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“Why are we here?” My words were scratchy and foreign to my ears.

“To contact Navin and Sadie,” Ora said, leaning their elbow onto the tumbledown wall. “It’s a whispering well. Around the continent we speak through these wells when the sun is highest in the sky. If Navin’s near one, he will hear it.”

Ora let out a long, trilling whistle, the song echoing down the cavernous well and ricocheting back up again until it morphed into a sound unlike the one Ora had originally created. This new song was lower, more throaty and slow.

Ora held out a hand to me and beckoned me over. Their eyes bracketed with sympathy as I stumbled over the patchy muck and leaned over the well. I opened my mouth to speak, and my treacherous bottom lip wobbled. If Sadie was on the other side, I’d have to tell her. I’d have to tell her that I killed the Queen of Taigos, that Briar was taken, and that her brother was a part of her abduction.

More warm tears streamed down my cheeks, and I cleared my throat. Grae strode over to me, his warm broad hand on the small of my back, reassuring me that I could do this. That I must. That hand told me he’d hold me together even if this shattered me into a thousand pieces. But I had to keep going, had to push forward, had to lead even as it broke me.

I leaned my elbows onto the well, my skin pinching where the jagged stone dug into my still-raw skin. I couldn’t tell if it was the wind cupping my ears or I was imagining it, but I swore I heard a shaking breath rise up the well and bounce off the stones.

I swallowed and said, “Sadie?”

Sadie

All the resolve I thought I’d regained over the last two days vanished when I heard Calla croak, “Sadie?”

“Calla.” The name lodged in my throat, and it was all I could say for a moment. Not even the soft hum of Navin beside me could soothe me now.

We’d made it to a half caved-in well in the middle of nowhere, far from the road south. The Stoneater River was a thin line on the horizon.

I crumpled beside the whispering well, Navin’s hands shooting out and catching me as my knees buckled. I clung to the well as he held me, resting my cheek on the rough stone. Brief flashes of shade covered us from the scalding sun as the red-and-gold dragon flew overhead like a circling vulture.

I pushed down on my tears enough to let the stream of words echo down the sonorous hollow: Luo was dead along with many others. Tadei was still alive having fled the carnage. I told Calla about the Songkeepers and the vase and the dragon and then...

Harried tears dripped off my nose and lips as I told Calla that Maez had taken hold of the dark magic, slaughtered most of the Onyx Wolf pack, and disappeared. We’d lost her. She was gone.

A long resounding silence followed before Calla asked, “You said her magic trailed off toward the Stoneater? Do you thinkshe’s going after Briar?” The words were both desperate and hopeful, as if Calla secretly wanted for Maez to be using her magic to get their twin back.

I wasn’t sure, but I think I secretly hoped that, too.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s unprecedented. A mated sorceress? I don’t know if mating bonds can survive through such darkness.” Navin shook his head beside me. “There’s not a single book on it that either of us knows of.”

“I have to believe that it could,” Calla said, though their words were strained. “I have to believe Maez is on her way to rescue Briar. Just thinking about what she must be going through—” Calla’s words died on a sob, and I heard the comforting whispers of Grae echo up through the well. I knew he was holding Calla together as much as Navin was for me in that moment.

“There’s something else, Sadie,” Grae said, taking over for his mate. His words came out so slowly that dread trickled down my spine.

“What is it?”

“It’s Hector.”

My whole body seized, weightless, my mind spinning like being tumbled in a giant wave. I couldn’t lose Hector. He couldn’t be gone, too. Somewhere deep within me, I thought I’d always know if something ever happened to my older brother. Like some sudden strike of pain and knowing, even if we were separated. We’d always been so connected even as we fought and bickered that I thought I’d instinctively feel his loss somehow. “Is he—”

“He’s alive,” Grae said quickly, and my shoulders sagged. I clenched my fist to my gut at the relief. “For all we know.”

“For all you know?” I searched around me, my thoughts spinning so fast I thought I might vomit. “What do you mean, for all you know? He’s not with you? Did Nero take him, too? Is he hurt? Where is he?”

“He...” Grae battled to get the words out, which only stoked my fears further. “Sadie, he betrayed us.”

“No.” The sound barely escaped my lips. “He—he couldn’thave done that. You must’ve gotten it wrong. He is loyal. He’s loyal to us. He’s loyal tome.”

“I think he did it for you. To save you from Tadei, maybe. Who knows what Nero and your father promised him.”

“My father?”

“He and your uncles were there. They must’ve gotten to Hector. He attacked us, Sadie. Sold us out. I’m not mistaken.” Grae spoke clearly and plainly as if debriefing a soldier after an attack. “He pointed his sword at us and blocked our exits. He gave us up to Nero. He worked with Ingrid to lure us into a trap.”

“No.”