Page 281

“Know what?” Silas asked.

Max spoke up. “It’s a portal,” he said. “The shadow is coming from an inter-dimensional portal to Spirit Terra.” Screw it—they were all going to die anyway. These people deserved to at least know and understand what was about to take them out.

“Spirit Terra?” Raina repeated. “I thought that was?—”

“A myth?” Max asked. “A bedtime story? So did we.”

“So the Veil is real?” Charlotte asked.

Max nodded. “The Veil is real.” He could feel his sister watching him. Magenta, too.

Magenta whispered something to Maya in Ilevyn.

Raina said, “How do you guys know this?”

Max made eye contact with Travis. Then Jewels, Aspen. Malakai was so busy stuffing his face, he didn’t seem to be hearing one word of the conversation, Creature smacking loudly on the banana he was stealing from Critter.

Travis said, “We have a friend who?—”

“Whose dad works for the Fleet,” Max interrupted. Dallas shot him a grateful look. “We heard it from him. The imperator is trying to avoid public outrage and panic, so he’s chosen to only keep the Fleet informed. From our understanding, that’s why they cut communications.”

“So…,” Travis said, circling back to their former topic. “Waterfalls.” He took a sip of coffee. “Thoughts?”

Max was already shaking his head. “Won’t work. We have no idea where they lead—it would be a gamble. And if we end up in Spirit Terra, we won’t be able to breathe.”

The conversation didn’t go on for much longer after that, nobody wanting to slip up and say something they shouldn’t say. About Loren and Darien. About the Well. Any further questions that came up, Max answered, and he kept his answers short. Straightforward.

When everyone was done eating and started helping Raina, Charlotte, and Silas clean up the mess, Dallas wandered into the living room to take a look at the glass display cases hanging on the wall. Pressed behind the glass were pairs of impressive wings, some with silver feathers, others white or gold.

“What are these?” Dallas asked. She looked over her shoulder at Raina, who was loading up the dishwasher with Charlotte. “Fleet wings?”

Raina nodded. “Yes. I used to work for the Fleet.”

Dominic said, “As a solider?”

“No. As a designer.”

Dallas’s brows went up. “Wait—youbuilttheir wings?”

Raina smiled proudly. “Builtandinstalled. Not all of them, of course, but I was one of their head designers.” Glass clinked as she slid in the drawers on the dishwasher and turned it on.

Dallas slid her gaze back to the wings. “Does that mean you know how to remove them, too?” she asked quietly. When her throat bobbed, Max found his own shifting in answer.

She was really doing this, wasn’t she?

Raina studied the destroyed wings that were fastened to Dallas’s back. There was empathy in her gaze. “Yes. I can attach and remove them.”

For a moment, Dallas got really quiet. Contemplative. Then she drew a deep breath and turned to face Raina. “I would like you to remove mine.”

The couch cushions sank,snapping Max out of his thoughts, as Travis threw himself down beside him.

“You gotta relax, man,” Travis said as he slung an arm across the back of the couch.

Max tried, but his knee was bouncing, and he couldn’t stop listening to every little sound that came from the room Raina and Charlotte had brought Dallas into. Until Travis showed up, he was the only one in here, the others having left to other rooms, leaving Max alone to brood.

Travis continued, “They’re not even doing anything invasive. It’s nowhere near what her surgery was like.”

Max sighed. “I know, I just…can’t help it.” All Raina was doing was removing the wings from the outside—nothing invasive, like Travis had said. Nothing like Dal’s surgery, which the doctors and Healers had put her under for. A few painkillers were all she’d need to get through this.