Days had passed with no hint of Ryeth returning, and I had become a whirlwind of mad action—doing anything to distract myself from the emptiness inside me. Thankfully, Ryan and Jesse were in a week-long project of preparing the garden's harvest for storage: tomatoes, green beans, peas—so many vegetables canned and frozen while I waited impatiently for Ryeth to awaken.

No one had questioned me about my strangeness lately, but I could see the questions in their eyes. 

Pain tore through me, a vicious force accompanied by flashes of white and blue too fast for me to make sense of. Ryeth!  He was in pain. He wasn't hearing me. A brief flash of sky, of sun, and then—

My connection with Ryeth disappeared, just as quickly as it had appeared. What had happened? He was gone. Again. It took me a while realize I had fallen to the floor. Ryan and Jesse knelt beside me, looks of concern on their faces.

"Is everything okay?" Ryan's deep voice rumbled.

Reflexively, I started to nod, then shook my head. "No. Ryeth... he's... I can't feel him anymore."

"Tell us what happened," Jesse said firmly. 

Phoenix came to the door with one of the twins in his arms. "I felt Ryeth..."

I relayed as much as I could, which wasn't much. Even with Phoenix asking me pointed questions about what I saw, what I felt, my answers were vague. I had been too overwhelmed to process anything. 

Phoenix looked into the distance for a while before speaking. "I think... I don't want to get your hopes up, but it is possible that Ryeth has broken free of the prison."

My heart skipped a beat. "Really? Was your escape like that?"

Phoenix tilted his head in a noncommittal gesture. "No... I didn't wake until after the ice has loosened around me. I simply walked out. And once I was above ground, I flew away."

"Why didn't that happen for Ryeth?"

Ryan laid a comforting hand on my shoulder. 

"I don't know for sure if that is what has happened. I couldn't even begin to conjecture why his escape was different, if he is free."

My jaw clenched in determination. "Well if he is free, he is laying helpless in a giant pile of snow who-the-hell-knows-where, injured, unconscious, and unprotected. I need to go to him." I left the room, left the house, my mind whirling. From what Ryeth had said in our conversations, I'd determined the prison was in Antarctica. Where else was frozen year round in the south? But where, exactly? I'd need to ask Caspar. I'd need passports. They didn't book straight flights to Antarctica, did they? Plane tickets. I needed to buy plane tickets. 

"Simon!" Ryan chased after me. "Stop. Where are you going?"

"To find Ryeth. Don't try to stop me."

Ryan grabbed my arm and I turned reflexively to punch him, but he was a good deal larger than me and he simply absorbed my throw with a wince. "I'm not disagreeing with you. But you need a plan."

I ran my fingers through my hair and Ryan dropped his hold. "I know I need a plan. I need to find Caspar. I'll fly. Swim. Whatever it takes."

"That will take days," Ryan protested.

"You think I don't know that? That's why there's no time to waste."

"No," Ryan said, catching up with me. "Phoenix says you don't have days. He felt Ryeth's cry, and he says that means any Ancient could have heard his cry."

Like Ryeth's brother, the Black Dragon. "Fuck." I stopped in my tracks and Ryan skidded past me. "What do I do?"

"Come back to the house. Calm down. I've already told Asher to grab Caspar and meet us there. We'll figure out a plan."

Jesse was already waiting with tea, but I rejected it. What the fuck was it with this pack and fucking tea? We weren't British and it wasn't a fucking cure-all. I couldn’t sit, so I paced until Asher arrived with Caspar.

"I need to get to Ryeth," I said, wasting no time. "And Phoenix says I've got to do it now, or another Ancient could reach him first. If it's someone like his brother, I don't think that will end well for Ryeth. So I don't care if we have to pool all our money and buy a jet, let's do it."

"There is a faster way," Caspar said, grabbing all of my attention.

"The pocket they live in isn't tied to any one location. There are fixed entrances like the one we have used to reach them and the one we used to reach Wamp's base, but they aren't limited to those paths."

"What are you saying?" I demanded. "Tell me in plain English."

"If we talk to the artreans, they can get you to Ryeth faster than anyone else."

"Then let's do it. Tell them we're coming, and they need to work their mojo."

Caspar's face glazed over while he reached out to whoever it was he talked to among the artreans. "Elder Talon says he'll meet us at the entrance and he'll discuss the possibility with us."

"Discuss?" I growled. "Ryeth's life is on the line. What do we need to discuss?"

"Ryeth wasn't exactly friendly to them the last time they met," Asher said gently.

"This is a matter of life and death, not petty grievances!"

Asher put up his hands placatingly. "I don't disagree with you. I'm just trying to look at it from Talon's side. Let's go, we'll talk to him, and we'll do what we need to do."

I turned my suspicion on to my brother. "What? You're okay with that? Just like that? You've been suspicious of Ryeth from the beginning. You're just going to accept him like that?"

"I didn't say that... but you are my brother. He is connected with you in a way I don't understand and probably never will." For the first time in a long time, my brother's stoic leader mask fell, and he was just my brother. A little sad. A little hurt. Had he been... jealous? 

The idea shocked me to my core. 

"Let's go," Asher said. "We don't want to keep Talon waiting."