Eddie didn’t say anything, but my soul broke just looking at him. Tears streamed down his face, but he kept quiet so Charlie wouldn’t notice. He never lifted his gaze from his feet.
“I’m sorry,” Charlie said genuinely. “I shouldn’t have brought you, Eddie. But everyone else needed to come.”
Eddie’s voice came out small. “I do as my master tells me. I must obey him no matter what it costs me.”
His words sounded so shattered— like a piece of himself had already died in the service of his master. He’d given up so much to be Charlie’s guard. I wondered how much more there was left inside of Eddie to give.
Ez stepped forward. “Look, we can’t change what has already happened, or the choices we made that brought us here. We can only be here for each other now. We’re all friends. This is a terrible thing, but we can’t let this tear us apart.”
“Ez is right,” Opal agreed. “We’re all in this together.”
“That isn’t fair, because some of us are handling this worse than others,” Alistair argued. “Don’t act like you know what Eddie’s going through. Come on, Eddie. Let’s go find Ivy.”
Alistair grabbed Eddie’s hand, and the two of them disappeared around the side of the building. Kallie stared after them. I witnessed contemplation in her eyes… like she thought about following them. She shrank close to Marcus, clutching him tightly, before turning her eyes back to the ground.
Kallie would never admit it, but I knew what it looked like for my best friend to be falling apart. She hadn’t said a word since we’d gotten here, and though she’d insisted on coming, I felt bad for bringing her. I should’ve made her stay behind.
But I saw the look in her eyes. It was like she wanted to follow the others in order to get away from Charlie, because shecouldn’t stand to be near him right now, yet she literally couldn’t move.
Marcus held Kallie tight. “Guys, none of us mean anything we’re saying right now. We just need to leave.”
Danny scoffed. “You just want to go home and forget about all of this, but we should stay here. The Warden might’ve killed all these people, but the guards at the camp helped him do it by imprisoning all these people here. We need to figure out exactly where these guards went, follow them, and kill them all. We can’t let them get away with this.”
Marcus narrowed his eyes at Danny, like he thought it was a stupid idea. “How are we supposed to find them? They left no clues behind.”
Tears finally streaked my cheeks. Though I wasn’t able to cry before, I couldn’t hold myself back now, and my words fell like broken glass as water poured from my eyes. “I’m sorry, everyone. Ivy’s right. I’m to blame. I’m the one who brought us here. I overheard Cassiel talking, and if I hadn’t jumped to conclusions, we wouldn’t be here.”
“You did the right thing, Ava,” Charlie insisted. “My grandfather should’ve told us. We did the best we could with the information we had.”
I sniffled. “Oberi, What do you think?”
Oberi responded, though only Charlie and I could hear her internal thoughts.You did your best, and you had good intentions, but sometimes, good intentions lead to horrible consequences. Unfortunately, this is something all of us had to go through. When terrible things happen, people need to come together as one, not fall away from one another. As much as you don’t want to admit it, you all need each other right now.
Opal wiped a tear from her eye. “What’s Oberi saying, Ava?”
“He says Marcus is right,” I translated. “There’s nothing more to see here. We should head back to the palace.”
Before Oberi could even turn, Ivy’s voice rang across the camp. “Guys, come quick! We’ve got two live ones!”
My friends took off running, and I urged Oberi into a gallop. We followed Ivy to one of the guard towers. Next to the tower there was a hole in the fence just big enough for a small person to crawl through. It looked like it’d been mangled by the blast. The entrance to the tower was outside the fence, and Alistair knelt next to the open doorway.
“Come on,” he encouraged. “It’s safe.”
Two trembling figures emerged from the guard tower. The first guy was scrawny and couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds. I didn’t think he could be more than fifteen years old, but he looked like a child with the way his tattered clothes hung off his starved form.
The other guy wasn’t very big, but he wore a guard uniform. I instinctually drew back a fireball, but I paused when I witnessed a white tomcat with crooked whiskers emerge from the tower behind them.
“Ava? Charlie?” the guard said in disbelief. “It’s so good to see you guys!”
I barely recognized him at first, because he was covered in dirt from head to toe. It was Ghost, a warlock student from back at the Institute. I recalled the guards trying to force him to sign up for The Mission, even though he didn’t want to. Looks like in the end, he wasn’t given a choice. Ghost had barely survived in fight club. I was surprised he’d outlasted the Warden’s service this long.
“Ghost?” Marcus balked.
Before he could answer, the teenager’s eyes lit up. “M… Marcus?!”
Recognition crossed Marcus’ features, like the kid was so unrecognizable he hadn’t noticed him at first. The kid scrambled through the broken fence and ran toward Marcus, practicallybody-slamming him in a hug. I’d never seen this kid before, and I didn’t know how Marcus knew him.
Tears streamed down Marcus’ cheeks. “Kellen? I thought I’d never see you again.”
