It would’ve been redundant and annoyingly repetitive to say that I was in trouble. I was, but it was deliberate and of my own making. I’d gotten myself captured on purpose, just so I could get inside the Palisade compound, closer to the swamp witch.

When we’d planned for this mission, we’d known that we had to stay one step ahead of the Exiled Maras. We had to think outside the box and take unprecedented risks in order to succeed. Most importantly, we knew that Lumi would be warded and guarded up to her neck by both Maras and daemons, as she was a shared asset of inestimable value to this nefarious alliance.

My heart hurt whenever I remembered the look on Caspian’s face—specifically when the glass sheets came out of the walls and isolated me from the rest of the group. We’d known I’d be the one to take the fall, but we hadn’t been sure how that would come to pass. Recalling the pain in Caspian’s eyes made me feel uneasy.

He was terrified, and I couldn’t blame him. He loved me, and I loved him. But the mission came first. There would never be a “we” if we didn’t bring the shield down. After we’d stumbled upon Vincent’s magical contraption, used to hijack the Telluris spell, we understood how they’d been keeping GASP and Eritopia at bay. Until that moment, we’d assumed our people had probably been trying to get in but couldn’t, because of the shield. Now that the hijacking spell was done for, GASP was bound to come looking for us, since they could no longer reach us—not even the fake “us.”

This, in itself, was simply one more reason to get Lumi out of there.

My team was already preparing for stage two of our master plan. There was going to be a siege against Azure Heights, with the help of our newfound allies. The seed of discord had been planted among the Mara Lords, as well. Their alliance with Shaytan was already hanging by a thread—a fact evidenced by his refusal to let Darius return to Azure Heights after the jig was up with us. The Maras needed that extra push to take action against the daemons, and Nevis had been kind and devious enough to provide it. He’d also served Caia and Blaze up on a platter, but they had their contact lenses on, rendering them immune to mind-bending.

All I had to do was brace myself for the return of my team, since I was shackled to a wall with charmed cuffs. Perhaps the greatest surprise was that I’d been put in the same room as Lumi. Knowing the Mara Lords, there was some psycho logic behind this. My immediate guess was that they wanted to torment me by keeping me so close to her, yet unable to set her free. I’d learned enough about them to not be surprised by this reaction. The Exiled Maras took pleasure in hurting others, not just physically, but also psychologically.

The room was dark, but I could still see. The walls were covered in swamp witch symbols and were reinforced with meranium, making it impossible for me to see what was going on outside. But my olfactory sense had already picked up the traces of four guards. I was even able to distinguish the difference between two Correction Officers and two daemons, posted just beyond the door.

No magic could be performed inside the room, but they couldn’t stop my sentry nature from manifesting itself, as much as it could, given the circumstances.

Hours had passed already. Morning had yet to come, but I figured the Maras had their hands full with the trail of bodies we’d left behind. Vincent and Amalia were dead—that alone was enough for the Lords to pay me a visit, soon.

Lumi sat in her chair, bound and gagged, unable to speak. Despite her Azure Heights garb and up-do, it was easy to tell that she didn’t belong here. I had a hard time looking away, her bright orange hair and strange, white eyes with a pale blue border keeping me in a permanent state of fascination. Her tattoos were traditional swamp witch markings, with each swirl and pattern representing a level of witchcraft mastery she’d attained prior to crash-landing on Neraka. They reminded me of the Oracles’ tattoos, only they weren’t runes and didn’t cover her entire body.

She was calm but in a lot of pain, both physical and emotional. Her red aura burned bright, with occasional wisps of black. Those made me feel uneasy, because they echoed hopelessness. She was close to caving in, after thousands of years tied up in this place.

“Lumi, my people are getting ready to lay siege upon the city,” I said to her, keeping my voice low. My arms were partially numb from being chained in an upright position against the wall. The cuffs were tight, further impeding blood flow. I was anything but comfortable, but it was nothing compared to what she’d been enduring for close to ten millennia.

Lumi scoffed, then shook her head slowly.

“I’m serious,” I muttered. “Me being here was part of the plan. We’ve got warriors coming from my world and yours.”

