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“I spoke to him on the flight from the airport, and he’s relieved to have me shadow him in a telepathic sense. He wants the oversight, is scared he’ll screw something up.”

“Kid’s young.” A frown between Adam’s eyebrows. “You sure this won’t hurt him?”

There it was, that protective heart. “There aren’t many Es with Jaya’s—and Hanz’s—specialty, so he’s been pulled into active service earlier than might be optimal, but Jaya told me he’s passed every single test to check his psychological and psychic readiness, and that to hold him back would be detrimental to his development.

He also knows he can walk away at any point. ”

“Good. Last thing Jacques would want is to scar an E.”

A sucked-in gulp of air, distressed telepathic contact. Sascha, he’s so hurt. My sensors are picking up amputations and other variations they can’t process.

Leaving Adam’s side at once, Sascha went straight to Hanz’s.

And though Naia had described the extent of Jacques’s injuries, Sascha’s own stomach twisted at the sight.

The last time she’d seen the falcon male, he’d been scowling down at her cub, saying no to playing a game of swords and dragons, but in the way of a man who knew he was going to do it but had to make a show of resisting first.

Right then, she’d known that her cub would be as safe with Jacques as she was with Dorian. If her heart hurt at seeing him so wounded, how much worse must it be for his clan?

Do you want me to telepath you a visual? she asked Hanz, forcing herself to keep her tone calm because if she wavered, the younger E might crumple. Will your receptors be able to process it?

No, I was born blind. I have no visual parameters beyond how I perceive the world with my sensors. Please describe him to me.

Hiding her surprise at his revelation of his congenital blindness—and hoping the story behind it was of a loving family that refused to buckle to societal and Council pressure—she spoke aloud to keep the others in the loop.

“Hanz needs a description of Jacques’s physical state.

His sensors are having trouble processing it. I’ll—”

“No,” Adam interrupted. “I’ll do it.” Then, as Naia’s face trembled before she schooled it into professional calm, he gave a crisp, clear description of the man Sascha knew was his closest friend.

“We don’t know about the internal semi-shift beyond what we can scan.

His brain…that’s why you’re here, Hanz.”

Hanz’s throat moved as he swallowed. “Thank you. I’m sorry for causing you pain.”

Adam shook his head and touched Hanz on the shoulder, a changeling who understood when another being needed physical contact to feel safe. “It’s fine. You ask for whatever you need.”

“Sascha?” Hanz held out his hand.

Taking it, she said, “Ready?”

A nod, but inside her mind came a scared question. What if he’s trapped in there?

If he is and we can find him, that means he can come back once he heals, can finish the shift either way. She didn’t actually know that, and neither did any healers Naia had contacted, but it was their best hope. It would mean he’s just stuck, not gone.

Hanz’s eyes met hers, the sightless orbs swimming with distress and determination both. You’ll watch? I don’t want to make a mistake, make him worse.

You won’t. Jaya wouldn’t have sent you if she didn’t trust you could handle it. Sascha squeezed his hand before requesting a telepathic connection through his shields that would permit her to shadow him.

Hanz opened on his end at once, and she could immediately see everything he was doing as he did it. While she’d worked with Jaya on previous occasions, it was once again a revelation to see how their E abilities worked when compared to her own.

She saw Hanz take an initial broad emotional read of the room before he filtered out the “noise” and began to drill down through the layers of what appeared to his mind to be a heavy black blanket that stifled Jacques’s.

It was obvious that he was being methodical in not skipping a single step as he built not a bridge but a tunnel.

I can get in , he said on a psychic exhale. It’s as if his natural shield suffered a quake. It’s here but in pieces with large gaps in between.

He was caught mid-shift , Sascha replied, perhaps right as the shield was resetting from one form to the next. Because when changelings shifted, they did so on every level.

Hanz didn’t reply, his attention on his work.

I’m trying to find him , the E said to Sascha. When people are lost in their minds, or when they’ve retreated to a protected bit of the brain, we have to drill. It sounds harsh, but it’s not, I promise.

I know. Jaya showed me once.

She’s so good at it, can do multiple tunnels at once, but I can only do one at a time.

Trust yourself, Hanz. Jaya does.

A long and deep breath before Hanz settled in, having already indicated he preferred to work standing up.

He went through three nutrient drinks and an equal number of hours of work before collapsing in the chair Adam had earlier dragged over for him—before the falcon wing leader had to leave to take a meeting that was urgent for the clan’s bottom line.

The heads of clans and packs didn’t have the luxury of giving in to their emotions, and their sentinels and seconds were cut from the same cloth.

Sascha knew Jacques would’ve been the first person to remind Adam of his responsibilities had he shown any signs of forgetting. That was a sentinel’s—or second’s—job.

“I can’t find him,” Hanz said aloud to Sascha and Naia, his lower lip trembling and one of his hands clutching Sascha’s.

Naia, her face dark with grief, nonetheless put a reassuring hand on Hanz’s shoulder, while Sascha blanketed him in emotions warm and comforting.

Tears rolled down the young E’s face. “I want to try again,” he said through the roar of his own visceral emotions. “I don’t want to give up.”

Sascha’s heart was heavy, and though she agreed with Hanz that he should try again after a couple of hours of rest to rebuild his strength, she was conscious that success was unlikely. And much as she didn’t want to say that, she had to—Jacques’s clan deserved to have all available information.

“I saw every bit of what he did,” she told Adam and Naia after Hanz fell asleep. “He didn’t cut any corners, went over each area of Jacques’s mind multiple times.”

Face pinched, Naia folded her arms but let Adam haul her against him, his chin on her hair. “So he’s gone?”

“That’s the problem.” Sascha rubbed her hands down her own arms, her thin black sweater no proof against the cold inside her. “And it’s why Hanz wants to try again—there’s something there, but he couldn’t get to it, and he told me he’s never seen anything even similar.”

“That indistinct brain wave reading.” Naia’s head lifted, hope a soft melody in her tone.

Sascha nodded, but, much as she wanted to nurture that hope, said, “Hanz said it’s so faint an impression that he doesn’t believe even Jaya would be able to reach it—if it can be reached. It doesn’t feel…whole.”

Adam pinned her with a raptor’s angry gaze, but she knew the anger had nothing to do with her. “And you? You’re more experienced. What do you think?”

“This isn’t my field, but I agree with him that it’s too faint.

As for the wholeness, I have far more experience with changeling minds on the emotional level, and Jacques’s doesn’t feel right.

” She pressed a fist to her heart, as if that would stop the pain.

“Not wild enough. Not human enough, either.”

“Stuck,” Adam said, his tone curt.

“Stuck,” she agreed, giving shape to the horrific nightmare that was Jacques’s reality. She could only hope that he felt none of it. Because if he was in there and conscious on any level…

Her gut twisted.