Page 92 of The Secrets of Jane: Reborn

I drop to my knees, touching the dark stain. It’s dry. Old. My heart lurches as I close my eyes, forcing myself to feel for something,anything. But the energy is blocked, like a severed limb.

“There’s an obstruction,” I whisper, more to myself than Ritter.

“Where is mydaughter!” Ritter snarls, his own desperation cracking through his stoic mask.

I rise on unsteady legs, my gaze snapping to the window. Something pulls me there, a shadow of an instinct that refuses to let me rest. I stagger outside through the front door, my chest heaving as I glance at the ground.

“Footprints,” I say hoarsely, pointing to the faint marks in the dirt.

Ritter crouches down, his face pale. “One set.”

One set.

It makes no sense. Why would she leave?

Why would she leave me?

My breath comes in sharp, shallow bursts as the tracks lead toward the dense jungle. The air feels heavier here, oppressive, like the very trees mock my every step. There’s no trace of Anya either, who I told to keep watch, formysake.

“Round everyone up,” I growl, my voice raw with fury and anguish. My hand falls to the hilt of my sword, fingers curling around it like a lifeline. “I’m going to look for her.”

“Soren,” Ritter says, his voice tight with warning, but I don’t stop.

My mind screams with images of Jane—her laugh, her auburn hair splayed on the pillow when she sleeps, her fire that I use to keep myself warm inside—all slipping through my fingers like sand. The jungle swallows me whole as I plunge into its depths, the weight of failure and fear dragging me down like I exist within an abyss.

I can’t lose her. Not her, too.

Not again.

J A N E

For a fleeting moment, there’s peace.

Then, my body aches, my head pounds, and I’m aware of the rhythmic sway beneath me. A rocking motion. Gentle, almost soothing—if it weren’t for the stench of sweat mingling with the salt in the air.

When I crack open my eyes further, the peace shatters.

The ocean. Sea Wolf. Skull’s Row. Dad. Soren. My breath quickens as I glance around, taking in faces I’ve never seenbefore. My racing pulse makes my head pound. Anya is on the other end of the boat with a gag still in her mouth, her eyes squinting against the glare of the sun.

I press my lips together; no gag. I jiggle my wrists, but they’re bound. I swear to the gods if—my movement stops when I spot the blue tattoos on my wrists.Gods.Magic. Ismineactually out there, somewhere? Does it even matter? I don’t remember the goddess’s name.

And how useful is a healing deity in times like this?

“Where are we?” I croak out, struggling to focus.

I’m so tired of waking up parched. Just because I didn’t want to live in a pacifist’s village, doesn’t mean I wantedthis.

Blackwell leans over me, smug as always, his scruff thicker than when I last saw him. “Your man isn’t here for your salvation,” he sneers before leaning back to pivot on his bench seat to face Anya, who glares at him with a burning defiance. “Nor is he here for you,” he taunts. “Don’t even know why he has you. You’re quite easy to overpower.”

Anya lunges at him, although it goes nowhere with how bound she is, her ropes tied to hooks in this longboat. Blackwell backhands her, the boat rocking with the action as Anya bleeds from a busted lip, staining the gag.

For one, terrible second, my mind flashes to wondering if that’s how I looked when Soren first took me. What the hells am I going to do with Anya? She wasn’t supposed to be here. This plan required that I go bymyself, so I didn’t have to worry about others.

I try to see if we are far from land—a small part of me hoping we only just left. That maybe we can still be saved.

Blackwell sighs as he reaches into a pouch, pulling out a small, opaque vial and shakes it lightly, meeting my gaze. “Misery wants you knocked out until we land, but withthis.”He leans over to dangle it in my face. “Open up, you need to consume it.”

I barely manage the smallest struggle before my shoulders are held down by someone behind me, Blackwell pinching my nose until I take a breath, draining a liquid into my mouth as I choke on it.