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“It’s a tourist area like the Avenue of the Scarlet Star,” she forced out, swallowing her emotions. Hammering them down the way Darien had hammered his own down for twenty-four years. How he did it so expertly, she had no idea. “I think we’re close to there.”

“Which puts us how far away from Roman’s?”

She did the math in her head. “A while,” she admitted.

“Okay, Miss Vague, what’s ‘a while’ mean?”

The air far above their heads began to pulse. A rapid thumping sound ricocheted through the area, starting from one end of the street and carrying onto the other.Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump…

“What is that?” Loren wondered aloud. It was by habit that she craned her neck to see, but there was nothing around, below, or above them that wasn’t suffocated with shadow. Not even her Sight picked up on what was making that sound.

“Helicopters,” Malakai said. Of course—it seemed obvious now.

The rotary wings chopped apart the air like blades, the currents pulsing heavily in her ears, but from way down here they couldn’t feel any wind.

“Don’t get your hopes up.” Malakai sighed. “If we can’t see them, they can’t see us, either. They won’t be coming down far enough to do us any good.” He tugged on her hand, urging her along. “Hurry it up, Blondie. I’m tired of this shit.”

They walked a bit quicker now, still taking care not to trip, both eager to get out of here. Whoever was in those helicopters might not be able to help them, but maybe there were other poor souls who they could locate. People they could save. Maybe some of those people would be her family. Her friends.

Darien.Her fragile, lovesick heart tacked his name to the end of every thought that crossed her mind.

Please be alive,she begged.

During the long trek, she’d had plenty of time to think. About bargains. About life and death. About everything Darien had given her in six months, everything he’d sacrificed. And she asked herself what she would give—what she would sacrifice—for him.

Anything.

Everything.

Warm tears that glowed with pastel light slipped down her icy cheeks, and she blotted them dry with the back of her gloved hand.

Please, please be alive.

2

Underground

YVESWICH, STATE OF KER

‘I hate you.’

For Darien Cassel, being told by the woman he loved that she hated him was worse than being shot or stabbed. Since the moment the bomb went off, those three words had circled him like hungry vultures, yapping a cruel and tuneless song.

‘I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.’

He was disgusted with himself for walking out on her. For leaving while she was upset. He’d sped away from Roman’s house stupidly believing he’d get the chance to fix the hurt he’d caused her, and now he’d consider himself lucky if he ever saw her again.

He’d fucked up. Badly. Hate was the least he deserved.

‘I don’t have time right now,’he’d told her, in a tone so sharp, he was ashamed to have used it on her.‘We can talk about this when I get back.’

That was the problem with time: everyone always thought they had more of it.

What a fucking joke this had turned out to be. He and Roman had been trapped down here in these tunnels, blind and running out of air, for gods knew how long. Hours, definitely, thoughhe’d lost track of exactly how many. One minute, onesecondwas too long, buthours?

He had to get out of here. For Loren. For his family—who, apart from Roman, Darien hadn’t seen since a storm of darkness had blasted through the city, swallowing everything like a black hole.

Cell reception was down. No light—not even the tactical lights on their guns—could penetrate the gloom. Tracking did sweet fuck all when everyone’s auras were untraceable.