We went over all possible scenarios, each aimed at getting Caia and Blaze out of Shaytan’s palace. From what we had seen up to this point, the royal residence was riddled with guards—daemons the size of wardrobes, massive and bulky, eager to either ram their swords through us, or worse, eat our souls.

All the daemons living in the city were just as ruthless, regardless of their size or service level. We were breakfast, lunch, and dinner for these creatures. Our chances of success were slim, but we were happy even with that sliver of a possibility, rather than staring the impossible in the face. Although, to be honest, I didn’t give a damn about chances. All I could think of was getting Caia and Blaze out of there. We needed our fire. I needed my friends back.

“The first thing we need to do is get our hands on some invisibility paste,” Caspian concluded, after about half an hour’s worth of planning. “Once we vanish, we can get closer to the palace. I saw a smaller tower atop a building near the square. We could use it to scope out Shaytan’s residence, the daemons’ whereabouts, and, most importantly, Caia and Blaze’s position.”

“I can use my True Sight to give the place a proper scan, once we get close enough.” I nodded in agreement. “We can then draw out a detailed plan on how we infiltrate and extract them.”

“We need to have an exit strategy as well. Ideally a plan A and a plan B,” Hansa replied, pulling her long, curly black hair back into a ponytail. Whenever she tied her hair up, it meant things were about to get super rough. I’d rarely seen her in such a determined state—it was fearsome and impressive at the same time. “There will be no room for mistakes. We’ll have to take every possibility into consideration, including the less… pleasant scenarios.”

“What do you mean?” I frowned slightly, using a stick to poke through the ashes in the firepit. We were going to use all of them. Mose had taught us that ashes could mask our natural scents, helping us blend in a little easier with the daemon crowds, without getting sniffed out as foreigners… or midnight snacks.

“We have to be realistic, Harper,” Jax interjected, glancing briefly at Hansa, as if he knew exactly what she meant. I looked at Caspian, and he seemed to be on the same page, whereas I felt I was still on the outside, looking in. “We have to assume we might not be able to rescue them. We need to know what we’ll do, should we fail.”

“Nope.” I shook my head and got up, my nerves already frayed as I started pacing through Mose’s hut. “I reject that premise altogether. No. We will get them out. We will succeed. We can’t leave room for such doubts. Those thoughts are bound to lead to failure, and I am not walking out of this wretched city without Caia and Blaze!”

“Harper, I’m not saying we won’t save them.” Hansa stood and came up to me, putting her hands on my shoulders. “We will do our best and more. But I had to bring this up so that we’re all on the same page. There are few of us already, and we have to take that possibility into account so we don’t lose more of our own in there. Just… Just promise me you’ll keep that in mind. It’s better to be prepared, that’s all. Should we fail, we will have to regroup and try again. But bear in mind, I am not leaving you behind in there.”

“We either do this the smart way or we don’t do it at all, Harper,” Jax replied, giving me a stern look. “I’ve been through this before. Your sister has been through this, too. Hell, Caia’s sister was once a prisoner of the enemy as well. I’m willing to bet that our little fire fae is currently thinking about this, just like we are. This is war. The daemons are the enemy, and they have two of our most precious people. We are going in there to win, to get Caia and Blaze back. But we have to look at it from all possible angles. Should we fail, we must retreat, regroup, and focus on bringing GASP over here to help.”

A couple of moments went by. I tried to get my breathing under control. Everything they said made perfect sense, as much as I hated it. I’d been trained for this. I knew what lay ahead. The possibility of failure was real, and no matter how stubborn I was, I couldn’t deny it.

“Fine, but we can’t exactly rely on GASP now, can we? We only have ourselves,” I muttered, then let out a long, almost painful sigh.

“That is correct. For the time being, anyway,” Hansa replied. “Baby steps, for now. Let’s get our fire fae and dragon out first, then focus on the rest. I just need to know I can count on you to have my back and come out with us, if we’re forced to retreat without Blaze and Caia.”

I nodded slowly, finding it hard to speak. A knot formed in my throat at the thought of leaving them behind. I knew I wouldn’t, but still, it hurt. The mere thought of leaving my friends with Shaytan, the king of daemons—it tore me apart on the inside. My resolve was stronger, though. I chose to focus on freeing them.

