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Bryce sprinted from the other side of the compound to join us just as Dorian and I caught sight of Cam—far into the trees on the forested side of the destroyed Bureau office. His eyes were trained on a wall of scraggly vines hanging between the tree trunks, head cocked to the side, gun at the ready. He darted into the overgrown mess, not a move I would have expected from the serious and careful soldier. The rest of us followed, Bryce looking livid.

”Get back here,” Bryce bellowed as his nephew’s red hair disappeared deeper into the forest. ”I”ll have you back on that plane sooner than you can call your mother to beg for forgiveness.”

My pulse staggered. ”Cam, he’s right—we don’t know what’s out there.”

We caught up to him in a small clearing at the beginning of a rough path through the forest. The small spiky creatures gathered at his feet, but they weren”t attacking, instead skirting and bouncing around his boots.

”I came here for a reason. I heard something, and the creatures came running. They”re scared of something in the woods,” Cam said, and now that I took a better look, it did kind of look as if they were using Cam as cover. It was incredible to see how some immortal creatures could show such familiar emotions; maybe he’d felt bad for them.

I listened for something else out there—crashing footsteps, other creatures’ sounds—but there was nothing but Bryce”s heavy breathing as he caught up.Then a pained screeching erupted from the depths of the forest. It sounded like a single creature. Dorian”s breath hitched beside me. His fangs didn”t appear, but his face tensed as he stared into the distance.

”Scanner,” I told Sike, who was already tugging it out of his bag and tuning it. He inhaled sharply, shaking his head.

”There”s definitely something out there. It”s big. I don”t know why it didn”t appear on the scanner before.”

Again, a strangled scream from one of the rodent creatures echoed in the distance. My stomach clenched with dread as Sike muttered to himself, scrolling through the scanner. ”Whatever it is, based off the energy levels I’m getting, we should assume it’s a threat.”

”The screams told us that,” Dorian said dryly. ”Is it moving toward us?”

Sike shook his head. ”The image keeps glitching. Maybe fifty yards away? It looks like it’s moving north, into the forest.”

Fifty yards away we could work with. I turned to Cam. Bryce had already reprimanded him enough; there had to be a reason this serious young man would break rank.

“We should prepare to investigate,” I said. ”Sike, let me know if that presence gets any closer to us. Cam, what brought you here exactly? The sound of the animals?”

Cam winced, as if expecting another rebuke—Bryce didn”t look far off from it—but his voice held steady. “I thought I heard a human voice, shouting in the forest.”

My eyebrows shot up with interest. ”What did the voice sound like, to you?” We’d warned him that sounds and sensations in this area could be misleading. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t in his head.

Cam paused in recollection. ”Scared. Like they were surprised or hurt.” His answer sounded sure. It was hard to tell if he’d experienced Immortal Plane trickery, or not. ”I thought I heard someone crying for help, but then these guys came rushing up screeching. I haven”t heard anything since.”

The group stilled for a moment, all listening. Besides the typical muttering and eerie groaning that had been happening the whole time, and the continuous rodent screaming, it was hard to tell. ”I don”t hear anything,” I said, “but if you”re right, Cam, this could be big.”

”If it”s real,” Dorian countered. Bryce grimaced. We all remembered the effect the redwood trees had had on the humans during his first visit. Vanim, the vampires’ destroyed city, held dark memories within its remaining walls that still made me shiver to think about. Some of the nearby trees had spoken, and never about anything pleasant.

Cam looked disappointed. ”It”s no offense to you, Cam,” I told him. “But we need to consider every option.”

”It is offense to you,” Bryce countered with flared nostrils. ”Don”t run off again. You might find yourself running around a tree shouting at the top of your lungs about people who don’t exist.” He knew, because it had happened to him. I noticed Bryce didn’t choose to share that part of the story. Foolhardy bravery must have been a family trait.

On the other hand, if there was even a chance of a human survivor… I made a decision. We needed to act as if the monster was close, even if it was retreating.

”Let”s move in,” I said. ”If someone is out here, we need to try our best to rescue them.” I glanced at Sike”s scanner, where the image continued to flicker and glitch uncertainly. “We have a general direction, and we can follow the sound of those blue rodents, so we should be able to find this creature quickly.”

”I”m game, but let”s not kill ourselves to save a phantom,” Bryce said. One of the blue rats darted around Cam”s leg and scampered into the underbrush. ”You”ll have to leave your friends behind, Cam.” That sounded more like his usual boisterous teasing, perhaps a peace offering. Despite his composed face, a hint of red came to Cam”s face. He turned away from us slightly. Oh goodness, I”m not sure if I can handle Bryce family dynamics in the field.

”Let”s move,” I pressed. ”Follow the terrifying screeches.”

Sike chuckled. ”You really know how to motivate people, Lyra.” I bit back a dry grin, settling into mission mode. My focus was one hundred percent on my team and the forest around me: the looming trees, twitching vines and faint cries. It was disturbing, but we had no choice. If there really was a person here, they’d been waiting months for rescue. We had a duty to them.

