13

“‘D eath sentence’ is likely the most accurate description.”

Since the moment Maxwell had uttered those words, the tight, heavy knot curdling in Rebecca’s stomach, clawing at her reserves of courage and determination, had only worsened.

She couldn’t stop worrying about what he’d meant by it, and he’d refused to tell her any more than that.

Based on what little information she had beyond the shifter’s immense discomfort and secrecy, the best conclusion she could draw was that they were all walking into some kind of trap again.

It didn’t matter how convinced Maxwell seemed to be that this was their only choice to help all of Shade, while also seeming equally convinced that where they were headed would destroy him.

The looming sensation of danger and misfortune followed Rebecca like a disease.

Even now, at their new destination, it remained.

Everything about where Shade was now formed an alarmingly stark contrast to the ominous warning burrowing through Rebecca’s core.

The shifter had led them out of Chicago and southwest to the small, remote town of Sparta, Illinois. Rebecca had never had reason to stray this far from the city since first arriving in Chicago, but this felt like an entirely different world.

No skyscrapers. No closely packed buildings. No cars lining the city streets full of lights and life and bustling activity.

Instead, they were surrounded by open swatches of sprawling farmland. Incredible, lush greenery everywhere she looked. Slippery elms amidst enormous white oaks stretching their old, twisted branches toward the sky, while weeping willows formed green tents of shade where their drooping bows kissed the ground.

Everything swayed in the cool, muggy breeze of mid-fall. Crickets still chirping the last stanzas of their nighttime songs spilling over into mid-morning, cast against the pulsing drone of cicadas within the hazy sunlight.

The thick humidity smelled of damp vegetation and the sweetness of cut hay punctured by the faint, underlying sharpness of fresh manure in the distance.

Rebecca walked at Maxwell’s side, letting him take the lead in this little side expedition, because she still had no idea what was going on.

They’d parked Shade’s remaining vehicles half a mile down the road in an abandoned lot filled only with tall piles of upturned earth and scattered leaves. Then they’d made the rest of their brief journey on foot.

The enormous farmhouse in front of them, painted a deep, rusty brown-red, cut an impressive silhouette against the bright sky.

This was remote, all right. Nothing out here but cows and bugs and trees, with plenty of space for a displaced group of nearly one hundred now on the run for their lives, with little to nothing in their possession or available to them.

Maxwell turned down the dirt road toward the farmhouse, and the alarming surges of fear and regret and sorrow mixed with steady desperation radiated from the shifter with consistently overwhelming intensity.

Rebecca couldn’t understand any of it. This place looked completely safe. It seemed like the perfect place for Shade to lie low and collect themselves again after what they’d been through.

Compared to where they’d been, this was the epitome of peaceful.

But the anxious churning of Maxwell’s emotions shattered that illusion.

For Rebecca, anyway.

Hopefully, none of the others shuffling along behind them had picked up on their Head of Security’s hesitation, though they had to have seen the shifter’s reactions when he’d given Rebecca the news of their one and only option.

The air filled with the crunch of boots and shoes as an entire task force plodded along down the lengthy dirt driveway. Bor and Zida shuffled along together, directly behind their Roth Da’al and Head of Security, and when they reached the bottom of the wooden steps leading to the farmhouse’s front porch, everyone but Shade’s leaders hung back in the large, wide front lawn of freshly mowed grass.

Rebecca’s nerves frayed, her senses shoved into overdrive as she climbed those porch steps with Maxwell, their boots clomping in tandem up the wooden planks.

She looked over her shoulder to see the others huddled in one large group on the lawn. Zida, Bor, Whit, and Rick had stopped at the base of the porch steps to watch their Roth Da’al and Head of Security enter into this new arrangement on their behalf.

An unknown arrangement rife with potential danger none of them could prepare themselves for, including Rebecca.

Because Maxwell hadn’t told her a damn thing.

A little grumble and unintelligible muttering rose behind her before she recognized Bruce Urholder’s voice as he cursed, standing off to the side and poking around on some device the gnome had procured for his new magitek project.

All in all, the general mood among them consisted of utter exhaustion and their maintained willingness to plod along after those in command, without a clue as to where they were or why.

