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“You shouldn’t have come here,” Myst said to Regine after a long and awkward silence. Neither had said much since Astra had taken Brandon outside. I had a feeling both Valkyries were shaken up by Brandon’s revelations about Hrista. Regine seemed to be having a particularly hard time digesting the concept. “Now you’re stuck like me.”

“And us,” I interjected with a dry smile.

Regine shook her head, her blue gaze flickering white, often. It spoke of her fluctuating emotional state, but I wasn’t sure what she was dealing with, specifically. Had I just been told that the sister I loved dearly was behind this mess, I probably would’ve been hurt and angry. Confused. Yeah, that was likely true for Regine, too. “I had to come,” she replied. “You’d been missing for a long time, and Edda spent her days and nights combing through Purgatory trying to find you.”

“What is Purgatory like?” Viola asked. She’d settled by Isabelle’s side, her pink glowing hands moving up and down the sentry-Druid’s body to try and speed up her recovery. She’d just discovered that the runes on her skin didn’t stop her from healing others—perhaps that had been because HQ wasn’t aware of her healing abilities. Or maybe they hadn’t considered it a threatening ability. It didn’t really matter, as long as she was able to help Isabelle, who was constantly fading in and out of consciousness, much like Voss and Chantal. I wasn’t sure she could do much to help her wake up sooner, though, but we’d all agreed it was worth a shot. Isabelle had been missing for the longest, and she must have seen and heard enough to help us make more sense of this place—at least that was our collective hope.

“You’ll find out someday,” Regine shot back, apparently irritated by the question. “It is not for me or my sister to divulge such secrets.”

Viola frowned slightly. “I was just asking. Relax.”

“How can I? Some Berserker just told me my beloved sister is responsible for this new hell!”

Myst squeezed her shoulder gently. “And it’s their people she has been tormenting,” she reminded Regine. “They have enough on their plates already. If this is, in fact, the work of one of ours, then it’s our duty to make sure they get to the truth and protect their world from whatever Hrista has planned.”

After earlier disappointments, I felt like I finally had something solid to hang on to where Myst was concerned. She hadn’t come to us easily, and maybe things would’ve gone more smoothly if she’d helped us sooner. But I’d also learned to make the most out of what we’d been given, and Myst was practically saying she had our backs. It mattered more to me than I’d thought.

“You believe Brandon, then,” Regine gasped. I empathized with her dismay, but Regine hadn’t seen what we’d seen. She hadn’t experienced the horrors we’d survived. Worse things were probably just around the corner, and this particular Valkyrie had shown up late for the game. It didn’t mean she wasn’t a welcome addition to this odd crew, however. We were in dire need of strong allies.

“I need to see for myself,” Myst replied. “But I will not exclude any possibilities.”

Jericho and Dafne exchanged glances. Soph and Richard were looking at me. Soon enough, the dragons’ eyes found me, too. I felt them waiting, expecting something from me, but I wasn’t sure what I could say that would help. Myst was a wondrous creature of brightness and beauty. Regine was a spunkier version of the same. I had no idea what Hrista might be like, but if she was anything like her sisters, I also had trouble imagining her as the villain in this story.

But if Brandon was right—and as much as I disliked his general ambiguity, he had yet to lie to us—then the righteous and wonderful and much beloved Hrista was our enemy. I knew nothing about how to defeat a Valkyrie. Where would I even start? Would light deprivation weaken her? Maybe, but there were other sources that would allow her to charge her weapons and powers. Myst had fared pretty well with Astra by her side, for example.

“What will you do if Hrista is to blame?” I asked Myst. It earned me a glare from Regine, which made my spine stiffen, but the question had been warranted by these new and unknown circumstances.

“We cannot let her get away with it,” Myst replied firmly, and a weight fell from my shoulders. I’d gotten comfortable with Valkyries on our side, not against us. The thought of losing their support scared me. “But I need to see her. I need to talk to her, to hear Hrista say it out loud…”

Regine shook her head again. “I’m still not buying it. Sorry.”

“Why not?” Richard asked. There was a dash of cynicism in his question, and I knew where he was coming from. How could such celestial beings be so na?ve as to think that their own would always be flawless and beyond reproach? Perfection didn’t exist. We all screwed up in one way or another. Even Reapers had done horrible things. How were the Valkyries so childlike to think they wouldn’t slip up?

“Because I have known Hrista for a long time,” Regine replied, but her tone suggested even she knew it wasn’t enough to sustain her argument.

“You have to admit that she changed,” Myst said, her eyes lowered. “Not long before, the Spirit Bender had been destroyed once, and it had broken Hrista. Then Visio happened, and she thought she’d get another shot at being with him. Brandon was right about one thing—nothing has been the same since that day. How often have you seen Hrista since then?”

Regine gave her a curious look. “Barely.”

“So how can we completely dismiss Brandon’s accusation, when we’ve been unable to find her? It’s why I’m here, after all…”

“The problem is you’re both stuck,” I said. “You can’t get into the real Shade. You can’t go back to Purgatory. HQ controls this strange place, and we all need to figure out who’s in charge and how we can beat them. No matter who the real enemy is, I have to ask… can we count on you two?”

Regine exhaled sharply and walked over to Isabelle’s side. The girl was in deep sleep, Viola’s hands still moving up and down in a bid to speed up her metabolism. “I understand she might have answers,” the Valkyrie said, looking at Isabelle. “I think I might be able to help her wake up sooner, though I cannot promise much. My expertise isn’t with living creatures.”

“That’s Regine’s way of saying that yes, you can count on us both,” Myst said, smiling at me. For a moment, the entire world felt right again.

Sure, we’d made progress. We’d saved our friends. But the path ahead was still narrow and dark and sinuous, snaking through the great unknown that was the false Shade. There was so much we still didn’t know, and the prospect of facing a Valkyrie as our enemy didn’t help. We missed our parents and our families, our friends, and our lives from before this nightmare had begun.

Most importantly, we missed peace and balance.

The universe felt wrong, and it was up to us to restore it, to bring it back to what it had once been. I hadn’t felt this strange or scared since Visio—a life I’d left behind without any regrets. I’d just gotten used to sharing the Spirit Bender’s power, but this? This was too much, even for me. I glanced at Myst and allowed myself a moment to bask in the sunlight of her hair. There was more to my attraction toward her than just the spiritual component. There was something physical too, and the combined force left me spinning.

She was the guiding light I’d follow through to the end. She’d come to us in this deadly darkness, and she would help us return to the brightness of our normal lives. “Will you go with us and Brandon to see for ourselves if Hrista is, in fact, responsible?” I asked, determined to find the truth as quickly as possible.

“I will. And so will Regine,” Myst said.

In that moment, I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that our turn had come. We would take the fight to HQ this time, whether we were ready for it or not. It had to be done. The truth could no longer be left in the dangerous hands of shadows.