A groan escapes me as I stand. A flock of the bone-birds squawks overhead.

Sticking with my calculations of three hundred feet, I backtrack. Bugs buzz around me—lizard-like bees, flies with saber teeth—and I pass through countless shimmery patches of air. The placement of trees and the fall of branches remain the same.

Go somewhere, yet go nowhere.

My ears twitch as a high-pitched scream pierces the air, one that is louder than all the others. One that is closer to me. Is someone else here?

“Sloan?” I call. Guilt slaps me. Did I lead her here?

A rustle of tree limbs. A hard weight slams into me from behind, pushing me facedown. I gasp, but when I look around, there’s nothing and no one there. More rustling sounds. Another slam, slam, as if I’m being punched. I wheeze and spit dirt and—water gushes out of my mouth.

I’m forced to my side as I cough, my throat coated in acid, my lungs on fire.

“That’s it. That’s the way.” Hard hands continue patting at my back, and I expel another gush of water. The black fades from my vision, revealing a rocky beach, a large body of water with metal and debris, smoke rising from the top, curling toward a wealth of skyscrapers. “You’re alive. You’re alive now.”

I am? I died and came back to life?

Again, my shock is almost too much to process. This time, I can’t stop my freak-out. I was dead. I was dead, and I was in Many Ends. Many Ends is real. A real place. A gruesome, awful place.

I don’t want to return. Ever.

“Sloan,” I manage to croak.

The hands smooth over my back more gently, offering comfort now. “She’s alive.” Archer’s voice registers.

He came! Sloan survived!

“You died,” he says, as unsteady as I am, “but you’re back. You’re back, and you’re all right.”

Tears of relief burn my eyes. I’m all right, I’m all right. The words echo through my mind, but I’m not sure I believe them. And oh, no, no, no, did my bowels release? I jerk my gaze down, expecting the worst. I’m soaked with ocean...lake?...water but I’m clean. My spirit must have stayed connected to my body, despite the distance between the two.

“My friend Deacon is seeing to Sloan’s care,” Archer says.

“Killian?” I ask.

A pause. A pause that grabs hold of my heart and squeezes. Then—

“His Shell is toast, and his spirit isn’t in the area.”

I almost grab him, almost shake him. “Tell me his spirit survived.”

“I...can’t. If he disconnected from the Shell before impact, there’s hope. Did he disconnect?”

I swallow a sob. The boy who once considered Firstlife a nuisance did his best to save mine. He stayed with me every second, keeping his strong arms wrapped around me.

He didn’t want me to wind up in Many Ends. And he might have lost his Secondlife for it.

Chapter fourteen

“If you can see or feel it, you can change it.”

—Troika

I’m not ready to move or stand but Archer says, “We need to go before the authorities arrive,” so I do both. With the movement, the cuts I’ve sustained tear deeper into muscle, and my bones vibrate. My limbs are waterlogged. They weigh two tons, at least.

“The plane was on fire when it crashed into the water,” Archer says. “If we hadn’t buffered you, you would have died.”

“Thank you.” The words aren’t good enough, but they’re all I’ve got. I grind my molars as pain shoots through me. “Where are we?” Had the pilot gone off course?

“East Coast. New York.” He leads me to Sloan, who’s seated inside a circle of rocks, her knees drawn up to her chest as water froths around her feet. There’s a cut on her forehead and obscene streaks of blood over each of her cheeks. Her gaze is focused above, where rainbow beams of light dance through the sky. Either the northern lights have moved or there’s another realm battle going on.

“The pilot told me he was sorry, but he’d been offered the only thing he ever wanted.” Her chin trembles. “I didn’t understand at the time. He hit me, and when I opened my eyes, he was gone and we were...we were...”

“I know.” He willingly¸ purposely signed our death warrants. But...why? “Who would want us dead before we’d signed away our futures?”

“Myriad,” Archer says. “They’re tired of waiting for you to make a choice and don’t want to risk a covenant with Troika.”

No. “I don’t believe that. Killian fought to save us.” He’s alive. He has to be alive.

“Yes, and I’m sure he’ll be punished for it. He’s been different with you, going against orders, even killing Vans.”

Rocked to the bone, I look up to the sky and shout, “If Killian is hurt, I will never sign with Myriad.”

There’s a whistle of wind, and it scrapes against my nerves. But there’s no voice. No eruption of lights that spell out, He’s safe.

A really tall, really muscled guy—Deacon?—approaches us. His features are rough; they are those of a warrior who’s lived on the battlefield and danced in the blood of his enemies. His hair is cropped and dark, but his eyes are the color of summer, green and lush with life, the perfect foil to his ebony skin. His nose is a little too long and his mouth a little too thin but both work for him, and work well. He’ll never be on the cover of a magazine, but I’m willing to bet he’s the star of many fantasies.

He assists Sloan to her feet and drapes a jacket over her shoulders, speaking to Archer in a language I’ve never heard before. A beautiful language that rolls from his tongue.

Archer replies in the same language.

“Come,” he finally says to me.

“What—” I begin.

He already knows what I’m going to ask. “The Troikan language. That way, if any spirits from Myriad lurk nearby, they won’t understand what we’re saying.”

We’re hustled to a van he’s procured. The back is empty, perfect for lying down.

The driver introduces himself—yep, he’s Deacon. As he takes corners a little too swiftly, Archer does his best to patch our wounds. He doesn’t have the most delicate touch, and the bumpy ride only makes his inelegant ministrations worse. I wince when he ties the bandage around my arm a little too tight.

Boom!

The van rattles, and both Sloan and I gasp.

“A battle between the realms,” Archer confirms. “My boss’s men are stopping Madame Bennett’s men from getting close to you.”

No wonder the battles seem to follow me. They are. “What about Killian?”

“No one has reported seeing him.”

Fear and disappointment combine, threatening to flatten me. “Why don’t you just give us your Lifeblood?” That’s how he healed Sloan of her frostbite.

“We lost too much fighting our way to you before the crash and even more as we fished you out of the water.”

Now that I’ve hemorrhaged, I understand.

“If we lose any more,” he says, “we’ll be useless for days. Since your injuries aren’t life threatening, I’m not going to weaken myself. You need me strong.”

“I get it,” I say, and I do.