I’d spent the last couple of hours bringing her up to speed with what had been going on in Eritopia, with a heavy emphasis on Azazel’s reign of terror and the alliance that followed. There was peace now, and GASP was working closely with Draven and the Daughters to rebuild the entire galaxy, one day at a time. There was hope—and Lumi needed plenty of that.

“As soon as my friends get back in here, we’ll set you free. I promise,” I added. “It’s why we’ve aligned ourselves with the Dhaxanians, the Adlets, the Manticores, and the rogue Imen. We lack strength in numbers, but it doesn’t matter at this point. We just need a distraction so I can get you out of here. We’ve thought this through. The Exiled Maras didn’t expect us to bring a dragon. They didn’t even know we had them. Their whole plan went up in flames when they sent us over here.”

Footsteps echoed outside. I had a pretty good idea as to who was coming to visit.

I braced myself for the worst.

The door opened with a clang. Chills ran down my spine. Rowan and Emilian walked into the room. They were both fuming, their eyes puffy and red. The corner of my mouth twitched, but they didn’t notice. They were both too busy projecting all their rage and hate onto me. I couldn’t read their emotions, but their expressions told me everything I needed to know.

“I take it you found the presents we left you?” I asked, keeping a straight face.

Rowan was the first to respond, rushing across the room and backhanding me so hard, it threw my head to the side. My jaw burned from the strike. I licked my lips and found blood at the corner. Despite her ladylike appearance, Rowan was impressively strong, with the added grief of a mother on top.

“I don’t get why you’re so mad, Rowan. We did you a favor,” I said. “Sienna’s the only one of your offspring who’s actually worth something.”

She hit me again, this time even harder. It took me a couple of seconds to see clearly again.

“You killed my son! Emilian’s daughter!” Rowan hissed. “You’ll pay for what you’ve done!”

“They both took pleasure in tormenting and killing innocent creatures,” I shot back. “You’re all next, by the way.”

“You don’t get to waltz in here and tell us how to treat our food!” Rowan barked, unable to contain her fury. Her fists balled at her sides, her whole body shaking.

I gave her a brief scowl. “Kind reminder here that you’re the ones who brought us here in the first place! Just because you can’t admit that what you people are doing is wrong doesn’t mean we can’t call you out on it. It’s wrong! It’s horrible! It’s unacceptable!”

Emilian stepped forward, a muscle in his jaw ticking.

“My daughter didn’t deserve to die like that, you monster!” he spat.

“Oh, really? She loved feeding off and killing Imen children. Children!” I replied. “You people think you can just slaughter Imen left and right like there are no repercussions whatsoever. Well, I have news for you! You’re all going down for this one.”

Emilian raised his arm to hit me but stopped himself and took several steps back. After a couple of deep breaths, he narrowed his eyes at me.

“It doesn’t matter what you think about our feeding practices. Only the fittest survive, and we are living proof of that,” he said. “You will spend some time down here, within reach of your ultimate goal, getting comfortable with the idea that you will never touch her. You will never get her out of here. You will rot in a cage, your soul chewed on, bit by bit, for thousands of years, until you beg for death, Miss Hellswan.”

I scoffed. “You think a pair of charmed cuffs will keep me down? You’ve got another thing coming, buddy. I killed Shaytan’s first son! By comparison, you guys are target practice!”

Emilian put on a confident sneer. “Who did it, huh? Who killed Amalia? Vincent?”

“I did,” I replied, looking to test Emilian and Rowan’s limits. Had they not needed me alive, they would’ve killed me by now. I needed them so enraged and on edge that they would, eventually, slip up with something. One mistake on their part, and the tables could be turned even harder against them. The one thing I’d learned from Bijarki during training sessions on Mount Zur was that an emotionally fragile enemy was easier to bring down.

Chip away at their psyches, he’d said. Make them angry enough to no longer think with their heads. A rattled enemy is yours for the taking. Emotions can topple a kingdom if they’re manipulated correctly.

They were both boiling at this point. It took titanic amounts of self-control for Emilian not to come at me. Rowan, on the other hand, was weaker. She pushed him aside, then started punching me, over and over.