We’ll cross that bridge when we get there…

“What do we do after we get them out?” I asked.

“We head out to the western plains,” Jax said. “At least one of us will head back to Azure Heights, to warn the others of what we’ve seen and learned, while we seek out the rogue Imen. They must have the answers we seek. We might even get them on our side, forge some kind of alliance and rally our forces against the daemons, until we figure out what’s keeping us from reaching out to Calliope.”

“In that case, I know exactly how we’re going to do this,” Caspian replied, then grabbed some ragged cloaks off the floor and passed them out. “I know where to go for hunter daemons. They’ll have invisibility paste with them. There’s an access tunnel not far from here. They use it to deploy to the surface. We can catch them there, then head to the tower near the square. Provided we make our way out through the southwestern side of the palace, we can reach the surface through one of the tunnels there. At least two of them lead directly into the western plains.”

“I still can’t wrap my head around how much you really know about this place,” I muttered, irritated.

“Trust me, I wish I could tell you more,” he grumbled, looking away as he put a cloak around his shoulders and scooped a handful of ashes from the firepit.

“We will have to talk about this later, Lord Kifo,” Jax said, fastening his cloak under his chin. Hansa rubbed ashes over him from head to toe.

Once we were ready to venture through the daemon city, we snuck out of Mose’s hut and followed Caspian through a series of narrow alleys and side streets, keeping to the so-called slums, where the weaker, elder daemons lived.

We kept our heads down and covered as we slipped farther east, where crates and barrels were stacked into thick walls, against uneven sets of carved steps leading to several exit tunnels—round, dark holes beckoning us to escape, to run out and never look back. Not until I get what I came here for.

“This way,” Caspian whispered.

He dashed behind one of the barrel-and-crate faux walls, pointing at the staircase above. I joined him, followed closely by Hansa and Jax. We avoided eye contact with the daemons around us—most of them seemed absentminded, staring blankly at the dirty ground beneath their bare feet as they shuffled up and down the roads snaking into the slums.

They all seemed tired and worn out, with little to no interest in their surroundings. It was as if they were practically braindead, but their bodies, though brittle and old, could still move enough to get them from one place to another, despite having no specific purpose.

“They’re reaching the end of their lives,” Caspian explained briefly, following my gaze. “They’ve seen thousands of years in this world. Their bodies can’t keep up anymore. Time doesn’t forgive the daemons, especially once they stop feeding on souls. Most of them age faster once they stop, if they can’t afford to increase their meat intake to counteract the effects. So, they just… wither away, like old trees.”

“This is where they come to die, then?” I asked, while Hansa and Jax kept a lookout, checking the stairs above.

“Sort of, yes,” Caspian replied. “They lose direction after a while. They just wander around, aimlessly, with nothing to do. Most of them were hunters, spending most of their lives on the surface, roaming freely through the gorges. Once they can no longer provide for themselves, given their old age, they wind up in the care of the kingdom. And as Mose mentioned, the kingdom doesn’t care if you’re old. It only cares if you can provide for yourself and your people.”

“Coast is clear. The crates are filled with something, they’re stable to climb,” Jax breathed. He gently pushed one of the crates, then climbed up until he reached the stairs.

Hansa, Caspian, and I swiftly joined him, careful not to be seen or heard. We then made our way up to one of the exit tunnels, hiding behind a couple of the broken crates on either side of the opening. Someone was bound to come up sooner or later. All we had to do was jump them.

It didn’t take long for two hunter daemons to come along. They were dressed just like the one we’d taken down to the infirmary in Azure Heights, with wide leather belts, off-white loincloths, and various small leather bags hung around their waists, along with thin, curved knives mounted in ivory scabbards on their backs.

Jax took one, and I handled the other. We gripped our swords as we snuck up on them, then slit their throats. Crimson blood gushed out, the daemons falling to their knees. They choked and gurgled until they gave their last breaths. We removed a total of four satchels of invisibility paste, and then Hansa and Caspian dragged them away and hid their bodies behind nearby rocks.

“How long do you think these will last us?” Jax asked, weighing two satchels in his hand as he looked at Caspian.

