I swallowed hard … and then nodded. “Yes.”

Lilith shrieked and lunged for me.

Elaine grabbed my aunt in a surprising display of ferociousness, and Mack and Lona raced over, as did my other friends, surrounding my aunt while she sobbed about the loss of her only child.

Even though I disliked both my aunt and my cousin, I couldn’t gloat over Lilith’s grief. Considering the pain of losing Honor, I could respect my aunt’s need to grieve.

Dad cleared his throat and caught my eye. “From what your grandfather said, you’re going to need privacy.”

I nodded, and my gaze bounced to my aunt before returning to my dad. We definitely didn’t want Lilith to know what we were up to, or she might ask me to bring back her son—which would be a hard no.

“I suggest you take him and the Midnight boys to the back cabin,” my father said and gave me a sad smile. “Do you remember the way?”

Tucked away from the rest of the compound, hidden amongst the trees at the very edge of our property was the building he referenced. As kids, Lona used to take me and Mack there for overnight “vacations.” I’d always thought the somewhat abandoned building was a fun place to leave the hustle and bustle of pack life behind. Now, I knew the truth.

“Yep,” I said, suddenly eager to see the place again, knowing now how it had served to hide me that first year. “I remember.”

“Fiona, Kaja,” my dad called to my Harvest Clan friends. “If you two would be kind enough to help Mack set up patrols, I think it’d be best to start surveillance.”

The girls nodded and headed outside with Mack.

“Mom?” Rage’s brow furrowed as he stared at his mother. “Are you coming?”

Elaine glanced at us from over her shoulder and then shook her head. “I’d better stay here.” She tilted her head toward my aunt, who was sobbing into Lona’s shoulder.

Wow. No way would I stick around for this. Maybe she also didn’t trust that Lilith wouldn’t go postal and try to kill Lona or my dad or something. I suddenly felt grateful she’d be here.

“Your mom is a saint,” I whispered to Rage.

He grunted. “You have no idea.”

Which was probably true.

Justice said something to Noble, and they both crossed the room to us. Justice stepped over to Grandpa Geoff and offered him his arm.

We stepped out the sliding glass door and onto the back deck. A thick blanket of snow covered the bare fifty-acre field, the tree line hazy through the falling snow. But it was slow going with gramps shuffling like a hundred-year-old man with a thrown-out back.

Oh, mage. I would never forgive myself if I’d done that to him.

“Sir,” Justice said, “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m concerned your pace may slow us down and impact our ability to bring back Honor in time.”

Grandpa and Reyna shuffled toward us, the former chuckling as he drew near.

“Don’t be absurd,” my grandfather said, wheezing as if he were on the last mile of a marathon. “I’ll most certainly slow you down. That’s why we have Reyna here.”

I wanted to ask him if he was okay, but I also didn’t want to prolong this trip to the cabin any more than necessary. “Do you want one of the boys to carry you?” I asked.

“I’d be happy to, sir,” Rage said, stepping forward.

Reyna shook her head and snarled, “Not happening, Midnight. You worry about your mate. Let me worry about my Master Mage of Spirit.”

Alrighty, then.

“Which way?” Reyna asked, crouching on the first step leading off the deck.

“We gotta clear the tree line, and then I can show you—”

My grandfather leapt up onto Reyna’s back with the exuberance and energy of a five-year-old.

I gave him a side-eyed look. “How are you feeling?”

“Never better,” he said with a chuckle that turned into a whoop when Reyna bounded across the snow-covered field toward the trees, giving my grandfather a piggyback ride.

Okay … so, that happened.

Rage, Justice, and Noble all shifted into their wolves, and the latter two raced after Reyna. I slipped out of my clothes and shifted, gathering my clothes in my mouth for when we got to the cabin.

‘You should do that more,’ Rage said, giving me a wolfish grin.

‘Do what, shift?’ I asked, trotting after him. ‘Like when you and your brothers scared me into shifting? Because that experience sucked.’

‘No, love. I meant you getting undressed in front of me.’

Oh.

‘You like that?’ I teased.

‘Just a bit,’ he said with a chuckle.

We raced across the snow, and once we cleared the trees, I took the lead until we arrived at the single-room cabin about a mile or so away at the very edge of our property.

I shifted back to my human form, dressing quickly, and kicked through the snow until I found the hide-a-key rock. The main room had two cots near the far wall, and the couch was a pull-out. There was a wood-burning stove that served as a hot plate as well as the heater. No running water unless one counted the stream out back, and I had vague memories of peeing in the snow.

How had Lona raised two babies out here all alone?

‘That Lona is my hero,’ Rage said, shaking his head and clearly thinking the same thing.

‘Right?’ I wanted a moment with her later, to thank her for everything she did for me, but it would have to wait.

Rage strode past me, letting his fingers trail over my skin on his way to the woodstove. Then he piled wood into the box and adjusted the flue. By the time Grandpa Geoff and Reyna arrived, Rage threw another log on his well-stoked fire.

Justice closed the door, sighing as he looked at his watch. “Thirty-five minutes.”

Halle-frickin-leujah. We were totally getting Honor back.

“Soo.” The high mage of spirit looked around the sparsely furnished room and frowned. “Where’s the body?”

We all froze. Justice swore and punched the wall. Noble sank onto the couch’s dusty sheet and dropped his head into his hands. Rage facepalmed himself, and I groaned.

If ever someone needed a “time turner” thing, it was now. Instead of Rage and me getting hot-and-heavy, we should’ve been locating a body for Honor! Between killing Surlama and finding out the true story about my mother, I’d completely forgotten. We all had.

“We … forgot that we needed a body,” I told my grandfather. “Today has been rough … we were fleeing for our lives from the king, and then my dad dropped a truth bomb on us.”

Rage met my gaze, and I saw guilt in his eyes, mirroring my own.

Grandpa chewed at his lip, looking at the three Midnight brothers. “I cannot bring a soul back from the Realm of the Dead without a form for it to go into.”

Rage swallowed hard and consulted his watch. “We have thirty minutes.” He looked at me. “Is there a morgue or hospital or something else nearby? Maybe we could get a body that way and—”

Grandpa waved his hand. “We’re too far from a main town for that, and I’d need to know exactly where to find a body to make a portal there. We don’t have time for me to hop from place to place and have me teach Nai how to navigate in and out of the Realm of the Dead.”