I lost track of time.

Caia and I had tried everything in this box. I’d punched at the walls. Even with her lighters taken away, I’d used my own to set a piece of fabric on fire, so she could use it on localized areas, to try to melt the meranium away. But nothing worked. We were stuck here.

I sat in a corner, while Caia rested in the opposite one, occasionally glancing at me.

“Where do you think the others are?” she asked, her voice weak. It hurt me on the inside to hear the hopelessness in her tone.

“They’re probably out there somewhere, trying to find a way in, so they can get to us,” I replied, unwilling to let her sink into despair.

I moved closer to her, resting my hands on her knees, and she looked up at me with glassy teal eyes.

“You’re right,” she breathed, her lower lip trembling slightly. “They’ll be here soon…”

“It’s too early to give up, Caia.”

She nodded, swallowing back tears. I reached out and pulled her into my arms, holding her tight, and she rested her head against my shoulder. I kissed her hair and hummed slowly, not knowing what else to do to ease her mind.

I wasn’t doing any better, either. We were both well aware that it wasn’t going to be easy for Harper and the others to get to us. Not only were we trapped in a charmed meranium box, but we were surrounded by daemons, all of them eager to kill us and the rest of our team. Things didn’t really look good for us, especially since I couldn’t turn into a dragon without crushing Caia in this small space.

After what felt like hours, I’d gone through several emotional stages, from rage and frustration, to resignation, to an eerie sense of calm—something that felt like the quiet before a devastating storm.

She shuddered in my arms, and I realized that she was crying.

“It’ll be okay, beautiful,” I murmured, cupping her face with my left hand. “We’ll get out of here one way or another, I promise you.”

“Your optimism isn’t as infectious as I’d hoped,” she breathed.

I pressed my thumb under her chin, prompting her to tilt her head up and look at me. Our eyes met, and, for a brief but wonderful moment, it felt as though the world around us disappeared. For a split second in the endless fabric of time, the walls around us were gone, and all we had was each other.

Her lips parted slowly, as her gaze softened. I wondered what would happen if I kissed her. My vow of celibacy seemed fickle and useless, an obsolete nuisance. What if we weren’t going to get out of here? What if the worst came to happen, and we were living out the last few days or hours of our lives?

Would I leave this world without knowing what it felt like to taste her lips?

I inched closer, ready to throw everything aside, just to feel her. My heart wrestled against my ribcage, my fire raging through me, desperate for any kind of release. Her breath hitched as I lowered my head, ready to do what I had been dreaming of for weeks.

This is it. There’s no turning back from here.

A sharp and loud clang startled us. We both shot to our feet, flushed and breathing heavily, as if we’d just been lifting weights. I looked through the small tunnel, and the hatch door at the end opened. Zane’s head popped into view. He grinned.

“Ah, I see you’re still here,” he quipped, adding fuel to my fire.

“Did you come here to taunt us or to help us?” I shot back. Caia came to my side. Her face lit up with hope, and I found myself praying that Zane wouldn’t knock her down.

“I have very little time and no patience for silly games,” Zane replied. “Your friends are here.”

“Wait, what?” I yelped.

I could see the world in color again when Harper and Caspian appeared by his side. Whatever invisibility spell they had been wearing, it expired just then.

“Harper! Lord Kifo!” Caia gasped.

They both frowned, then glanced at each other.

“Okay, so that’s, what… three, four hours?” Harper asked Caspian.

“Looks like it.” He nodded.

“And I only had half a satchel,” Harper said. She then beamed at Caia and me. “We got our hands on some invisibility spell paste from the daemons.”

“You have no idea how good it is to see you!” Caia cried out, wiping more tears.

“Yeah, I’ve heard that one before,” Harper chuckled, giving us a wink.

“Okay, you can hug and kiss later. I need to get rid of this.” Zane rolled his eyes and used his claws to scratch away at the edge of the small tunnel. He muttered something, and the entire passage lit up with familiar symbols, bright orange against the meranium surface.

The charm that Shaytan had put on the box vanished.

“Now hurry, send the fae through first,” Zane said.

I helped Caia up, lifting her so she could get into the tunnel. She crawled through, and I breathed a sigh of relief when Harper and Caspian got her out.

“Okay, now do your thing, dragon.” The daemon prince smirked.

They all pulled themselves back, and I used my fire breath on the meranium. I had been longing to do this for hours, and I was thrilled to watch the metal turn into an incandescent yellow blob as it melted away. In less than a minute, the front side of the meranium box was gone, and a wide path had been cleared for me to pass through. I understood then how they’d gotten me in, in the first place—they’d literally taken down one wall, then sealed it and added swamp witch charms to stop me from melting it all away.

I reunited with Harper and Caia, hugging them both and laughing with sheer joy, as if I hadn’t seen them in ages. Freedom was an incredible thing to experience after being deprived of it.

“How did you make it all the way here?” Caia asked.

“We had to split into pairs, because there’s another meranium box in the east wing and I can’t see through the damn thing,” Harper replied. “We got lucky and ran into Zane.”

“He was kind enough to help us reach you,” Caspian added, giving Zane an appreciative nod. “Hansa and Jax are on the other side. We’re supposed to meet over in the south wing.”

“Wait, if they’re on the other side, checking that other meranium box, how will they know they’re in the wrong place?” I asked.

“They’d open the latch and see that the box is empty. Anyway, you can catch up once you’re out of here,” Zane said, reminding us that our escape was nowhere near over at this point.

Harper handed us a couple of satchels. Caia and I swallowed their contents, while Harper and Caspian did the same, then gave us two red lenses, and we watched each other disappear.

“This stuff is weaker than the original spell, but it will do,” Harper replied. “We need to be careful, and not look any of the daemons in the eye. Use the lenses so we can keep track of each other as we move.”

“Where are you meeting the others?” Zane asked.

“There’s a totem in the south wing. I think it’s the only one,” Harper said.

“It is. It was a gift from the king of Imen, from thousands of years ago, long before his kind came around.” The daemon prince nodded at Caspian. “It was a short-lived attempt at peace. I’ll take you there. Just stick to the sides and use the statues for cover, if you need to.”

One by one, we followed Zane as he guided us out of the chamber. We stepped over the dead daemon guards, careful not to step into any of the blood pools that had formed around them. It took me a while to adjust to the titanic size of the palace and everything in it—the entire place had been designed to come across as grandiose and brimming with luxury. And it did just that.

In this impressive, expansive enemy territory, I couldn’t help but feel a little small. But then I quickly remembered what they had done, and how they’d managed to cage me, and my chest swelled with the eagerness to go full dragon and torch them all to hell.

Soon enough, I’d get my chance. This wasn’t my last incursion into a daemon city.

I could feel it in my bones.