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R ebecca slipped through the shadows without a sound, grimacing at every startling snore and subtle shift of weight across rustling bedrolls and sleeping bags, every burst of coughing and snorting.

But so far, none of those noises meant anyone around her had woken up, which was exactly what she’d wanted.

Getting out of here with all of Shade and the entire Sparta pack still asleep, a little more than an hour before dawn, was so much easier than trying to do it in the light of day. Where everyone could see and bombard her with questions or form their own opinions of what was happening.

At this point, the feeling of some giant clock ticking away her available time to get things done hovered over her shoulder constantly. She didn’t think there was much time left at all to go hunting for the Bloodshadow prophecy before some other catastrophic event inserted itself into her life and had to be dealt with immediately.

Right now, she had several current and potential enemies waiting to serve up such a catastrophic event, and she preferred not to give any of them a running head start.

Then she reached Maxwell waiting for her beside the last tent erected in a long row of them across the yard, his silver eyes flashing in the darkness as he nodded.

“Time to go,” she whispered and only made it halfway past that last tent before the rustle of the entrance flap whipping aside rose above the cacophony of sleeping sounds from nearly two hundred people on the compound.

“What the hell did you get yourself into this time, elf?”

Rebecca spun around with wide eyes.

“Zida,” she hissed. “What are you—”

“I’m old as shit, kid,” the healer muttered, standing clear of the tent flap as she let it fall shut behind her before folding her arms. “When you get to be that age, you try telling me sleep’s exactly the same as it always was.”

The healer’s beady black eyes flickered between Rebecca and Maxwell before she pursed her wrinkled lips. “So now that we both know I’m not going back to sleep, what did I just ruin?”

Rebecca backtracked toward the old woman with a sigh. She had to tell Zida something . All things considered, it probably was best the healer had caught her and Maxwell in the act of sneaking out.

“We have to go,” she whispered, “Hannigan and me. There’s something I need to take care of. It won’t affect you or the others while we’re gone, but I can’t keep waiting on it anymore. It won’t take long, but it has to be done now. And it’ll keep everyone here safe for a lot longer.”

“Uh-huh.” Zida raised a hairless eyebrow. “Going after some horrible villain on your own while the rest of us miss all the fun, huh?”

“If we’re lucky,” Maxwell grumbled.

The healer snorted. “I can’t say I didn’t see this coming. Or something like it. How long do you need?”

“I don’t know exactly,” Rebecca said, wishing she’d thought of answers to these questions beforehand, just in case. “If everything goes well, we should be back before Shade’s week of…gracious hospitality is up. But I can’t make any promises.”

“Join the club.”

“But while I’m gone,” Rebecca added, casting wary glances around the enormous yard now studded with tents and last-minute shelters amidst the trailers and yurts and other outbuildings, “you’re in charge here.”

“I’m what now?”

“Running things for me. Answering questions. Making up answers, if you have to. Just until I get back.”

“The fuck I am,” Zida hissed. “You think I’ve been a healer this long because I thought it would get me into leadership?”

Something rustled behind her in the tent, then the entrance flap whipped aside, and Bor shuffled out, scowling and squinty-eyed. “What now?”

Surprise, surprise. Bor and Zida sharing a tent.

Rebecca widened her eyes at the healer.

Zida pointed at her with a gnarled, claw-like finger. “Not another word.”

“What about me, huh?” Bor groused. “You gonna shut me up too?”

The healer rolled her eyes. “I wish.”

Rebecca swallowed a laugh. “Okay, fine. Since you’re both up and at ’em right now, I’m handing you both command while I’m gone. Dual leadership. Make your decisions together and try not to kill each other.”

Bor whirled on Zida, his scowl darkening. “What the hell did you say to her?”

“Something like ‘good morning,’” the woman grumbled. “Clearly, that was a big mistake.”

“I have every faith in your ability to handle this,” Rebecca told them. “Both of you. But if you need to reach Hannigan or me, for whatever reason, you have our… Well, actually, no. My phone’s gone. You have his number.”

“Well, at least we know they’ll be doing something stupid together ,” Bor said with a grunt.

“That’s about all the reassurance we’re gonna get.” Zida nodded. “Fine. But you better come back.”

“That’s the plan,” Rebecca replied. “Always has been.”

Then she turned away from the crotchety couple standing in front of their shared tent and hurried after Maxwell toward the side of the farmhouse.

Zida and Bor would be just fine, she knew. Which was exactly why she felt perfectly justified putting them in charge, however temporarily. If she’d asked them about it ahead of time before leaving the compound, they likely would’ve told her to piss off.

But now it was done.

