Veronica Rossi: Brooke

Where were they taking her?

She had never known darkness like this. Outside there was always Aether, or sunlight, or moonlight. In the Pod, within the protected walls of Reverie, lights always blazed. Always. This was new, this suffocating pool. She felt the pitch black fill her lungs with every breath. She was drinking the dark. Wading through it.

“Behind that curtain is the Battle Room,” Molly continued. “It’s a smaller cavern where we brought one of the trestle tables from the cookhouse. Perry meets with people in there to discuss matters of importance. The poor boy hardly ever leaves.”

Walking silently ahead of them, Reef shook his head.

“I worry about him, Reef,” Molly said, with plain irritation. “Someone has to.”

“And you think I don’t?”

Aria worried too—more than either of them—but she bit her lip, leaving them to argue.

“Well, you’re good at hiding it, if so,” Molly shot back. “All you seem to do is lecture him about what he’s doing wrong.”

Reef glanced over his shoulder. “Should I start slapping him on the back and telling him he’s wonderful? Will that do us any good?”

“You could try it once in a while, yes.”

Aria stopped listening to them. The hair on her arms lifted as her ears latched on to new sounds. Moans. Whimpers. Sickly sounds that swept toward her through the tunnel. A chorus of need.

She broke away from Molly and Reef, clutching her wounded arm to her side as she rushed ahead. Rounding a bend in the corridor, she arrived in a large, dim cavern, lit along the perimeter by lamps.

Spread across the floor on blankets lay dozens of people in varying states of consciousness. Their faces were ghastly white against their grays—the same clothes she’d worn her entire life until she’d been cast out of Reverie.

“They took ill immediately after you all arrived,” Molly said, catching up to her. “You went to Perry’s tent, and they came here, and that’s how it’s been. Perry said this same thing happened to you when you first came out of Reverie. It’s the shock to your immune systems. There were inoculations onboard the Hover you arrived in. A supply for thirty people—but there are forty-two here. We administered equal amounts to everyone, at Perry’s request. He said it’s what you’d have wanted.”

Aria couldn’t respond. Later, when she could think clearly again, she would recall Molly’s every word. She’d consider the way Reef watched her with his arms crossed, like this was her problem to fix. Now she moved further inside, her heart stuck in her throat.

Most of the people she saw were still as death. Others shook with fever, their complexions sallow, almost green. She didn’t know which was worse.

She searched the faces around for her friends—Caleb and Rune and—

“Aria . . . over here.”

She followed the voice. A pang of guilt hit her when she spotted Soren; he hadn’t come to mind. Aria stepped past the quaking bundles, kneeling at his side.

Soren had always been so burly, but now the thickness in his shoulders and neck had deflated. Even wrapped in a blanket she could tell. She could see it in his hollow cheeks and sunken eyes, which were heavy, half-lidded, but focused on her.

“Nice of you to come by,” he said, clearly more lucid than the others. “I’m a little envious you got private accommodations. Pays to know the right people, I guess.”

Aria didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t absorb this level of suffering. Her throat was choked with it. Tight with the need to help. To change this somehow.

Soren blinked tiredly. “I can see why you love the outside,” he added. “It’s mega champ out here.”

You think it’s Roar and Twig?” Gren asked, pulling his horse alongside Perry’s.

Perry inhaled, searching for traces of the riders who’d been spotted earlier. He smelled nothing but smoke.

Ten minutes ago he’d left the cave, eager for fresh air. For light and the feeling of openness and movement. What he’d gotten was a thick gray haze from the morning’s fires blanketing everything, and the stinging sensation of the Aether like soft pinpricks over his skin.

“I’d be surprised if it was someone else,” he replied. “Hardly anyone besides me and Roar knows this trail exists.”

He had hunted these woods with Roar since they were kids. They had killed their first buck together not far from here. Perry knew every bend on this path, which cut through land that had once been his father’s, then his brother’s, and then—half a year ago when he’d become Blood Lord—his.

It had changed, though. In the past months, Aether storms had started fires that sheared through the hills, leaving wide, charred stretches. The temperature was too cold for late spring, and the smells of the wood were different too. The scents of life—earth, grass, and game—seemed buried beneath the acrid stench of smoke.

Gren tugged his brown cap down. “What are the odds they have Cinder with them?” he asked, a note of desperation bleeding into his voice. Cinder had been kidnapped while under Gren’s watch, and he hadn’t forgiven himself.

“Good,” Perry said. “Roar always comes through.”

He thought of Cinder, of how weak and frail the boy had been when he’d been taken. Perry didn’t want to think about what was happening to him in Sable’s and Hess’s hands. They had joined forces, Horns and Dwellers, and abducted Cinder for his ability to control the Aether. He was key to reaching the Still Blue, it seemed. Perry just wanted him back.

“Perry.” Gren reined in his horse. He angled his head, turning to better catch sounds with his keen ears. “Two horses. Riding hard right toward us.”

Perry couldn’t see anyone yet as he scanned the trail ahead, but it had to be them. He whistled to let Roar know he was there. Seconds passed as he waited for Roar’s answering call.

None came.

Perry cursed. Roar would have heard and whistled back.

He swept his bow off his shoulder and nocked an arrow, his gaze never leaving the bend in the path. Gren drew his bow as well, and they fell silent, bracing for anything.

“Now,” Gren murmured.

Perry heard the horses thundering closer. He drew his bowstring back, aiming at the trail, as Roar tore around a stand of birches.

Perry lowered his bow, trying to sort out what was happening.

Roar approached at a gallop, his black mount kicking up clods of dirt. His expression was focused—cold—and it didn’t change when he spotted Perry.

Twig, one of the Six like Gren, rounded the bend behind him. Like Roar, he rode alone. Perry’s hope of getting Cinder back crashed.

Roar rode hard until the last moment, and then checked his mount sharply.

Perry stared at him, unable to speak, the silence stretching between them. He hadn’t expected to look at Roar and think Liv , though he should have. She had belonged to Roar too. The loss landed like a blow to Perry’s stomach, as hard as it had days ago when he’d first learned.

“Good you’re back safe, Roar,” he said finally. His voice sounded strained, but he got the words out at least.

Roar’s horse stamped in agitation, tossing its head, but Roar’s gaze held steady.

Perry knew that hostile look. It had just never been directed his way.

“Where have you been?” Roar asked.

Everything about that question was wrong. The accusing tone in Roar’s voice. His implication that Perry had failed in some way.

Where had he been? Looking after four hundred people who were withering away in a cave.

Perry ignored the question, asking his own. “Did you find Hess and Sable? Was Cinder with them?”