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Roark sucked in a sharp breath of his own. “Darien, listen to me. You have until noon tomorrow to get out of the city.Noon—and not a second later. The minute I give the order, a new forcefield will go up, and no one will be allowed in oroutof Yveswich.”

Loren’s heart tripped a beat, the others who were eavesdropping behind them communicating in frantic whispers.

“Quarantine?” Max asked, his question rising above the panic.

The others quieted down. Waiting for Roark’s reply.

Roark kept his focus on Darien. “Tell only who you must,” he said. “Take only what you need. If you are not out of the city by noon tomorrow, you will be trapped here, and there is nothing I or anyone else will be able to do to help you.”

Loren felt woozy as his words sank in. “They’re going to leave all these people behind to die?” The last of the survivors—children and the elderly among them. Walled in like cattle in a city of wolves.

Roark spared her a glance—just one. Loren swore she saw…somethingthere. Compassion, perhaps. But it was gone so quickly, she wondered if she imagined it.

“A stronger forcefield is our best attempt at containing the spread,” he explained to Darien, lowering his voice as people walked by. “It won’t hold—not for long. But we have no otherchoice. Until we come up with a proper solution, containing it—slowing it—for as long as possible is our best course of action.”

Loren’s head spun like a carousel, the others speaking over each other, forming plans and raising concerns.

What about Tanner? What if we can’t find Paxton and Eugene? What if Shay is somewhere out there, alive and in need of help?

What if we run out of time?

“You need to get out as quickly as you can—do you understand me?” Roark pressed, speaking to them both now. Loren felt a jolt of surprise when the next breath he drew trembled. “Get.Out.”

Part Two

THE CAGE

19

Somewhere in Yveswich

STATE OF KER

Shay Cousens awoketo the clinking of glass and the rattling of tires on a cobbled road.

She cracked open her eyes, but it took her several blinks to see through her mental haze. Last she remembered, she was in the tunnels by the tar pits, blinded by the bright flash of an earth-shattering explosion. Glimpses of what happened after were all that remained—not enough to piece together the full picture. And now she was here, in a moving vehicle. Which meant…

She didn’t know what it meant. But she did know this: She was lucky to be alive. Battered, yes—but alive. Her head felt like it might blow up, and the ribs in her left side were burning—fractured, she’d be willing to bet.

Groaning softly in pain, she tried to roll onto her back, but she was so disoriented she couldn’t tell up from down. The hard surface she was lying upon was cold and grooved and?—

A truck. This was a pickup truck with an enclosed canopy. And the lights pulsing through the windows?… Those were streetlights.

The fact that someone had her tossed back here, instead of onto a proper seat…Hugered flag. Surely if this was a rescue attempt, they wouldn’t be treating her like cargo, would they?

She lifted her pounding head.

There were crates back here. Crates and?—

Holy hell, she wasn’t alone. Passed out nearby was a man, but her vision was still so blurry—had she been drugged?—that she had to catalogue his appearance in stages and bleary blinks.

Short brown hair. A full-body suit, like the one Shay wore, except his was black instead of dark blue. The magically enhanced material was filthy, ivory skin peeking through the rips. Below his ear, partially obscured by crusts of red that gleamed in the pulses of light, was a tattoo—the letter S in an old-style script, one horn at the beginning and another at the end.

Oh shit, it was Tanner Atlas. Passed out—and bleeding.

Shay pushed herself up onto her elbows, craning her neck to peer through the back window of the cab. Two men were in there, but it was hard to see much of them through the condensation on the glass.

The one in the driver’s seat leaned forward to butt out a cigarette in the ash tray, the act of doing so exposing the ink below his eye?—