“But no one will come rid the world of them?”

“The Middle is full of primal magic. It has its own rules and laws. Hunt the kelpies or lightsingers without provocation and you might find yourself trapped here.”

She shuddered. “How would the Mask have wound up in the bog?”

“I don’t know.” He nodded toward the ground. “You feel anything?”

“No. Nothing.”

Cassian glanced over a shoulder to Az before they entered a cloud of mist hovering above the northern section of the bog. It was so thick that Cassian rose higher, not wanting to impale them on a tall tree. The mist was chill enough to run icy fingers down his wings, his face.

Nesta jolted, then breathed, “Cassian.”

He cleared the mist, banking to the left. “You sensed something?”

“I don’t know what I sensed.” She swallowed. “Something is here.”

He looked over his shoulder again to signal Azriel.

But Az wasn’t there.

CHAPTER

33

“Azriel!”

Cassian’s shout didn’t even echo.

Clinging to his neck, Nesta scanned the mist. Cassian hung back from it, wings beating in place as he searched for his brother. “Hold on,” he hissed before he launched into a drop, using the momentum to swoop into the mist.

Blue light flared below—ahead. Azriel’s Siphons.

“Fuck,” Cassian spat, and shot lower.

Trees thrust upward, sharp as swords, and he swerved around them, wings within an inch of shredding on those spikes. Nesta’s heart thundered, but she wouldn’t shut her eyes against the death all around, not as Cassian dropped beneath the mist’s curtain and they beheld what Azriel faced.

Cassian turned so swiftly Nesta barely had time to brace herself, and then he was flying back the way he’d come, through the mist. “Where are you going?” she demanded. “There are two dozen soldiers there!”

“Autumn Court soldiers,” Cassian clarified, wings pumping so hard the wind ripped at her eyes. “I don’t know what the fuck they’re doing here, or if Eris has royally fucked us over, but one of them shot an ash arrow through Az’s wing.”

“Then why are we flying away?”

“Because I’m not landing with you in the middle of that.”

“Put me down!” she shouted. “Put me down wherever and go back to him!” He didn’t, surveying the bog below for the right place. She slammed a hand on his muscled chest. “Cassian!”

“I know what each second costs me, Nesta,” he said quietly.

“Put me down in a fucking tree, then!” She pointed to one that they narrowly avoided.

He spotted an area he deemed safe enough: a solid stretch of grassy land, the remnants of a tree rising from its midst. He set her in the tree, as she’d suggested, perching her on the highest, sturdiest branch. It groaned and swayed beneath their weight. “Stay here,” he commanded, waiting until she’d wrapped her hands around the branch and was clinging like a child who’d climbed too high. “I’ll be back soon. Do not climb down. No matter what you may see or hear.”

“Go.” She was utterly useless in a fight, she knew. She would only distract him.

“Be careful,” he warned, as if he weren’t the one about to head into danger, and then he was gone. Nesta clung to the tree branch so hard her entire body trembled, the silence of the bog wrapping around her like a leaden blanket.

Oorid devoured Cassian’s swift wingbeats within seconds, so she couldn’t even hear him as he disappeared into the mist.

Cassian aimed toward where his senses told him Az still fought. His eyesight sure as fuck didn’t help him—the mist seemed thicker now.

The Autumn Court was here. Were these Eris’s missing soldiers, or had he played them all for fools? Had Beron somehow learned of their plans?

He flew, swift as he could, praying Az had held them off, even with that ash bolt through his wing. The restraint of the ash bolt on Az’s power was the only reason the soldiers weren’t already dead—why Azriel’s Siphons had been a flicker and not an incinerating wall against soldiers who were far less skilled.

Cassian descended into cool calm, willing each of his Siphons awake. He fed his power into them, and they refracted it back, confirming that they were ready, he was ready, for the bloodletting to begin.

Azriel’s blue Siphons flared ahead, a smear of cobalt in the mist, and Cassian shot higher into the sky, until that blue was a flutter beneath him.

He stopped flapping entirely so the warriors wouldn’t hear any wingbeats.

Then he spread his wings silently and slid into a free fall. Mist bit at him, the heavy air slapped his face, but he drew a blade and the knife at his thigh in silence.

The mist broke five feet above the skirmish.

The soldiers didn’t have time to look up before Cassian was upon them.

Blood sprayed and males screamed, power bouncing off the red of Cassian’s Siphons. Az battled it out with six soldiers at once, left wing limp and bleeding, his own Siphons blazing. The ash bolt had rendered Az’s power nearly useless. But the Siphons had been blazing as a signal—for Cassian.

The sight of Az’s injured wing made his head begin roaring.

Cassian killed and killed and did not stop.

Too long.

Cassian and Azriel had been gone for too long.

Nesta’s limbs were beginning to lock up from the effort of clinging like a bear cub to the tree. She knew she had scant minutes until her body rebelled and let go.

There was no sound, no flash of light. Only the silent bog and the mist and the dead tree.

Every breath echoed her thoughts. Every breath was gobbled up by Oorid’s oppression.

She’d seen Cassian face Hybern soldiers. Two dozen from the Autumn Court should be nothing. But why were they here?

Her legs shook so badly she nearly lost her grip on the branch. She knew she presented an utterly pathetic picture, laid out along the branch precisely as Cassian had left her, legs wrapped around it, ankles crossed over each other, fingers digging into the dry, silvery wood.

Carefully, she pushed herself up, her arms tingling with the numbness of clenching tight for so long. Her legs buckled with relief, too, as she released their grip, letting them hang in the air. She scanned the general direction Cassian had gone. Nothing.

He’d fallen in battle before—she’d seen him gravely injured. The first time in Hybern, when he’d tried to crawl toward her as she went into the Cauldron. The second time against Hybern’s forces, when he’d been gutted and Azriel had held his entrails in with his bare hands. And the third time against the King of Hybern himself, when she had asked him, ordered him, to use her as bait, the distraction while she drew the king away from Feyre and the Cauldron.

After so many brushes with death, it was only a matter of time until it stuck.

Her mouth dried out. Azriel had been struck with an ash arrow. What if the soldiers had injured Cassian similarly? What if they were both in need of help?

She could do nothing against two dozen soldiers—against a single soldier, if she was being honest—but she couldn’t endure sitting in a tree like a coward. Not knowing if he lived. And she had magic. Had no idea how to use it, but … she had that, at least. Maybe it would help.