Rebecca didn’t know any more and they did, except for the certainty that if this last-ditch effort didn’t work out, if Maxwell’s single idea failed, they were all screwed.

Maxwell stopped at the front door painted a slightly darker shade of the same rusty red-brown, and paused.

It looked more like he’d frozen, either in indecision or fear, but Rebecca could no longer tell the difference between the strikingly varied bursts of intensely strong emotions surging out of him.

The only thing she knew for certain was that Maxwell did not want to be here.

And yet, he’d put it all aside to prioritize Shade’s needs and what was best for all of them.

That was something she understood all too well.

The silence enshrouding them on the porch while the hazy sunlight illuminated buzzing insects and dust motes in the air and across the sprawling farmland felt like a kind of drowning.

Rebecca wished she knew how to help him. She understood exactly what kind of war he waged with himself as he stood on this porch, staring silently at the front door, his jaw muscles clenching furiously and his slow, steady breath louder than usual.

He stood on the brink of something he had been entirely unwilling to do until the safety and security of their task force—of what might as well have been family—required such a sacrifice. Whatever it was.

Rebecca had stood on the same precipice just over forty-eight hours ago, sitting in that stupid trailer with Rowan as they prepared to cast a spell between worlds and face the Council.

Whatever Maxwell struggled with now, it was clearly too much for him.

She was the Roth Da’al, after all. If anyone should put themselves on the line for Shade, it was her. If she had to shoulder that burden for him, so be it.

Especially when the shifter seemed so adamantly convinced that whatever existed behind this door would be his own death sentence.

After several seconds of waiting in tense silence, Rebecca stepped forward, stopped at Maxwell’s side, and lifted a fist toward the door, fully intending to knock on it herself.

She hardly saw him move.

His hand became an instant blur before it settled firmly but gently around her fist to stop her.

Rebecca froze and sent him a questioning look.

The shifter shook his head and, almost too softly to hear, muttered, “It has to be me.”

“If you were Roth Da’al,” Rebecca replied in a hushed voice, “I’d agree with you. We’re both responsible for every magical standing behind us, but unless everything else has changed, I still outrank you, Hannigan.”

“Rank has nothing to do with it,” he whispered, once again overcome by the vacant expression she’d only seen once before—the last time his face had lost all color during his private conversation with Bor. Just as it did now.

Then he released her wrist and fixed her with the saddest, worn-down gaze she’d seen on survivors in small Xaharí villages ransacked by any number of cruel warlords moving across the devastated landscape.

But not on him. Not on Maxwell Hannigan.

What, exactly, were they walking into?

“Not your rank, anyway,” he added, averting his gaze again. “Even as Roth Da’al. That means…nothing here.”

That made no sense whatsoever. Everything she knew about him centered around duty and loyalty and a deeply ferocious respect for the chain of command.

None of which applied here?

Then it hit her.

This was a shifter thing, wasn’t it? That was the only explanation that made any sense.

Maxwell was Shade’s only shifter, as Rebecca was its only elf. Admittedly, she knew little to nothing about the world of his race.

The realization planted in her a tiny seed of guilt for having pushed him despite his refusal to share any other details about this place or why it made him react this way.

At the same time, she bristled at the idea that everything she’d worked for, with Shade and for Shade, could all be undone and so unfeelingly swept under the rug in a place like this.

Where her command as the Roth Da’al of a privatized magical task force based in Chicago meant absolutely nothing.

But it made sense. The world of shifters might have been the only place where the old laws and customs of Xahar’áhsh had no meaning and held no sway.

She had to relent and defer to Maxwell on this, because they’d entered a world she didn’t know and therefore couldn’t comprehend.

Leaning toward him, she muttered, “Understood. But just so you know, I’m not gonna hide behind you just to make this work.”

“You won’t have to.” Maxwell inhaled deeply, then sighed it all out again.

Hesitant acceptance and a fledgling determination joined the overwhelming blend of his intensely complicated emotions crashing over and through Rebecca, wave after wave.

Then he rolled his shoulders back, looked up at the door again, and raised a fist to finally knock on the door.

He didn’t get the chance.

The door swung open before he’d even touched it.