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“Listen, I get it, you want to help your people out. I know what that’s like,” Brad said.

I actually laughed at that. “I doubt it, Brad.”

His eyes fixated on my lips.

Lustful human.

“You know, you fit in pretty well. How long you been coming here?”

I pressed my lips together and peered at my nails.

“Lana, I’m going to get you out of here, I promise... but I need your help, alright?”

For one brief moment, hope bubbled up. If I could get out, I could find another portal...

Don’t trust them.

Hadn’t I been told that a thousand times?

“You should let me go because it’s the right thing to do,” I said. “I can’t help Asher. Once my people learn of his existence, and they will, he will die.”

Brad folded his arms and leaned back on his heels, regarding me with raised eyebrows. “I think you can do better than that, Lana. See, that man is the closest thing I have to a brother—”

“I’m sorry for your choice of family,” I said.

The corner of his mouth lifted. “Is that a joke?”

“No.”

Brad ruffled his hair. “My point is, him dying... not an option. So right now, you and I need to work together to keep him alive. You give me your word you can talk to some people, you can make that happen,thenyou can go free. Simple as that.”

“I willnevermake that oath,” I spat, revolted at the mere idea of arguing for Asher’s mercy.

Brad went back to studying me. “Are things still bad there? In Abyssos?”

I nodded before I realized I was doing so.

“And you still want to help your people?”

I gave him a scathing look. I wouldn’t risk this very situation if I didn’t need to.

“Just asking, just asking,” he said, holding his hands up, his palms flashing at me.

I bristled at the aggressive gesture before I remembered—human. He couldn’t attack me with magic. Brad seemed to notice the faux pas then, because he quickly dropped his hands.

Then he went back to staring at me.

“Ask your questions, Brad.”

“What kind of name is Malesuis?”

I walked up to the bars and pressed my body against them, wrapping my hands around the poles.

His eyes flitted up and down my torso, and I saw his subtle swallow.

“It meansbadlands. I am Lana of the Badlands.” The red, craggy earth, the dozens of sand-worn castles long since abandoned. These were the first sights I took in when I entered the world.

“Aren’t the Badlands abandoned?”