Varek watches him without moving. “Speak.”
Aelith pushes himself away from the wall and steps into the room, every movement controlled through sheer will. “She is not waiting,” he says. “She is preparing.”
“For what?” Shanae asks.
“For something she believes will make the storms… usable.”
That word twists wrong.
Usable.
Not studied. Not understood.
Used.
“She has access to my father’s work,” Aelith continues. “Fragments. Enough to identify patterns. Enough to know that certain arrivals coincide with certain storm events.”
“Jamie,” Sonny says.
“Yes.”
“And Dawson?” I ask.
Aelith’s raw, unguarded gaze flicks to me. “Leverage.”
The word comes out flat, but it carries weight.
“He was alive when you left?” I press.
A pause rings in the air before he answers, “Yes.”
“He knows you came here?” I ask.
Aelith’s lips twist. “He told me to come without a fight.”
That does something strange to my chest.
Of course Dawson, with his easy grin and ridiculous optimism, would tell his mate to go and leave him behind if that’s what it took to save a child.
“Then we don’t waste that,” I say.
Aelith’s eyes narrow. “You think this is a game?”
“I think she’s playing one,” I reply. “And I think we don’t win it by following her rules.”
Silence stretches for a second.
Then Varek speaks. “She wants three outcomes,” he says. “The child. Dawson. And me.”
That last one echoes like a quiet explosion.
No one argues with it because it’s obvious.
Because Varek is the one she cannot control, which makes him the one she will want to kill. And Dawson’s entry into Terrafeara wasn’t normal. Then there’s Jamie, who, as far asany of us are aware, is the first child to have been dragged into Terrafeara.
“She’s setting multiple traps,” Shanae says.
“Yes.”
