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KAPOOR: It sounds almost scientific.

ASHFORD: We do our best to contain this madness with sterile words and rules, but the truth is, it’s a wilderness of ruin. As soon as you find a rule, you discover a situation where it doesn’t apply. Still. It gives us a framework. A way to comprehend the unknowable. But sometimes I wonder if that is more dangerous than accepting the wilderness.

KAPOOR: What do you mean?

ASHFORD: The men on theKrachkafound something in the ocean. They should have cast it back, but they werecurious. They kept it, and it wrecked them on the rocks and made these islands its home. The military thought to contain it in that bunker, guard and study it. Landon thought to worship it. All of them seeking a kind of understanding. But if they had only understood its one desire, they would have left it alone.

KAPOOR: Its desire. The Six-Wing wants to be free.

ASHFORD: Yes. But what you encountered wasn’t the Six-Wing.

KAPOOR: No? Because I counted. There were definitely six wings.

ASHFORD: Let me be more accurate: the Eidolon that Landon was trying to free is the Seraph. The Six-Wing isnotthe Seraph. Not an Eidolon. The worlds you wanderedthrough were echoes, layered over each other, creating a bridge between the Seraph’s world and ours. And the creature that inhabited them was an echo too. The Six-Wing, as you call it, is the echo of the Eidolon called the Seraph.

KAPOOR: How can you be sure?

ASHFORD: If you had met the true Seraph, you would not have made it out.

KAPOOR: Not all of us did.

ASHFORD: Even the echo of a god is a dangerous thing.

18

A KNOCK ONthe door made us jump. Abby tossed a throw blanket over the papers and shut her laptop as the door opened. It was Lily.

“We’re heading out,” she informed us. “And Liam is here, looking for Abby.”

“Right,” Abby said dully. “Be right there.” She palmed the USB drive and the SD card, which I’d set down on the bedspread. She put both in her bag, along with her laptop—more of her habit of keeping all the evidence with her at all times, and I didn’t blame her. With everything that was going on, I wouldn’t be surprised to find Dr. Kapoor or even Mrs. Popova going through our things.

She grabbed her bag. “I’ll see you, Hayes.” Her voice was tight. We needed to talk about what we’d seen on that drive.Sheneeded to talk—needed to get it out, the confusion and the betrayal, before it festered like a wound. Her grandfather had been here, hadbeeninvolved. And her boss, the man who’d taken care of her for years, had known.

At least my foster parents hadn’t known they were keeping secrets from me.

“See you,” I said, because Lily was there and we had no choice but to let silence win. Abby gave me a weak wave, looking more like she was walking to the guillotine than to meet up with her supposed boyfriend, and headed out.

“Liam and her?” Lily said when she was gone. She scrunched up her nose. “Okay, I guess.”

“Don’t ask me, I’m new here,” I said. “I’m going to change my clothes really quick and I’ll meet you at the car.”

“Better not be late again. We won’t get lucky twice,” she told me. I gave her a mock-salute, forcing every bit of false cheer into it, and she headed down the hall.

I quickly gathered up the documents and stuffed them between the mattress and the box spring. As hiding places went, it was a bit cliché, but it would do in a pinch.

I bolted to my own room to quickly change. I didn’t have time to shower, and my skin felt gritty, but there was nothing for it. At least I could pull on fresh clothes. I also hadn’t slept, unless you counted being unconscious for a couple hours, and my body was starting to catch up with that fact. Today was going to be brutal.

I skidded into the kitchen to discover Lily ready to go, boots on and travel mug in hand, but Kenny was still snoring on the couch.

“Uh—are we going to be late?” I asked tentatively. Fifteen minutes to the hour of doom.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got this,” Lily said. She walked to the foot of the couch, took a deep breath, and shouted, “KENNETH!”

Kenny bolted upright, somehow managed to catch his phone, and started yanking on his boots.

“Thirty seconds,” Lily told him, and headed for the door. She gestured for me to follow her. By the time we reached the porch, Kenny was right behind us, even if he was hopping on one foot while he tugged the other boot on.

I was glad it wasn’t a long ride up the hill to the LARC, because the whole time my leg was bouncing, and I chewed on my lip. Lily and Kenny were so normal. They had no idea what was going on, and that felt more alien than the place in the mist.