“You bitch!” she screamed. “You heartless, devious bitch!”

My face hurt. Sharp knives cut through my muscles and scraped at my bones—that was the precise sensation of each of Rowan’s hits. I saw white, and my ears started ringing. Soon enough, I became numb. Being repeatedly punched did that to a person.

“Hey, stop that!” The voice of one of the daemon guards boomed through the room. “She’s not yours to kill!”

Emilian grunted, then pulled Rowan away from me. She flailed and screamed, desperate to hurt me some more. I couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief, as burning pain settled in every molecule of my body. The Mara Lady had a killer right hook; I had to give credit where it was due.

I coughed, then spat blood, licking my lower lip to get rid of the warm liquid trickling out of my mouth. She’d broken some teeth, and it would take me some minutes to heal on my own. I looked up and saw Emilian gripping Rowan’s arms. They both glowered at me.

“Shaytan wants you alive for his own delight,” Emilian muttered. “He’ll feed on you, slowly. I’ll make sure I get access to flay you, once a week or so, just to blow off steam.”

“You take Fridays; I’ll take Sundays.” Rowan snickered, baring her fangs at me. “She’ll need a day to recover before I start over.”

I chuckled briefly, finally able to focus my vision again. “You two won’t make it past tomorrow,” I said, “but I do look forward to watching you try.”

Rowan tried to attack me again, but Emilian held her back. The door was open, and I caught a glimpse of an invisible daemon’s red eyes as he moved closer, ready to intervene if either of the Mara Lords tried something. It was then that I had a full confirmation of what I’d been assuming. Shaytan’s ego was badly bruised. Killing me or anyone else on my team would be too easy and too unsatisfactory for someone like him. He needed me alive and whole, so he could torture me himself—and considering what we’d done to Infernis, Draconis, and his troops at Ragnar Peak, I was in for quite the horror show.

“I promise you, Miss Hellswan, that no matter where you end up, you’ll be in a world of pain,” Rowan snarled.

“The same goes for Caspian, too,” Emilian added. He noticed the subtle change in my expression as soon as he uttered his name, and smirked. “I knew it was only a matter of time before he caved and betrayed us. I saw the way he looked at you. Tell you what, Miss Hellswan. I’ll make sure to take my time killing him, and I’ll make you watch.”

That set me off, but not in the way they’d expected. I didn’t get emotional or wrestle against my restraints. That would’ve given them satisfaction, and I wasn’t going to oblige. Instead, I felt my lips achingly stretch into a cold grin.

“You lay a single finger on him, and I promise you’ll suffer the same fate as your children, only much… much slower,” I replied dryly.

Emilian took a few seconds to react, as if wondering about the odds of me getting out of here and fulfilling such a gruesome promise. He smirked, crossing his arms.

“You’re done for, Miss Hellswan. You’re all doomed. We have captured your dragon and your fire fae. Your so-called allies betrayed you,” he said. “You will all die.”

I stilled, doing my best to feign shock. It wasn’t that hard, with several facial muscles still numb from the pain. It was enough to make Emilian think I didn’t know they’d caught Caia and Blaze.

He put an arm around Rowan’s shoulders and escorted her out of the room.

As soon as the door was closed and locked after them, I exhaled sharply. It felt as though I’d been holding on to that breath since they’d first walked in.

“Don’t worry, Lumi,” I murmured. “I’m definitely getting you out of here.”

She didn’t scoff this time. Instead, she gave me a sympathetic look and a soft moan, as if telling me that she could almost feel my pain. I was willing to bet my aura was nowhere near her shade of burning crimson, though. My bruises would heal within the hour.

Her suffering required a much longer time to overcome.

I moved my head around to release some of the pressure gathered in the back of my neck, then relaxed against the cold wall and told Lumi all about our Nerakian experience, from day one. I figured she’d been deprived of all forms of socializing for thousands of years—the least I could do during my stay here was give her some kind of comfort.

On top of everything, she needed hope, desperately.

And everything we’d been through, all the challenges we’d overcome on Neraka—if those didn’t give her hope, nothing else could.