House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City #3) by Sarah J. Maas

Lidia shook her head, flames twining through the strands. “I don’t know. But he must have some plan in mind.”

Ruhn asked, “Why can’t they find her? I thought his mystics could find anything.”

“The universe is vast. Even a thousand mystics need some time to comb every galaxy and star system.”

“How much time?”

Her eyes simmered. “Not as much as Bryce likely needs—if she is indeed trying to do the impossible.”

“Which is what?”

“Find help.”

It was about as much as Ruhn could take. He turned back toward his end of the bridge. “Ruhn.”

He halted, shuddering at the way she spoke his name, the memory of how it had felt to hear it the first time, after the equinox ball, when she’d learned who he was.

But that was the problem, wasn’t it? She knew who he was … and he knew who she was. Knew that while she might be Agent Daybright, she’d been the Hind for decades before she’d decided to turn rebel. Had committed plenty of despicable acts for Sandriel and the Asteri long before she’d killed the Harpy to save his life. Did changing sides erase the stain?

She said quietly, “I’m doing what I can to help you.”

Ruhn looked over a shoulder. She’d wrapped her arms around her middle. “I don’t give a fuck what you’re doing. I’m only here because other people’s lives might depend on it.”

Hurt flashed in her eyes, and it was kindling to his temper. How dare she look that way, look like she was hurt, when it was his fucking heart—

“You’re dead to me,” Ruhn hissed, and vanished.





16


“Too narrow for me to fly,” Azriel said, assessing the seemingly endless chasm between them and the rest of the tunnel. No bridge this time. Only a narrow, endless drop. Far too slim for Azriel to spread his wings. Far too wide for any of them to jump.

“Is this another manipulation?” Bryce asked Nesta coolly.

Nesta snorted. “The rock doesn’t lie. He can’t even spread his wings halfway.”

To get this far and turn back with no answers, nothing to help her get home … The star still blazed ahead. Pointing to the tunnel across the chasm.

“No one’s got any rope?” Bryce asked pathetically. She was met with incredulous silence. Bryce nodded to Azriel. “Those shadows of yours could take form—they caused that cave-in. Can’t you, like, make a bridge or something? Or your blue light … you seemed to think it could have restrained the Wyrm. Make a rope with that.”

His brows rose. “Neither of those things is remotely possible. The shadows are made of magic, just very condensed. These”—he motioned to the blue stones in his armor—“concentrate my power and allow me to craft it into things that resemble weapons. But they’re still only magic—power.”

Bryce’s mouth twisted to the side. “So it’s like a laser?” With the language now imprinted on her brain, her tongue stumbled over laser like it was truly the foreign word it was for them. She spoke it like she did in Midgard, but with the accent of this world layered over it, warping the word slightly.

“I don’t know what that is,” Azriel said, at the same time Nesta declared, “This still doesn’t solve the issue of getting over there.”

But Bryce frowned deeply at Azriel. “Do you ever use that power to, uh, charge people up?”

“Charge?”

“Fuel. Um. Give your power to someone else to help their power.”

“Are you implying that I could do such a thing to you?”

“I’m pretty sure the concept of a battery won’t have much meaning here, but yeah. My magic can be amplified by someone else’s power.” The other untranslatable word—battery—lay heavy on her tongue.

But Nesta looked her over. “For what purpose?”

“So I can teleport.” Another word that didn’t translate. “Winnow.” She pointed to the other side of the divide. “I could winnow us over there.”

Azriel said, “Give me a reason to believe you won’t winnow out of here and leave us.”

“I can’t. You’ll have to trust me.”

“After what you just pulled?”

“Remember that I’ll be trusting you not to blast a hole through my heart.” She tapped the star. “Aim right there.”

“I told you already: we don’t want to kill you.”

“Then aim carefully.”

Azriel and Nesta exchanged a glance.

Bryce added, “Look, I’d offer you something in return if I could. But you literally took everything of value from me.” She pointed to the sword at Azriel’s back.

Nesta angled her head. Then reached into her pocket. “What about this?”

Her phone.

Her phone. With Nesta’s movement, the lock screen came on, blaring bright in the gloom, with Hunt’s face right there. His beautiful, wonderful face, so full of joy—

Azriel and Nesta were blinking at the bright light, the photo, and then the phone was gone, stashed in Nesta’s pocket again.

“There’s a portrait hidden inside its encasing,” Nesta added. “Of you and three females.”

The photo of Bryce, Danika, June, and Fury. She’d forgotten she’d put it in there before heading to Pangera. But there, in Nesta’s pocket, shielded by those fancy-ass waterproofing spells she’d purchased, was her only link back to Midgard. To the people who mattered. And if she was stuck in this fucking world … that might very well be all she had left of her own.