“Raeve.”
I look up, finding Kaan in the doorway with Ahvi beside him, clutching his hand. Immediately, I notice Ahvi’s lips—blue. Hear the heaving rasp of his breath, like he’s battling through each one.
“We need to get out,” Kaan continues. “There’s something that’s spilled down there. His lungs aren’t coping.”
I’m up, punching my elbow back through the window that looks out over the strung-up bodies before he even finishes the sentence.
Purple glass shatters.
“Sheil athin, Clode. Soich.”
She swarms in, gusting the room with a fresh breeze as I pocket the lark and charge forward, take my satchel off Kaan’s shoulder, and root through the clattering contents, pulling out the Book of Voyd bound in a double layer of veils. Precautions, given the book’s apparent penchant for mauling folk to death.
I unbind the second layer, then drop to a kneel, binding the veil around the bottom half of Ahvi’s face. “I thought you had your shield up?”
“Must need some tw—tweaking. I never tested it against … powders.” His face flushes, his gaze all but burrowing into the floor. “Oops.”
Creators.
“The collapsed shaft,” I murmur, glancing up at Kaan as I twist the veilinto a big knot at the back of Ahvi’s head, “it’s over a cycle’s walk away.Twoif we want to take the long route so we can avoid the areas I think will be most populated with city folk. Two cycles … through dusty mineshafts thick with dirty air that’sverygood at clogging lungs.”
I hope he sees the heavy intent in my stare. The words I’m quietlyscreaming.
We need to work as a team and find a way to convince Ahvi to abort the fucking mission.
“I’ll … make it,” Ahvi rasps, heaving through the thin material. “But Gruffin cahh … can’t come. Too many … predators down there. And he’sl—loud.”
I put my hands on either side of his face. Stare into stark silver eyes with such fierce intensity I barely recognize myself in the reflection bouncing back in his blown pupils. “You don’t need to do this. I don’t evenwantyou to do this.”
I just want you to be okay.
“Please, Ahv—”
He shakes his head. “You can’t … change my mind. The s—song inside me … tells me it’s ri—right and it’s all going to be … okay.”
My blood chills.
I meet Kaan’s uncertain gaze overshadowed by a heavy frown.
“What do you mean by that, Ahvi? What song?”
“It’ll make s—sense one dae. I promise.”
I search his eyes, waiting for more. When he doesn’t offer anything else, I sigh, shove to a stand, and push my hands through my hair as I hold Kaan’s steady stare. “I don’t like this.”
At all.
“Neither do I,” he rumbles, only loud enough for me to hear, bringing his free hand up to tuck a strand of hair back off my face. “But I feel it’s important we trust him.”
I realize, like a sharp stab to my heart, that Kaan would’ve made a wonderful pah. The sort I would’ve been so proud to stand beside. To build a family with … if things were different.
If I wasn’t so messed up.
“I’ll mind Gruffin,” Pyrok says from where he’s lounging in Sereme’s chair, flicking through a dusty purple book with his boots kicked up on her upturned desk. “I have shit to do here anyway.”
“I’m okay with th—that.”
I arch a brow at Ahvi, looking far too confident with his abrupt decision. “What if he gets drunk and forgets to feed him?”
