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My heart beat.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Each thump pulled a string of my deepest nightmare loose until they snaked around my gut and threatened to strangle me from the inside out. My vision frayed around the edges.

Coen wasn’t here because Dyonisia had him. As much as I’d worried about him going up against dozens of elites, the thought of him trapped within her antipower, his own magics disintegrating in her grip…

Bile burned my throat. I almost bent over to do exactly what I’d told that Element Wielder I’d do when I swallowed and snapped upright.

I need you, Coen had told me in the Uninhabitable Zone. I wouldn’t let him down, so I used my Mind Manipulating to stifle every single emotion threatening to bring me to my knees and asked my next series of questions with clear, quick words.

“Are Sasha and Sylvie still with him? Did they get caught, too?”

Gileon glanced at his rhino beetles, who buzzed in response. “Yes.”

“Are they still in Wasteon?”

“Yes.”

“Where are the others?” I asked while Quinn watched, her mouth open. “Emelle, Lander, Rodhi, Wren?” I knew what I had to do, and they wouldn’t want me to go alone. But every second that passed could be another slice closer to the end of Coen’s life. Or Sasha and Sylvie’s.

“I don’t know.” Gileon scratched the back of his neck. “I haven’t seen them since I went up to the roof. Maybe they’re still downstairs?”

I raced down the steps, opening my blockade to sweep through every mind in the mansion. The chaotic overlapping of hundreds of thoughts and emotions crashed into me, none of them familiar enough to pick out. And when I got to the base of the stairs and surveyed the dance floor, I didn’t see any of our friends.

Gileon had followed me down with his cloud of beetles still buzzing around him like a cloak. I whipped toward him and spoke urgently.

“Okay, Gil, I need you to find the others for me. Tell them everything you’ve just told me and that I’m going to Wasteon and that I…” My throat bobbed as Quinn appeared behind Gil, too much confusion and curiosity in the tilt of her head for my comfort. “Tell them I might need some help.”

I hated putting those words out into the open. Hated that if Emelle, Lander, Rodhi, or Wren did follow me to Wasteon, they might stumble into the same trap I was about to. The same trap Coen, Sasha, and Sylvie had.

No time to second-guess it.

After double checking that my knives were all strapped to my thigh, I turned on a heel and pushed through everyone still smashed together on the dance floor, dashing out into the night where the boom of music flaked away.

Fat drops of rain pricked me all over as I ran. The sky rumbled and roiled overhead, more troubled and angry than I’d seen it mere minutes ago from the Element Wielder’s bedroom window.

So was I. The closer my pounding footsteps took me to the line of jungle beyond Bascite Boulevard, the more all my emotions rose back to the surface. Terror. Fury. More terror, twisting together to form a ball lodged deep in the base of my throat.

Coen and I were supposed to be dancing, dammit. Not cleaved apart by a hitch in the plan, unable to grasp each other. Dyonisia was waiting for him there, Gil had said, but how? Either one of the villagers in Wasteon had betrayed us by telling the Good Council about the scheduled protest or…

No. I wouldn’t even entertain the possibility that one of our own had betrayed us. None of our friends would sell us out.

The second I reached the trees, already soaked through with rain, I let out a hum. Branches reached out for me, twining around my torso. Lifted me. Passed me along to the next tree, faster and faster, the melody pouring from my lips growing in a frenzy until I was choking on it. Until the jungle brought me to one of the cliffs we’d climbed in Mr. Conine’s class.

While I had every faith the roots and ferns would catch me if I slipped, scaling it would take too long. I couldn’t quite levitate myself for long periods of time like some fifth-year Object Summoners could, but I could—

Jump. With a push of my invisible hands against the ground, I soared up and scrabbled at the closest ledge, already several stories high. Okay. I could do this.

I brought forth all of Fabian’s lessons and jumped again.

Rain-flecked air swished past me. My hands grasped for a mossy ledge mere feet above me when gravity began to pull me back down, but a shrub was there to catch my footfall and fling me back up.

Again and again, I used my Object Summoning with my Wild Whispering, invisible hands working with the jungle to boost me higher and higher.