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I can’t help but match his expression.

Dayton ducks into the hole Kel and Ezryn created. My turn.

I push forward, rolling out of the rosebush and into the open air.

Home. The Enchanted Vale. I take a deep breath⁠—

The air is wrong. Not filled with smoke or smog but something worse. Something acrid that clings to the back of my throat like rot.

I stumble to my feet, swiping at my eyes. The brightness I’d glimpsed through the thorns isn’t sunlight but a strange copper-colored haze smearing the sky. There’s no clouds or wind. No birdsong.

Only silence.

Dayton is frozen a few steps ahead of me, his mouth slightly open, all joy drained from his face. I follow his gaze.

No.

No, no, no.

I knew the world we’d return to would be different…but the Vale is unrecognizable. The ground is cracked and dry, split open like wounds. The giant briars Caspian once raised—the ones that had protected Castletree and held the heart of our realm together—are blackened husks.

Even the air feels wilted.

Dead.

“Where is it?” I whisper. “Where’s the magic?”

I drop to one knee and press my hand to the earth, desperate, praying for a flicker of warmth, of power, of something. The ground feels hollow, the pulse of the world gone still.

I try to summon a spark of my own magic, just a flutter. But there’s nothing, not even the familiar resistance of it refusing me.

Someone gasps. I don’t know if it was Rosalina, Caspian, or Wrenley. Or maybe it was me.

Kel drops to my side, his voice low. “They’ve bled it dry.”

I want to offer him a counter hypothesis, but the words die in my throat.

What the Vale once was under the high rulers is gone forever. Whatever this place is, it isn’t our home anymore.

“Gods help her, she’ll pay for this,” Dayton growls.

Ezryn crosses his arms. It’s a strangely comforting sight; it’s been so long since I’ve seen him move in his full armor. “I don’t understand. Sira’s been desperate to claim the Vale as her own for centuries. Why kill what she’s always desired?”

“My mother is clever and ambitious and creative,” Caspian says lowly, “but she has only ever been able to destroy. It is her greatest ability and her greatest insecurity.”

“It’s in her nature to ruin anything she touches,” Wrenley says.

My eyes burn from whatever haze has polluted the air, but I find I can’t blink. I glance around at the seven of us. Besides Ezryn, we look ridiculous, dressed in our clothes from Orca Cove: T-shirts and jeans, carrying backpacks filled with useless human equipment. The only magic between us is an ember of Caspian’s green flame and his shadows, which are severely weakened from almost being transformed into a human.

What hope do we have to stand against this?

Rosalina steps forward. Though no emotion shows on her face, I know all too well how hard she’s trying not to break inside. “We need to see what’s become of Castletree.”

We journey in silence, none of us daring to speak. I drag in ash with every breath. Rosalina coughs into the crook of her arm, and Ezryn’s breathing sounds like a rattling machine through his helm.

Every so often, I reach my awareness out, seeking the magic that used to hum in the Vale. Nothing. The air is quieter here than in the human realm.

Minutes stretch into hours. The path to Castletree is unrecognizable. What once was a labyrinth through the briars is now shriveled skeletons. It’s only by Ezryn’s tracking that we’re able to stay on course, and even he admits to getting lost several times.