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I turn to her. “He said–”

Daeja snorts, blinking slowly at Cole. “I can hear him.”

“You can?”

Cole tilts his head. “What...are you doing?”

I must have been staring in silence at Daeja. “She understands you. And we can…talk.”

“Talk?”He looks back and forth between us two.

I nod. “I can hear her in my mind.”

“How is that even possible?”

“Remember the blue fire Willard spoke of? We saw it here in the forest the other night. She touched it and grew triple her size. Since then, we’ve been able to communicate.”

The curve of his lips part open in amazement. “Perhaps…Willard was right all along...”

Snapping his mouth shut, he takes a few steps forward and locks eyes with Daeja. “The guards at our tower will spot you if you fly above the treetops. Especially during the day. Keep off the shoreline, otherwise you’ll leave new prints.” He shifts his gaze back to me. “And you. Keep a low profile. Do as Marge asks, until we figure out a plan.”

Daeja sweeps her tail across the sand, clearing the shore of her paw prints. I scratch her under the chin before Cole and I head back to camp.

Cole pauses at the trees right before we get to camp and turns to me, his voice a whisper. “I’m so sorry you had to see that last night…I didn’t want you to. I came to look for you after, and you were gone. I was scared you left…”

I flick my gaze up to his warm amber eyes. “You didn’t stop it.”

“I couldn’t.” He swallows hard. “I…I don’t know what to do, Kat. I feel trapped. I’m terrified to lose you again. But each day you stay here is another risk…”

“Then come with me,” I breathe out, edging closer to him.

He searches my face, a frown pulling at his lips before he looks down and away from me. “I can’t.”

I grab his hand. “Yes, you can. My mother told me to find you and not to come back. I don’t think she meant Padmoor. I think she meant Arterias. Maybe she wanted both of us to go to the Dragon Lands. Together.”

“We can’t stay in the Dragon Lands. Do you know how savage the rebels are? They would kill us on the spot.”

I shake my head. “No, I don’t think they would.”

“And what makes you say that?”

“Because my father was a rebel.”

“What? How would you know that?”

I fill him in on my father’s journal and all the entries.

Cole’s eyes widen and he instinctively grips my arm. “Do you have it with you?”

“No.”

“Where is it?”

My face falls as I recall where I left it last. “It’s...it’s in my bag. In the healer’s quadrant.”

The thick muscle of his throat pulses with his heartbeat, and he snags my wrist, pulling me toward the outpost. “We have to retrieve it before someone else finds it.”

We race back. As soon as we pass the wall, Carlisle appears and marches straight for us. He motions at Cole, tight and urgent, demanding his presence.