“Max! Max, can you hear me?” E asks.
My nerves tingle with a hint of numbness as I release his hand and brace myself up on my elbows, the movement sluggish. “How long have I been asleep?” I croak.
“A few hours.” Nick presses a hand to my forehead. “Can you sit?”
My muscles ache as though I’ve been wrung through some evil washing contraption and hung up to dry on a steel line. My limbs are stiff and heavy, barely answering my commands. I grab an exposed root for support and drag myself into a sitting position.
The blanket covering my burnt clothes slips with the motion, and cold air rushes over me. The trees above tilt and spin in slow circles, and I screw my eyes shut to keep from retching.
What’s left of my jacket and shirt is riddled with holes, their edges curled and blackened, leaving wide stretches of bare skin exposed. The chill sinks in fast, raising goosebumps along my arms and stomach. My belly is completely uncovered, and I strain to peel my ruined jacket off.
Even that small movement costs me. My head swims, darkness creeping in at the edges of my vision. My fingers feel clumsy and slow to obey. I finally manage to discard the jacket, and Nick hands over my spare, which I spread over the remnants of my shirt.
I bite my bottom lip. “I can’t climb. I can’t even get up—not anytime soon.”
Nick grips his red hair, tugging hard at the roots. “Shit. I’m going to have to try and find help.”
I shake my head. “It’s too dangerous. What if the rebel camp that’s supposed to be at the top of this bloody mountain has already been dismantled or attacked? What if we were wrong about its location in the first place? You can’t go on alone.”
I draw an absent-minded pattern in the pine needles, wondering what to do next.
“You two should go without me. It’s not as though anyone else would be crazy enough to trek through these parts,” I say. “I can stay here, out of sight, until you return.”
“Hells no.”
“Never gonna happen.”
The boys say in unison.
“Got any better ideas?” I clip.
“I’ll carry you,” E announces.
Nick drags a hand down his face. “Damn, E, I don’t care who you were when you were alive—you can’t possibly climb this hill while carrying her. Maybe the two of us could manage it with ropes and proper climbing gear, which we don’t have, but you’re not strong enough.”
E remains silent, and I’m not sure if he’s doubting Nick’s analysis, but a strange, impossible idea weasels its way into my brain.
“Wait…” I frown, the crazy thought sharpening into focus, like the peel of an orange slowly being skinned, revealing the pith and pulp underneath.
“You’ve got wings,” I whisper.
Nick’s head jerks back toward me. “What?”
“I’ve seen it,” I insist, turning slightly toward E. “You’ve got wings.”
Nick kneels beside me and puts a hand over my forehead. “The fever has broken, but I’m not convinced you’re completely making sense here, Maxie. Fae can’t fly.”
“E can,” I repeat, the confidence in my voice outpacing my messed-up brain.
“Wings?” E whispers, the word almost cottony.
My gaze locks on him despite the haze and spinning trees. There’s something there, something I’ve seen before, in dreams that never quite stayed with me when I woke. A force stalks at his back, a shadow that doesn’t belong to the dark.
“I’ve seen them. In my dreams,” I say slowly, trying to anchor the memory before it slips. “Either you’re holding them back, or they’re buried, or…” My head throbs, cutting the thought short.
The silence stretches, and for a second, the air behind E shifts.
I’m not sure if ending up stranded here with venomous serpents for gods know how long scares me more than the possibility that I’m right about this. Because the winged man I saw in my dreams looked like an angel, but if I’m correct, he was the devil.
