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Apparently, she had other plans.

With a sob, Rae broke into a run and slammed into me, wrapping her arms around me as she collapsed against my body.

Ezra rushed ahead to Cyn to take Zeke from him and relieve some of the burden.

I soothed Rae, stroking the back of her head. “Shhh, we’re here now. You’re safe.”

“But the creature,” she whispered, panic threading through her voice. She looked around my arm. “There’s this—wait. That’s not…” As I suspected, she had thought we were lesser infernals.

“You’re safe,” I repeated.

Her rose and plum scent surrounded me, calming the restless anxiety that had weighed me down for days. I felt her own anxiety ease the longer I held her in my arms.

“We can discuss what happened when we get back behind the walls,” Ezra said, approaching with Zeke on his back.

Up close, I realized Zeke wasn’t physically injured, which meant the problem was with his mind.

The curse.

I lifted Rae into my arms, carrying her like a bride back toward the caravan with Ezra and Cyn following. “How long has he been like this?”

“Too long,” Cyn spat, grinding his teeth. “I made him transform when he said he didn’t feel good. If I had to guess, that was hours ago. Like ten or something.”

“How long has he been unconscious?”

“Maybe less than half of that?”

“We need to get him to a vallant,” Ezra said, increasing his pace.

If our strongest magic wielders couldn’t cure him of the curse, nothing would. I’d never encountered a Shyrlivi struck with Feranzis’ curse. All I knew of it was that when Shyrlivi stayed too long in Feranzis, the curse took everything from them, turning them into the lesser infernals we kept out with Elyrdin’s walls.

That couldn’t be Zeke’s fate. Not when we were so close to having everything we ever wanted, now that Rae had come into our lives.

He deserved her. He didn’t deserve to die or turn into one of the damned after a lifetime of mistreatment.

After rejoining the caravan, we rushed back to the gates, easing Zeke into the backseat with Cyn and Rae sitting on either side of him.

She stroked his face, her fingers brushing his hair away from his forehead as she whispered comforting words, though I knew he likely couldn’t hear. Still, if even a sliver of her reassurance reached him, he might resist the darkness poisoning his mind.

Ezra drove like a madman back to the palace and nearly broke down the doors, calling on the servants to find our strongest vallants.

Cyn demanded to go with Zeke, but Lymsrana convinced him to clean up and eat by reminding him he’d be no good to Zeke dehydrated, starving, and run-down.

While Ezra followed his parents and the other members of the council, I took Rae to one of the many bedrooms in the palace.

We’d examined her at the caravan and determined that, other than experiencing fatigue and hunger, she’d made it through mostly unscathed. I’d worried, though, when she told us how the berries they’d sustained themselves with had kept her physically ill.

I led Rae inside the luxurious bathroom, complete with gleaming golden fixtures, mosaic tiles, and bouquets in neutral tones to match the high-contrast design. Turning on the water for the freestanding tub, I crossed to the cabinet, choosing the scents I thought she would like best from the massive collection of body care products.

“This bathroom is bigger than my old bedroom,” she said, her gaze settling on a chaise and table in a corner of the room designed for relaxation. “Who sits on couches in the bathroom? I mean, I’ve seen this sort of thing in hotels, but isn’t that for people waiting for a stall?”

I chuckled as her nose wrinkled, set the products on the floor beside the tub, and tested the water’s temperature. “You get used to it.”

Despite growing up around opulence, it never felt right. Too flashy. I preferred functionality over aesthetics. It seemed my little blackbird felt the same.

Once the tub had filled, she looked at me. “You just gonna stand there?”

I shrugged. “No.”