We headed into the underbrush, moving swiftly but quietly, leaving the clearing around the buildings behind. The sunlight overhead was quickly choked out by shadows; the vines wove a net across the upper branches of the trees, but we could move through the trunks, in between unfamiliar shrubs and more mushrooms. I rarely brushed a tree trunk; it was almost as if they were flinching from my touch.

I did my best to avoid the crunchy leaves that seemed to have fallen from some of the vines. Everywhere in the Immortal Plane I’d been had been mild to warm; maybe the immortal plants had showed up during the meld and then reacted to the Mortal Plane”s crisp, late winter air. I kept my gaze ahead, scanning the shadows, though I stopped to let one of the rodents dart across my path. I didn”t want to punt it forward into the mouth of a monster.

The pained screams got louder as we crept along. ”One of the creatures is injured,” Dorian whispered. ”That”s what the screams are from.” My heart softened. The small creatures were terrified and so far harmless, even if one had come at me earlier.

The trees groaned as we moved through them; the sound became more pronounced as they grew thicker. Close up, the bark on their sides seemed to move, creating a rumbling croaking that made my teeth chatter from the sheer unnaturalness. Whatever was going on in the Leftovers, it was against all laws of nature. It reminded me of my first mission into the Immortal Plane, where everything felt strange and wicked—except that this wild territory was in my own backyard.

”A little to the left,” Sike advised from behind me. ”The scanner is working a bit better. The creature looks huge. It’s moving away from us at a fairly steady pace.”

”And yet we can”t hear it,” Dorian said, his voice wary. We fell into a hush until the trees in front of us roughly formed the shape of a corridor, as if welcoming us to walk through.

I held up a hand, fearing a trap, and my team stopped and studied the strange, cavernous passageway.

It wasn’t my imagination. The trees were moving before our eyes, and they were letting us through. Why? Were they reacting to our presence as humans and vampires, or did they do the same for all sizeable creatures? Were they leading us somewhere unsavory? I made a mental list of the questions popping up in my mind that I needed to tell Cam to put in a report later—Bryce had been gleeful about having a grunt to do all of our paperwork, and his nephew actually seemed to enjoy it.

“Do we keep forging ahead through these trees?” I asked Bryce. “I think it’s worth it, but they might be acting like Venus flytraps, luring us in just to trap us.”

Bryce eyed them. “Let’s keep going. They haven’t been moving that fast. We can escape through the treetops if we need to.” Dorian nodded at this recommendation. The vampires probably had no worries about speed when they were up against trees.

Eventually, as we slowly trekked through the forest, climbing over logs, the trees gave way to an elevated ridge, and we broke into late evening sunlight. Here, the sediment was a mix of mortal soil and pinkish immortal rock. Rotten grasses bunched around the ground, yellowed and slimy. I grimaced for the moment as the smell of sulfur hit me. It reminded me of the water near the Hive and the waterways we’d used to travel to get to Itzarriol. I hoped our allies were doing well.

The injured creature’s screams were getting closer. My boot hit something silver and glinting. I stooped to snatch up a dirty pocketknife, rusted shut.

I pried it open. There was an inscription on the blade. For Joey. As Cam wrinkled his nose, I smelled it, then tested its edge against my thumbnail. Despite the rusty handle, the blade itself shone. “Someone’s sharpened it recently.”

Bryce scowled. ”But they didn’t bother themselves about the rust? Not to dash your hopes, Sloane, but the odds for this one aren’t looking great. Especially without a knife ”

The rust was strange, but it was the unsettling implications of a human missing their knife that stirred my blood. ”I hope they”re packing heat. Let’s move on.”

“The beast keeps moving away from us,” Sike reported.

Dorian and I made it over the ridge, following the sounds of the screams. In a small clearing beyond the ridge, one of the blue rodents lay in the middle of the wild grass, scrabbling on an injured leg. A few other spiky rodents sniffed it, making quiet, worried noises, but scattered as we approached. Sike bent to examine it. My heart sank as he shook his head. I debated putting it out of its misery, but, to my shock, the creature squawked at Sike and began to drag itself into the underbrush, disappearing from sight.

”We”re close,” Sike said, voice hushed in the gloom. ”Or… it”s close.” He pointed past me, following a left-tilting gulley, and I followed the direction. The trees seemed denser around the area; it seemed they were moving toward us. The air felt heavier, with something more than humidity.

I was about to give the signal to fan out into defensive position when Sike shook his head. “Wait—it’s moving—much faster than before. Maybe it caught our scent?”

Bryce let out an uneasy grunt at the dwindling light above us.”Are you sure you want to charge into battle, Sloane? It”ll be nightfall soon. And all of these creatures are much more suited to fighting us in the dark. We”d have to rely on Dorian and Sike’s senses.” And although Sike was tough, he had come along as a researcher, not a warrior.

I hesitated. Then, Dorian inhaled sharply, his eyes dilating with a flash of darkness. His voice came out as a growl. ”Blood. I smell blood.”

“Let’s follow it,” I barked, and we booked it down the gulley, crashing into another clearing where a tumble of boulders sat next to a tiny, scum-filled pond. Red splashed garishly over the biggest boulder, dripping off its surface. It looked fresh, even in the low evening light—bright red, human blood. A discarded weapon, a weathered standard-issue Bureau pistol, lay in the grass. The gun barrel was snapped in half.

