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Bryce waited five seconds. Ten seconds. No one answered. No one came.
Swallowing another sob, she took a shuddering breath and let go of the disk.
Hunt’s breaths had grown few and far between. She crawled back to him, hands shaking. But her voice was calm as she again slid his head into her lap. Stroked his blood-soaked face. “It’s going to be all right,” she said. “Help is coming, Hunt. The medwitches are on their way.” She shut her eyes against her tears. “We’re going to be all right,” she lied. “We’re going to go home, where Syrinx is waiting for us. We’re going to go home. You and me. Together. We’ll have that afterward, like you promised. But only if you hold on, Hunt.”
His breathing rattled in his chest. A death rattle. She bent over him, inhaling his scent, the strength in him. And then she said it—the three words that meant more than anything. She whispered them into his ear, sending them with all she had left in her.
The final truth, the one she needed him to hear.
Hunt’s breathing spread and thinned. Not much longer.
Bryce couldn’t stop her tears as they dropped onto Hunt’s cheeks, cleaning away the blood in clear tracks.
Light it up, Danika whispered to her. Into her heart.
“I tried,” she whispered back. “Danika, I tried.”
Light it up.
Bryce wept. “It didn’t work.”
Light it up. Urgency sharpened the words. As if … As if …
Bryce lifted her head. Looked toward the Gate. To the plaque and its gems.
She waited. Counted her breaths. One. Two. Three.
The gems remained dark. Four. Five. Six.
Nothing at all. Bryce swallowed hard and turned back to Hunt. One last time. He’d go, and then she’d follow, once more brimstone fell or the demons worked up the courage to attack her.
She took another breath. Seven.
“Light it up.” The words filled the Old Square. Filled every square in the city.
Bryce whipped her head around to look at the Gate as Danika’s voice sounded again. “Light it up, Bryce.”
The onyx stone of the Bone Quarter glowed like a dark star.
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Bryce’s face crumpled as she lurched to her feet, sprinting to the Gate.
She didn’t care how it was possible as Danika said again, “Light it up.”
Then Bryce was laughing and sobbing as she screamed, “LIGHT IT UP, DANIKA! LIGHT IT UP, LIGHT IT UP, LIGHT IT UP!”
Bryce slammed her palm onto the bronze disk of the Gate.
And soul to soul with the friend whom she had not forgotten, the friend who had not forgotten her, even in death, Bryce made the Drop.
Stunned silence filled the conference room as Bryce plunged into her power.
Declan Emmett didn’t look up from the feeds he monitored, his heart thundering.
“It’s not possible,” the Autumn King said. Declan was inclined to agree.
Sabine Fendyr murmured, “Danika had a small kernel of energy left, the Under-King said. A bit of self that remained.”