The air was so much quieter and still, even just around the side of the farmhouse. The crickets’ chirping grew louder when she and Maxwell hurried across the grass and onto the front lawn. The Shade vehicles were still parked half a mile down the road, and once they hopped in one of those, they could move as quickly and make as much noise as they wanted.

She’d almost reached the edge of the yard off the road when she felt a sudden change in Maxwell’s emotions—urgent to get going but otherwise a calm and collected focus.

All that disappeared as the shifter froze up, both inside and out.

Rebecca looked over her shoulder and found him standing stock-still, yards behind her, facing the farmhouse and gazing upward.

Only then did she realize how much better lit the front yard was, and not from the moon or any streetlamps. There were none.

A light was on in one of the second-story windows, spilling a soft yellow glow onto the grass at their feet.

Standing at that window, perfectly centered within the frame, was Jim.

Watching them.

Shit.

So much for slipping out unnoticed.

“Is this going to be a problem for us?” Rebecca murmured as loudly as she dared.

“No.” Maxwell still didn’t look away from that window. “Honestly, this is for the best. For all of us.”

“Well then, we better get moving.”

He nodded and turned with her, but she felt him glance over his shoulder for one more look.

Of course it pained him to walk away. This was his family, this place his home, and the only farewell he would receive was a blank stare from his uncle up in a second-story window.

At least they weren’t fleeing an attack on their way out. She had a feeling there would be plenty of that coming up for them in their immediate future, regardless.

They hurried down the road toward the abandoned lot filled with Shade’s remaining vehicles, and Rebecca stopped in front of the Toyota. “Good thing everyone’s made a habit of leaving the keys in for the next person. So those should still be—”

“We’re taking this one.”

With her fingers curled around the handle of the Toyota’s driver-side door, Rebecca turned toward his voice and sighed. “The Honda? Seriously?”

“It will draw less attention,” he replied sternly.

“Sure. Until it breaks down in the middle of nowhere and we have to flag down help.”

“I imagine car troubles will be the least of our concerns during this venture.” Maxwell opened the Honda’s driver-side door and disappeared behind the wheel.

The muffled click of that door shutting again behind him made Rebecca relent.

He wasn’t wrong. Clearly, this wasn’t a decision on which her Head of Security was willing to compromise.

So she joined him in the Honda, pulled the passenger-side door shut as he started the engine, then turned to face him with a deadpan stare. “With the way you drive, if it breaks down on us on our way back to Chicago, don’t get upset with me when I say I told you so.”

Maxwell shifted into drive. “There should be no need for you to say it.”

“You’re that confident in this thing?”

“Not at all. But now that you’ve gotten it out of your system, you’ll have no need to say it again.”

With a snort, she strapped on her seatbelt and leaned back in the seat as he pulled their least-reliable vehicle out of the abandoned lot and onto the road.

From the corner of her eye, she thought she a little smirk.

“Do you have a destination in mind?” Maxwell asked.

Rebecca stared through the passenger-side window at the trees rushing past with increasing speed, their shadows shrinking and lengthening again beneath the passing headlights as the only light in the dark along the road. “A few, actually. Let’s start with the Nexus vault downtown.”

Maxwell watched the road with a deepening scowl. “Do you expect Blackmoon to meet us there ?”

“I certainly hope he doesn’t,” she said. “But we’re gonna need more than a vehicle on its last leg and the clothes on our back.” She looked down at her inefficient ensemble. “Or Titus’s, at any rate.”

He shot her a quick look, then nodded. “The vault, then.”

That was as far as they could plan, for now. Because until Rowan did find Rebecca to rejoin her, wherever that happened to be, she had no idea where to go, no idea where to start looking for this prophecy, and was forced to wait for the Blackmoon Elf’s help.

Not her preferred way to start this little side mission of theirs, but it was the only option.

Being prepared with fresh clothes and a few extra tools if they could find them in the city, not to mention a bit of spending money from the vault, certainly wouldn’t hurt.

That was as prepared as they were going to get.

While the shifter drove them through the darkness, past sprawling farmland and small pockets of even smaller houses along the frontage road, his growing ease and confidence the farther they left the Sparta pack behind them washed over Rebeca as well.

She appreciated the change of emotional scenery, as it were, but she still harbored her own misgivings about this new venture of theirs.

If Rowan really had been working on his plan for helping Rebecca search for the Bloodshadow prophecy, Earthside money of any kind would likely be of no value to anyone involved in protecting the hidden Agn’a Tha’ros archives.

But she might be able to collect a few other valuable items from Aldous’s old Nexus vault that were inherently of more value to whoever they dealt with next.

After the vault, she and Maxwell would just have to play it by ear until Rowan showed up when and where he felt like it.

Hopefully, no one else accosted them along the way to put even more dangerous obstacles in their path than they already faced.