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“Cream and sugar?” He grabbed a mug from the cupboard by the fridge.

“Yeah, please,” he said again.

Footsteps on the hardwood floor pulled Max’s attention toward the hallway. Jewels and Travis were heading this way, both groggy, the former lifting a hand to her mouth to stiflea yawn. Critter, her white bat Familiar, was sitting on her shoulder.

Max scanned the cuts all over Travis’s face—and grimaced.

Travis frowned. “Is it that bad?” He slid onto the chair beside Max, Jewels claiming the one on Travis’s other side.

“You said Delaney smashedonebeaker in your face or ten?”

Jewels snickered. Critter hopped off her shoulder and walked to the fruit bowl—to the bananas inside. When the bat pointed with a wing, Jewels grabbed a banana and peeled it. “It’s really notthatbad, Max.” She paused in the midst of peeling and brushed her fingertips across a gash in Travis’s forehead—the deepest one. Travis blushed. Wow—he really liked this one, didn’t he? That was a first. “He’ll be healed within a few days,” she added. She broke off a chunk of banana and fed it to Critter.

“Speaking of a few days,” Max began with a sigh. He mumbled a thank-you to Silas as he placed a mug of hot coffee in front of him. “That light power of yours,” he said, addressing Raina, who looked over her shoulder at him as she portioned the food across the plates on the counter. “Is it powerful enough to see inside that darkness?” He gestured outside—to the supernatural black shroud steadily swallowing the city—and took a sip of coffee. The warmth spread through him, thawing the ice in his veins. It was cold as hell now, even with the furnace on full-blast.

Raina shook her head. “No, unfortunately not. That was the first thing we tried. We had some friends we were looking for during the evacuation, so we tried going into the South Financial District to look for them, but—” Her eyes—silver, just like her hair—grew heavy with emotion. “No luck,” she concluded with a sad smile.

“Even if it did work,” Silas added, “her light doesn’t last that long. She gets drained pretty quickly.”

“Do you have it, too?” Max asked him. “The light thing?”

“No, that’s all Raina. She’s the special one,” he said with a wink. His sister gave a soft, half-hearted laugh. “Coffee?” he asked Travis and Jewels.

“Please,” they said.

Max tried not to let on that he was disappointed. If Raina’s light had given them a way to see in the darkness seeping out of the Void, they might’ve stood a chance at surviving longer. But?—

That was probably wishful thinking, actually. Once the darkness took over, it wouldn’t be long before all the oxygen was sucked out of Yveswich. So, either way…

They were dead meat.

The rest of their group joined them not long after Silas finished pouring Travis and Jewels some coffee—including Dallas, to Max’s surprise, who staggered down the hallway in a pair of Raina’s pajamas, her copper hair a rat’s nest. Malakai and Aspen were the last to join, the former looking miserable, but better health-wise. With all his shit currently in the laundry, he wore a borrowed shirt and a pair of sweats, the former too small for him.

“Hey—hey, dickhead,” Travis said as Malakai made a beeline to the coffee pot. Travis cupped his hands over his mouth and repeated, “Hey, dickhead!”

Malakai grunted over his shoulder, Creature—who was perched there—doing the same.

Travis said, “Your nipples are showing. Just thought you should know.”

The Reaper merely gave him the middle finger.

Everyone sat down at the island and the kitchen table to eat. Scarlet was wrapped up in a blanket, still shaking from head to toes from being dropped in the canal last night. She looked pale. Even her hair, the strands usually so warm, seemed cooler. Ashen, almost. Magenta was fine, but still quiet as ever. She kept close to Scarlet, always shy around anyone else.

“So,” Travis began, the word muffled as he chewed a bite of toast. “You guys said you went Below to look for a way out. Did you try the Necropolis, too?” The Necropolis was an ancient, crumbling city below the streets of Yveswich, otherwise known asThe City of the Dead.Max recalled Kylar telling him that. An old tourist attraction that was now overrun with monsters.

Raina nodded. “We tried, but two of the entrances are swathed in shadow, and the only entrance we did find was caved in.”

“What about trying the waterfalls?” Travis’s question was for Max and Dominic, his steel-blue eyes leaping between them.

But the Angel’s brow furrowed; he had not been present for that conversation. “What do you mean?”

Jewels chimed in. “Travis and I were talking about them last night. He said Roman mentioned that the Veil is thinner by places of constant movement, like waterfalls. Apparently, the blending of the dimensions is turning them into portals.”

“Veil?” Charlotte and Silas echoed.

Max stiffened. So did Dallas.

As for Travis, his face smoothed with an epiphany. “Oh gods,” he breathed. “You don’t know.”