“Rend, can I talk to you outside for a second?” I asked over the noise that broke out in the war room.

He nodded and slowly stood from his chair. He followed me out into the hallway, and we partially closed the door.

“What is it?” I asked. “What’s bothering you?”

He shook his head. “I can’t put words to it, but something about this doesn’t feel right,” he said. “It’s that weird feeling like when you have something on the tip of your tongue. It’s like I know there’s something weird about this whole thing, but for the life of me I can’t figure it out. It doesn’t make any sense. It feels like I’ve been here before or that somehow, I knew this was coming.”

A chill ran through me.

I knew better than anyone what that felt like. I’d been having visions and dreams of the future for most of my life, but I rarely saw the entire scene. When a vision started forming, I often only had a piece of the scene, and I sometimes spent weeks trying to pull that vision out of my brain and make sense of it.

But as far as I knew, Rend had never had the same ability.

“Have you ever had visions or feelings like this before?” I asked.

“Never,” he said. “That’s why it’s got me so mixed up. Maybe I’m just tired and worried for Harper. I’ve got this mess with the Brotherhood still hanging over me. It’s probably nothing, but…”

He closed his eyes and frowned, but then he shook his head and began to pace the hallway.

“It’s not coming,” he said. “It’s just this really uneasy feeling that something’s wrong here.”

“Do you think we should go through with this plan, Rend?” I asked. “Because if you tell me to put a stop to it, I’ll trust you.”

He stopped pacing and glanced at me with worried eyes. “I can’t do that,” he said. “I can’t put the lives of all those demons on the line just for a strange feeling that I have no explanation for. Mordecai’s right. We have to do something, Jackson. We have to move quickly.”

“Then we go tomorrow,” I said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Get some rest. It’s going to be a long day.”

He nodded and slipped back inside the room, but before I could follow him in, Gregory stepped into the hallway to join me.

“Do you want me to go with you tomorrow?” he asked. “If you’re worried about your safety at the ritual, I can gather a small army of guards to come with us. We can secure the perimeter of the ritual area.”

I shook my head. “You should stay here, just in case,” I said. “We have no idea how the Order will react to another one of the priestesses being killed. If they attack the city, you need to be here to protect everyone.”

“I’ll start a few of my men on a regular patrol of the surrounding areas to keep an eye out for any hunter activity,” he said. “I promise we’ll keep the city safe in your absence.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you’re here. You were so important to Harper’s father, and I know it means a lot to her that you’re still here protecting the city.”

“It is my duty and my honor,” Gregory said.

“I can’t imagine how horrible those days were for you after you were captured by the sapphire priestess,” I said. “We were all so worried that you had been tortured and killed. When you came home to us, it meant the world to Harper. I think for her, it was like a piece of her father had been returned to us.”

Gregory looked down at his feet for a moment.

“Those were hard times for me,” he said. “If you guys hadn’t killed Priestess Winter, I’m not sure what she would have done to me. I thought my life was over the minute she put me in one of those cages in her dungeon.”

He made a strange face, and I regretted bringing it up. He still suffered from some of the injuries he sustained during Priestess Winter’s torture of him in those dungeons when she was trying to get information out of him. He had stayed loyal to us throughout it all, though, and had been willing to give his life before he would betray us.

“I didn’t mean to remind you of those horrible memories,” I said. “I just wanted you to know how much it means to all of us that you’re here.”

He looked up and met my eyes, then. “You can’t imagine what it was like,” he said. “My worst fear was that they would put me inside one of their witches, and I would spend the rest of my life locked away inside her body. I couldn’t imagine anything worse any demon go could through.”

“Me, either,” I said.

And as Gregory excused himself to give his commands to the guards, I thought again of my brother, Aerden.

He had spent a hundred years locked inside the body of Peachville’s Primas. Then, he’d gone free only to be captured again and thrown into the dungeons of the Northern Kingdom.

I longed for news of him. I hoped he knew how much I missed him and wanted him back here by my side.

I thought of the last time we spoke and all the things still left unsaid between us. The last words he’d said to me were that we should have just let him go and forgotten about him, but I knew he didn’t mean that.

And I prayed with all my heart that he knew I still hadn’t forgotten him. I never would.

As soon as we set the emerald gates free and found Harper, we would find a way to bring Aerden and Lea home to us again.