“Shit.” The word was a hiss of breath.

“I think we opened a door,” I breathed, shoving my feet into my boots. “I think … I think …” I couldn’t finish the sentence as I hurried for the tent flaps, Rhys at my heels. Nesta. I had to find Nesta—

Gold-brown hair flashed in the firelight, and she was already there, hurrying for me, still in her nightgown. “You hear it, too,” she panted.

Hear—I couldn’t hear, but just feel—

Amren’s small figure darted around a tent, wearing what looked to be Varian’s shirt. It came down to her knees, and its owner was indeed behind her, bare-chested as Rhys was, and wide-eyed.

Amren’s bare feet were splattered in mud and grass. “It came here—its power. I can feel it—slithering around. Looking.”

“The Cauldron,” Varian said, brows narrowing. “But—it’s aware?”

“We pried too deep,” Amren said. “Battle aside, it knows where we are as much as we now know its location.”

Nesta raised a hand. “Listen.”

And I heard it then.

It was a song and invitation, a cluster of notes sung by a voice that was male and female, young and old, haunting and alluring and—

“I can’t hear anything,” Rhys said.

“You were not Made,” Amren snapped. But we were. The three of us …

Again, the Cauldron sang its siren song.

My very bones recoiled. “What does it want?”

I felt it pulling away—felt it sliding off into the night.

Azriel stepped out of a shadow. “What is that,” he hissed.

My brows rose. “You hear it?”

A shake of the head. “No—but the shadows, the wind … They recoil.”

The Cauldron sang again.

Distant—withdrawing.

“I think it’s leaving,” I whispered.

Cassian stumbled and staggered for us a moment later, a hand braced on his chest, Mor on his heels. She did not so much as look at me, nor I her, as Rhys told them. Standing together in the dead of night—

The Cauldron sang one final note—then went silent.

The presence, the weight … vanished.

Amren loosed a sigh. “Hybern knows where we are by now. The Cauldron likely wanted to have a look for itself. After we taunted it.”

I rubbed at my face. “Let’s pray that’s the last we see of it.”

Varian angled his head. “So you three … because you were Made, you can hear it? Sense it?”

“It would appear so,” Amren said, looking inclined to tug him back to wherever they’d been, to finish what they’d no doubt still been in the middle of doing.

But Azriel asked softly, “What about Elain?”

Something cold went through me. Nesta was just staring at Azriel. Staring and staring—

Then she broke into a run.

Her bare feet slid through the mud, splattering me as we charged for our sister’s tent.

“Elain—” Nesta shoved open the tent.

She stopped short so fast I slammed into her. The tent—the tent was empty.

Nesta flung herself inside, tossing away blankets, as if Elain had somehow sunk into the ground. “Elain!”

I whirled into the camp, scanning the tents nearby. One look at Rhys conveyed what we’d found inside. An Illyrian blade appeared in his hand just before he winnowed.

Azriel stalked to my side, right into the tent where Nesta had now come to her feet. He tucked his wings in tightly as he squeezed through the narrow space, ignoring Nesta’s snarl of warning, and knelt at the cot.

He ran a scarred hand over the rumpled blankets. “They’re still warm.”

Outside, Cassian was barking orders, the camp rousing.

“The Cauldron,” I breathed. “The Cauldron was fading away—going somewhere—”

Nesta was already moving, sprinting for where we’d heard that voice. Luring Elain out.

I knew how it had done it.

I’d dreamed of it.

Graysen standing on the edge of camp, calling to her, promising her love and healing.

We reached the copse of trees at the edge of the camp, just as Rhys appeared out of the night, his blade now sheathed across his back. There was something in his hands. No emotion on his carefully neutral face.

Nesta let out a sound that might have been a sob as I realized what he’d found at the edge of the forest. What the Cauldron had left behind in its haste to return to Hybern’s war-camp. Or as a mocking gift.

Elain’s dark blue cloak, still warm from her body.

CHAPTER

64

Nesta sat with her head in her hands inside my tent. She did not speak, did not move. Coiled in on herself, clinging to stay whole—that’s how she looked. How I felt.

Elain—taken to Hybern’s army.

Nesta had stolen something vital from the Cauldron. And in those moments Nesta had hunted it down for us … The Cauldron had learned what was vital to her.

So the Cauldron had stolen something in return.

“We’ll get her back,” Cassian rasped from where he perched on the rolled arm of the chaise longue across the small sitting area, watching her carefully. Rhys, Amren, and Mor were meeting with the other High Lords, informing them what had been done. Seeing if they knew anything. Had any way of helping.

Nesta lowered her hands, lifting her head. Her eyes were red-rimmed, lips thin. “No, you will not.” She pointed to the map on the table. “I saw that army. Its size, who is in it. I saw it, and there is no chance of any of you getting into its heart. Even you,” she added when Cassian opened his mouth again. “Especially not when you’re injured.”

And what Hybern would do to Elain, might already be doing—

From the shadows near the entrance to the tent, Azriel said, as if in answer to some unspoken debate, “I’m getting her back.”

Nesta slid her gaze to the shadowsinger. Azriel’s hazel eyes glowed golden in the shadows.

Nesta said, “Then you will die.”

Azriel only repeated, rage glazing that stare, “I’m getting her back.”

With the shadows, he might stand a chance of slipping in. But there were wards to consider, and ancient magic, and the king with those spells and the Cauldron …

For a moment, I saw that set of paints Elain had once bought me with the extra money she’d saved. The red, yellow, and blue I’d savored, used to paint that dresser in our cottage. I had not painted in years at that point, had not dared spend the money on myself … But Elain had.

I stood. Met Azriel’s wrathful stare.

“I’m going with you,” I said.

Azriel only nodded.

“You’ll never get far enough into the camp,” Cassian warned.

“I’m going to walk right in.”

And as they narrowed their brows, I shifted myself. Not a glamour, but a true changing of features.

“Shit,” Cassian breathed when I was done.

Nesta rose to her feet. “They might already know she’s dead.”

For it was Ianthe’s face, her hair, that I now possessed. It nearly drained what was left of my depleted magic. Anything more … I might not have enough left to keep her features in place. But there were other ways. Routes. For the rest of what I needed.