“I estimate about three to six hours each,” Caspian replied.

“We should get more, for Caia and Blaze, too,” I murmured. “Besides, we could use some extra for ourselves, and I don’t mind killing more of these bastards for it.”

A brief smile flickered over Caspian’s face. He nodded, and we resumed our positions behind the crates. Not ten minutes later, three more daemons came up. They stopped at the top of the stairs, noticing the dried-up blood on the ground, right in front of the tunnel opening. One of them frowned, letting out a low growl, and sniffed the air.

“I think our non-Nerakian friends were here,” he muttered, his red eyes darting around.

I noticed the air rippling behind them, before his partners’ throats were split open. Jax and Hansa had already used some of the invisibility paste. The daemon didn’t stand a chance, with the other two already down. I jumped out from behind the crate and dashed over to him, thrusting my swords right through his neck.

He stared at me in disbelief, his eyes bulging, as he choked from the two blades cutting through his trachea. Blood poured from his mouth and wounds, glazing his chin and chest. He dropped to his knees. I pushed him down with my foot, pulling my blades out, and Caspian collected six more satchels from him and his dead partners.

We then disposed of their bodies, piling them on top of each other behind the rocks. Caspian and I swallowed the contents of two satchels, putting the remaining six away. We watched each other disappear in faint, colorful shimmers, until all we could see were delicate ripples through the air whenever we moved.

I caught glimpses of his jade eyes when he looked directly at me. It dawned on me then that this was definitely the result of a difference in using Nerakian ingredients for this particular swamp witch spell.

“The invisibility spell looks different,” Jax replied from my right. “It’s not as powerful as the original one. I mean, we sort of knew that already from what we’ve seen of the hunter daemons, but it’s interesting to witness it on ourselves. It basically confirms it.”

“If you look at me directly,” Hansa said, “I can even see your eyes. I think we have to be careful about where we look, once we get back in there. Avoid eye contact with anyone at all times.”

“We should also agree on some kind of sound signal, so we can identify where we are in proximity to each other,” Caspian replied. “We can’t exactly hold hands all the time. Perhaps a triple whistle?”

Hansa gave out three short whistles, clear enough to be heard, but not loud enough to be overheard past a twenty to thirty-yard radius. I responded with a similar set of sounds, which Jax and Caspian returned.

“Okay, we’re good to go,” Caspian said. “We’ll go back down the way we came, then take the main belt road to the north, past the slums. Let’s regroup at the red tower outside the main square.”

“I think, for safety’s sake, we should split into pairs until we get there,” Jax replied. “I’ll take Hansa, and you take Harper, Lord Kifo.”

“Agreed,” Caspian breathed, then found my hand, wrapping his long fingers around it and squeezing gently. “Let’s move.”

I realized then just how aware of my presence Caspian was. He paid attention, in our invisible form, to my breathing and low heartbeat. He most likely followed my scent, too, thus knowing exactly where I stood at all times. It was perfectly reasonable for us to use our other senses when we couldn’t see each other.

Caspian and I rushed down the stairs, making our way back into the city. Hansa and Jax were not far away, and we all advanced up the main belt road toward the north side. We’d made this trip before, when we’d first gotten into the city.

Once we reached the neighborhood housing Mose’s hut, we made a sharp turn left and followed the sinuous and narrow roads into the city center. I could see the palace and its majestic tower rising in the distance. Not far from it was a smaller red tower where we were due to rendezvous. It was also going to be my vantage point, from where I would use my True Sight to scan the area and find Caia and Blaze.

It was an easier trek through the city of daemons when they couldn’t see us. I could breathe better, even though we were surrounded by bloodthirsty enemies. And to think, just a couple of months earlier, I’d been dropping hints to Derek and my dad that I wanted to score a field mission. For a brief moment, I wondered if I would’ve been better off going to Tenebris and dealing with the incubi rebellion instead.

The warmth of Caspian’s hold spread through my arm, raising my temperature as we darted through the streets. No, there is nowhere else I’d rather be.

Our predicament was far from pleasant. Our lives were at risk, our friends were prisoners, and our families were millions of lightyears away. And yet, with Caspian so close to me, I had to admit… I was right where I needed to be.