice-bridge. His feet touched down, and instantly, the song bombarded him, sentient and hungry.

Come, come, and find release. Come, come, the ice will hold you.

Good. Merik hoped it would do exactly that.

He ran. His heels hammered, ice crunched, and all around him, thunder clapped and crazed.

Then the Fury landed. “Where are you going?” he bellowed. “That way will not free you!”

Merik sped faster, legs careening and arms swinging. The door was near enough for him to see details in the wood, to spot a key-slot with ice spindling through.

“Stop!” Panic laced Kullen’s voice now. Static too, that crackled in the air and stabbed at Merik’s skin. “Stop!” Kullen pleaded. “Do not go that way!”

Merik reached the door. He reached the ice, and, twisting sideways, he flung himself through. Instantly, the song magnified. Tenfold louder, it throbbed in his lungs, compelling him instead of crooning. Tenfold stronger, it jittered in his teeth and rooted in his heart.

As Merik wiggled and squirmed, straining to squeeze through a narrow passage that glowed blue with an inner light all its own, ice crunched outward. It poked. It grasped, fingers that wanted to hold him still.

Come, come, and find release. Come, come, the ice will hold you.