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Abertha shrugs and looks away, uncomfortable. She is dishevelled, and clearly weak, though not as dire as the others had been when Dawsyn had healed them. She is thin, haggard, certainly. But not moments away from her death.

“I can help you, too,” Dawsyn tells her, gesturing down to her palms. “Return some strength.”

Abertha looks sidelong at Dawsyn’s hands, but then nods hesitantly. Dawsyn lays her palms on Abertha’s cheeks. But the magic groans internally within her, turning reluctant.

Once more,Dawsyn coaxes.Please. She will need it.

The magic collides and finds its way to her hands, now moving like a petulant child, just as it had in the Chasm when there were too many people to mend and heal.

The light fades all too soon. “Damn it.”

“It is all right,” Abertha says softly, moving away again. “Food will strengthen me. Rest, too.”

The magic has barely brought colour back to the girl’s cheeks, but she is young and hardy. A girl of the Ledge. She will survive.

“Salem?” comes Esra’s voice, his face appearing between roots. “Did you die?”

Salem grumbles. “Surely not. No way it’d beyehsorry face greetin’ me at Mother’s Gate.”

Esra grins. There is a spark of genuine relief in his eyes. “Wet those chops, old man.”

Salem frowns.“What?”

“Dawsyn, move aside a moment. I need to lower my arse into this warren.”

Salem looks incredulously up at Esra’s toothy smile. “What’re yeh blitherin’ about?”

“Why, I’ve successfully gained the affections of the handsome Ledge boy, Salem. Our lips were united not moments ago.”

Salem pauses for a moment, a small smile slipping through. “Bullshit,” he pronounces.

Esra’s returning grin speaks of something much more than victory. “I told you he’d fall in love with me. They always do.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Salem murmurs. “Bolly to yeh, son.”

Dawsyn shakes her head. “Come,” she says to them all. “There are more of us to find.”

“Who?” Salem asks. He notices when Dawsyn swallows. His eyes turn pained. “Ryon,” he answers for her.

“Tash and Riv, too.” Her heart rate spikes at the mentioning of their names. They could be anywhere on this mountain.

“We’ll find them, lass.”

“We will,” she says, and nods to Abertha to climb out of the warren first. She does not allow herself to think of any other possibility. Already, the separation aches.

He is not dead.

He will not die.

CHAPTERTHIRTY

Ryon remains on the fringe of consciousness. Even during the occasions his eyelids flutter open and his gaze fixes, he is never fully aware of his surroundings.

He can feel the weight of a sinister sleep dragging him under again and again. It dulls sound. Blinds him. The only sensation he can distinguish beneath the surface is a muted sort of pain, or rather the knowledge of pain, as though his mind cannot quite part ways with it even down here.

It is difficult to ignore, this mild ache. Incrementally it grows, a relentless nuisance to an otherwise peaceful stupor. Eventually Ryon grows irritable enough that he reaches for the surface. He claws his way to consciousness. And this time, when he opens his eyes, he makes sense of shape and sound.

“He resists death, this night wing,” a voice says. Feminine, but strange. Unsettling.