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“Take him back. Follow Briony. Alana and I will wait for more horses.”
If Maura is grateful, she does not show it. She doesn’t even nod in recognition of what I’ve said.
I whistle for my horse, who comes trotting over dutifully. Carefully, I lift Penn onto his back, securing him as best I can. Then I stand back as Maura positions herself behind him.
When they have gone, Alana and I search the rest of the camp. We examine every body, searching for anyone else who might have survived.
There is no one.
“Two,” Alana breathes, steadying herself on the trunk of a nearby oak tree. “Only two survived.”
I lace my fingers together behind my back and unfurl my wings. They ache in a strange way, as if they’ve been flat against my back for too long and need to be stretched.
I glance at them, notice their fading edges, and breathe in deeply. I can’t allow myself to think about what it will mean if I don’t take my powers back from Finn.
As if she can read my mind, Alana turns to me and says, “Do you think you can get them back? If we get close enough to him? Do you think I could take them and channel them back into you? Is there a spell?”
I shake my head. “Not that I know of. There might be something in the library where I found my mother’s journal.”
“Then we should go there.”
“Maybe.” I turn away from her and look out at the camp. Would she really help me reclaim my magic? Or would she want to see me disintegrate in front of her eyes? After everything that has happened, I wouldn’t blame her if she did.
“Where are the others?” she asks. She’s talking to me as if we are friends. The animosity in her tone temporarily displaced by the need for someone to trust.
“The Shadowkind were hiding with you?”
She nods. “They kept themselves separate from us, mostly. But yes, they were here.”
“Finn spared his own kind,” I mutter, my mind returning to the demons in my vision, more certain now than ever before that this is what Finn intends to do. I’m about to say more when I realise Alana is staring at her hands. They are covered in blood, and her face is stained with remnants of smoke.
Her hair, her skin, her entire body shows traces of what happened here. Of how she knelt over her kin and tried to revive them. And how she failed.
Suddenly realising she has the memory of her dead friends’ lips on hers, from where she desperately tried to breathe life back into those with the least mutilated bodies, she wipes her mouth furiously with the back of her hand.
Panic ignites in her eyes. She tugs at the top of her tunic, her face flushing, her breath quickening.
“Alana . . .”
“I need it off me...” She looks down at her hands and her arms, shaking them as if she might free herself of the blood that is drying on her skin.
“The lake.” I meet her eyes, and hold her gaze. But she is lost in panic now. She starts to pace up and down, taking deep, shuddering breaths that make her entire body quiver.
She is muttering something under her breath, but I can’t hear what she’s saying. At her feet, purple smoke starts to curl upwards and outwards.
I stride towards her, pushing my way through it and trying not to notice the shockwaves of pain that travel up through my body as the smoke makes contact with my legs.
I’ve seen Alana’s powers. I’ve felt them. If she loses herself in panic, bad things could happen.
Grabbing her by her waist, I haul her over my shoulder. She starts to kick and scream and beat her fists against my chest.
I ignore the pummelling and stride away from the clearing towards the lake. The entire way, she shouts. The shouts turn to sobs, interspersed with words I can’t interpret. I hear her say “Kayan” and my stomach clenches.
Then she descends into sobs again.
By the time we reach the water, she is still battling against my hold, and the purple smoke is up to my waist, squeezing me tightly. So, I wade in.
I keep going until the water is up to my chest, and then I drop her.
