I covered my face with my hands. Charlie touched my back. “I’m sorry, lass. He was a good boy.”

“Please, Blaz.” I had to try. I’d beg if that was what he wanted.

Blaz let out a rumbling sigh as we dove lower, below the clouds. Away from Frank. Yvette won’t eat him. She’s too picky for that scrawny kid. We’ll see him again, of that much I’m sure. They will use him as bait most likely.

I wiped my eyes and fought to stifle the tears and hiccups. I hoped he was right. That I would have a chance to make things better and get Frank away from Orion.

I clung to that hope more than I clung to Blaz’s back. It was the only thing I thought as we flew.

That, and how I was going to face Rylee.

“Blaz, how are you going to find Rylee?” Maybe we wouldn’t be able to find her. Milly hadn’t been able to pin her down.

I’m bound to her. I can sense where she is always, even if she’s a long ways off.

My stomach fell. I was going to face Rylee, no longer as her ward and surrogate sister, but as someone who’d turned on her. My stomach rolled and Blaz tipped to one side as I puked up the little bit of water Charlie had given me.

“Be easy, witch. She’s not so hard as to see yous as the enemy.” Charlie patted my back, but Blaz didn’t chime in. He didn’t even look at me.

“I don’t know that.”

“I dos. Trusts old Charlie. Rylee will forgive yous.”

I truly didn’t think that was going to happen, but I had to try. And I had to do everything I could to make things right.

CHAPTER 22

Rylee

“A place that has been both salvation and death to you and yours. A place of in between and a place of darkness,” I said Griffin’s words over again. We had to come up with a plan of action, but I couldn’t wrap my brain around the fucking riddle. We circled high above the ground, allowing the two Harpies to use the air currents to conserve energy.

I waved at Marco, who swung in close. “Liam.”

Faris jerked and he let out a snarl as Liam came forward. I repeated Griffin’s words to him. “What do you think?”

His face softened with thought. “Salvation and death. So a place where we’ve lost people. And a place where we’ve been saved. There are far too many like that. Jack’s mansion. The farmhouse. Dox’s bar in New Mexico.”

“But a place of in between?”

He gave a grunt and those electric blue eyes met mine. Liam was gone again. “The veil is also called ‘in between’. Sounds to me like she’s been stuck somewhere close to where you’ve crossed the veil a lot.”

“Holy shit,” I breathed. It made perfect sense. How many times had the salvages taken us there? How many times had we crossed the veil and fought through the darkness?

“The mineshaft.”

Faris startled. “Makes a twisted kind of sense. Without looking for her, you could have gone right by her all those times and never known she was there.”

My guts clenched. “Eve head to the mineshaft.”

She let out a screech that filled the night air, her wings beating furiously. “Can we make it before dawn?”

“It will be very close,” she said and then I let her be.

“Rylee,” Berget said softly and I turned my head to look at her.

“What’s up?”

“This is the last twenty-four hours before the veil opens. Do you think we’ll make it?”

“We have to.”

She laid her head against my back and I held her hands where she wrapped her arms around my middle.

My mind wandered as we flew and I thought about all those we’d lost, and those I’d left behind. Erik was watching over my daughter. A child who taught me what love was on a level even Liam couldn’t match. I closed my eyes and saw her face, her big toothless smile, and tiny hands as she reached for me. I wondered if she was missing me. If she even noticed I was gone.

Swallowing past the sudden lump in my throat, I focused on her sweet laugh. Her attempts to crawl, and the fact that no matter what, she was safe. Liam and I had made sure of that. She would never face Orion, would never know a world of demons.

“You’re thinking about your child?” Berget asked softly.

“How did you know?”

“Your heartbeat changed. It sounded like it did when you were pregnant. Like there was another soul with you.”

“I miss her,” I whispered.

“I wish I could meet her.”

I turned in my seat. “Why would you think you won’t?”

“Because I’m a vampire. Because of my parents. Because I wouldn’t want to ever hurt your little one.” Her summer blue eyes seemed darker with the night sky as a backdrop.

“Who will look out for her, if something happens to me? Berget, you are her auntie.”

“You had a girl?”

I realized then why she might think I didn’t trust her. I hadn’t spoken of my daughter, not at all. “Yes. She looks a bit like me, and a bit like Liam.”

Berget squeezed me. “I bet she is beautiful. But she was so little when you left.”

I cleared my throat. “Not exactly.” I told her the story of how I was able to move things along faster, so I would have more time with the baby. How that had brought me to Faris for help.

“Wow, you really faced down Spider?” Eve asked.

“Yes, but it wasn’t pretty, and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without Peta. She . . . she is an amazing cat.”