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He’d made a mistake. Another fucking mistake. He shouldn’t have left her with only Conrad and Max to look after her, should’ve stayed with her himself—

“Max.” Darien somehow managed to keep his voice steady.

A female voice floated through the background.

Darien said, “Is that Dallas?”

“Yeah,” Max gritted out. “Sab went to find Logan—”

“I need you to go with Dallas and find Erasmus and Cyra. Bring them to me, I have questions for him—”

“I thought Cyra left town.”

Darien quickly filled him in on what the letter had revealed. And then he concluded, “I bet you Erasmus doesn’t have what they need to get the Well anymore, and once they figured out he was useless they kept him hostage so he wouldn’t speak. Cyra wrote in the letter that they’re being kept at Lucent Enterprises.”

“What about you?” Max was still catching his breath.

“I’m going with the others to shut the Veil. But I need to get Loren first.” The imperator was taking her into Spirit—he knew he was. Which meant he would need to get into the tunnels and find their Life Clocks—

God fucking damnit. He should never have left her.

“I’ll call you,” Max said.

Darien hung up. The others had heard the entire call.

Travis said, “We’re going to have to kill him. Aren’t we?” The imperator. They would’ve avoided it in favor of simply shutting the gate to stop his plans, but now, with Loren’s life directly on the line like this…

“If that’s what it takes,” Darien said. With a steadying breath, he declared, “I will make her safe again.” His heart pounded so hard he thought he might throw up. “Even if it’s the last thing I do.”

He walked over to the fridge, where his Hob was watching from his usual spot by the many boxes of cereal.

“Morty, I need you to do me a favor,” Darien began, every word tense, every breath shallow. He needed to stay calm, but he felt like he couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. The Hob cocked his head. “Can you go into Spirit Terra and look for Loren? Can you do that for me?”

The Hob nodded.

“Be careful.” Darien formed a fist with his right hand and gave the Hob the best smile he could manage. “Fist bump?”

Mortifer formed a tiny fist and bumped it against Darien’s.

“See you in a bit,” Darien said.

Mortifer vanished into a puff of sparkling black smoke.

And then Darien was back in the entrance hall. “Dom,” he called, nodding at the Angel. “Think you can go meet up with Max?” With those demons coming out of the gate, and the waves of power rendering them useless every time they blasted through, he wouldn’t leave anyone shorthanded.

“Sure thing.”

Blue stepped forward. “I’ll go,” she said, grasping onto Dominic’s arm. “I’ll go with him.”

They left, Dominic carrying Blue as he shot into the sky.

Darien faced the entrance hall full of people. Ivy, Jack, Tanner, Travis, Hanli, all of them armed to the teeth. “Ready?”

Heads nodded, murmurs of affirmation rippling through the room.

Darien slid the last of his guns into his weapons belt. His phone was buzzing with an incoming call, but when he saw the name displayed on the screen—FINN SOLACE—he ignored it.

“Motherfucker,” Darien muttered.