”We need to move faster,” I said to my team. “This happened recently. If we don’t find them soon, we’ll give up and go back, but if we can catch up, we might get to them before they bleed out.” I got worried glances, but no disagreement.

I kicked up the pace, following a bloody trail that went right into another patch of trees. Sike checked the scanner, directing us as the monster moved rapidly through the forest. We pushed along, driven by the proof of someone out there suffering.

Through the trees, the trail grew fainter and fainter, appearing in splatters and then drops. I bit my lip as I tried to work out how much blood could be lost by a human body before the person died, and how close the nearest hospital was. We could call an emergency chopper, but I needed to phone it in as soon as we found the human survivor.

”Wait,” Sike whispered urgently. He wasn”t looking at the scanner anymore. It was probably the creature’s aura. Dorian growled, his fangs peeking out from his mouth.

”I feel its presence now,” Dorian confirmed. It was all the validation I needed to push forward. If someone was hurt, this was our chance to help them. After dark, there would be no hope. ”There are other auras too, but not as big.”

I rested my hand against my weapons belt. This might be more of a fight than we’d anticipated. “We’ll have to strategize.”

”Lyra,” Dorian said as I tried to push my way through a narrow passage of vines. I turned to see him and the rest of my crew looking at me grimly. Resignation was written all over their faces. But we were so close!

Bryce bowed his head apologetically.”It”s late. We can”t fight off multiple creatures if it comes down to it, and with the way the scanners are acting, I”m not sure our night goggles can be trusted. The victim is probably dead by now. We don’t know what’s out there, and now’s not a good time to find out.”

I searched Dorian”s face in the last remaining light. He nodded reluctantly. ”Bryce is right. The creatures here will be more active at night,” he explained. ”I assume the mortal sun is unnatural to them.”

I faced my team, trying to figure out how I could get them to understand. Then Sike gasped and shook the scanner. ”What? It”s gone!”

Cold water poured over my white-hot motivation. “What?”

Sike growled in frustration, showing me a screen blank but for tiny blips that I guessed were ratlike creatures.

“Could it be the scanner?” Dorian asked. “I still don’t hear anything.”

Sike shook his head. “If it were malfunctioning, we wouldn’t see any of these blips. It’s only the large signature. It just… disappeared.”

“But it was out there,” Dorian said, glaring out into the darkness. “We both felt it.”

A cold weight settled in my stomach. There wouldn”t be a rescue. Whatever this was, it went beyond our current understanding, and night would make our odds worse. I couldn”t risk my team’s lives on a wild goose chase through this territory just because there was a chance of a human survivor. All afternoon, we hadn”t heard a single cry beside the small rodents.

I heaved a sigh of disappointment but accepted the facts. ”You’re right. It’s probably best not to continue.”

Dorian put his hand on my shoulder in sympathy. As we turned back, I tried to shirk the feeling of failing the unknown person. They’re probably already dead.

A storm cloud of frustration seemed to consume me as we made our way back to the ghost town. I quelled the brewing emotions, trying to remind myself that it wasn”t practical, but insidious thoughts wound their way into my brain as I stared around the dimming underbrush, searching for danger at every turn. What if it’s one of my parents out there?

No, I couldn”t go down that path. If the knife actually belonged to that survivor—and the rust made it doubtful—his name had been Joey. None of my parents’ possessions had been in the barricaded room. Perhaps the laptop had a name on it, and we could check when we got back. The intact room had suggested that there had been only one person still around.

Worry filled me, the kind of worry that went beyond that of a soldier. I was a daughter, worried for my parents. I’d seen their quarters, and they weren”t here. I had to remind myself of that. That person out there, if they were alive, probably wasn”t my mom or dad. We would do our best to find them tomorrow, but... I had to keep myself mentally strong on this mission.

The shadows fell longer and longer until darkness overtook us as we reached the destroyed barracks. The rodent creatures had vanished completely into the underbrush.

Bryce and Cam barricaded the intact room once more to protect its evidence before we headed to the carrier plane to sleep for the night. They worked in silence; maybe Bryce couldn”t find anything to criticize Cam over. I joined Dorian, keeping watch in an open doorway. Sike was already going over the data he’d collected today. He worked in a notebook by a solar-powered light clipped to his uniform jacket; we would translate his notes to digital format later. Dorian looked especially dashing in our slate gray uniforms, although he insisted on wearing our optional cloak at all times. I felt better without mine and planned to save it for hardier environments, but Dorian had worn one basically since the day I met him.

I still had the laptop recovered from the barracks room tucked away in my pack. We needed to see if we could learn its secrets. I had a sinking feeling that the person who owned it wouldn”t be coming back for it.

Dorian”s hand gently pressed against my back. It was all I needed for him to remind me that he was here, as my husband and partner, on this mission.

The situation was as dire as we’d expected, but we had to deal with the reality that the meld had left behind. I only wished that we had come across more promising signs.

Still, there was tomorrow. I focused on that.