“I think you’re not listening,” he huffs. “I’m tracking her with a fire rune. Every time I activate it, it burnsher. She feels it.”
“What?” I spin around, heart hammering, glaring at Onyx’s borrowed body. “You didn’t tell me that.”
It’s been forty minutes of hell for her.
“You’re saying she’s been burning this whole time? That she might be—dead?”
My chest caves in like I’ve been punched. The air won’t come.
He nods. I don’t know which question he’s answering—and I’m too scared to ask.
“She’s not dead,” he finally adds, maybe seeing the color drain from my face.
I release the breath I didn’t realize I was holding. The pressure lifts off my chest. Barely.
Bay’s fingers ease on the wheel. She was just as tense, maybe more. At least she still feels for Roran’s pain, and not going home. Once I get her back, I need to learn everything I can about runes. And Morvakar.
The Guardian was always the scariest beast in merfolk history—according to my family, anyway. But this thing? This new beast, Onyx, brought out? It could tear apart both ocean and land. Especially with her as the anchor. No, I don't have time to dwell on this now. First Roran. Then we deal with the other issue.
“What now, Malec?” Bay asks, pulling onto a street Morvakar guided us to earlier.
I’ve never been in this part of the city. Just like the Russians’ turf, it had nothing to do withmebefore. It’s the kind of place no one wants—too poor for the Russians, too filthy for the French, and even the Chinese think it’s beneath them. Around here, even milk’s a luxury. No one can afford drugs, not even the cheap shit.
Which, somehow, makes it the perfect place to hide her. No one owns this turf. No eyes. No questions. No power plays. Just silence. Just shadows.
I don’t even need to open the window to know the air stinks—rotting trash, cigarettes, dried piss. Dog shit on the sidewalks. Even bird corpses aren’t getting cleaned up.
I grimace just thinking about stopping here longer than we should.
“How do you know she’s not dead?” I ask Morvakar before I answer Bay.
“I’m using only a fraction of the rune’s power,” he explains. “It still burns, but her body fights back. She’s alive. But she’s weakening. If we don’t stop soon, it’ll kill her.”
I suck in a sharp breath. “How close is she?”
“Very. She’s somewhere around here.”
I clench my fists. If her father lays a hand on her before I get there...
Hold on, Roran. Just a little longer.
“Keep going,” I say. “Just a bit more. But if you feel her getting weaker—stop the rune immediately.”
Bay nods in understanding, ready, her foot hovering over the gas pedal.
“There,” Morvakar says, pointing left.
Bay shifts into gear and starts moving, scanning for a way to cross. The alley is too narrow for her SUV.
I feel like I’m sitting on sea urchins. Any second could be the last.
I’m coming.
“Here!” Morvakar shouts.
Bay slams the brakes, and I jolt forward in my seat. I didn’t expectthatclose. She doesn’t even bother parking. Just drives up onto the sidewalk and cuts the engine.
“Let’s go.” She throws off her seatbelt, already halfway out the door.
