“Well, come on then,” he says, picking me up and carrying me through the cave. As strong a man as he is, I must only be a feather in his arms. Worry still slows us down, though. I’m sure Maddoxcouldrun with me. But as much as I beg him to hurry, he’s too terrified by my previous hemorrhaging to move at a speed that might jostle me at all.
Finally, we make our way to the fork and take the left tunnel, my heart slamming against my chest the entire way. My mind conjures the most horrific stories. I get the awful sense that when we find the others, the Sister will have already come to take away my child. Will Charlie and Nolan have reached them in time? And even if they did, what might the Sister do in retaliation?
I don’t believe she would hurt Nolan. She can’t hurt Nolan. But Charlie—Charlie has no such protection.
A scene where Nolan is leaning over Charlie’s corpse, mourning the loss of our child and the loss of his friend, plays through my mind. But as we journey down the tunnel, shouts echo through the caves, along with the sound of metal clanging against metal.
A little bit further, and a shot fires through the canyon-like tunnels. Maddox and I exchange a glance, both familiar by now with the sound of Charlie’s pistol.
Maddox starts running.
We reach the end of the tunnel and find its mouth opening up into the sandy shores of a small cove. The water is a deep blue darkening to black as the sun has already set over the horizon. There’s still enough light to see, but enveloping darkness will come soon enough.
As I approach, I glimpse three figures in the distance—Charlie and Nolan stand on one side of the cove, Malia on the other. For one dreadful moment, I wonder if Charlie shot at the woman still cradling my baby in her arms.
But then Charlie calls out, “That was a warning!”
“Put it up,” Nolan says. “Not with the boy in her arms.”
Charlie’s fingers wrap around the hilt of her pistol, but she doesn’t raise it—not again.
“Give us our son back, Malia,” calls Nolan, his voice echoing across the water, “and we’ll find a way to repay you.”
But Nolan doesn’t understand. Malia doesn’t want money.
“Malia!” I call, and Nolan whips around, wide-eyed with exasperation when he finds Maddox and me behind him.
“The Sister has her son,” I explain.
“You shouldn’t be here,” says Nolan, glaring at Maddox.
Maddox just shrugs as he sets me down. I stumble forward, my legs still trembling, but enough to keep me upright.
“Let us help you get your son back,” I try to yell, but my voice is still feeble from hours’ worth of screaming.
Malia cocks her head at me, looking at me as if I’m a naïve child. “And what are you going to do to help me? You’re under a bargain to the Sister.”
“We’ve been to the Sister’s lair before—or I have, at least,” says Nolan, his voice calm. “We have connections. Someone who can contact her.”
“Yes, and did you sneak into her lair?” says Malia. “Or did she invite you in?”
Nolan’s jaw goes set.
“That’s what I thought,” Malia says. “I don’t want to hurt any of you. But I will. Just like you will hurt me to get your son back. I’ll take care of him as long as I can. I imagine the Sister will keep me in her employ to nurse him until he’s weaned. This is my promise to you: I will watch after him.”
“It’s not enough,” I say.
“I know,” she says. “But it’s all I have to offer you.”
She turns, her cloak whipping around her, but stops abruptly as before her, a dark figure emerges. My face drains of blood, as Ifully expect the Sister to reach out her shadowy tendrils. But the shape is not that of a woman, but a man.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” says Maddox, his voice carrying from across the cove. I’ve no idea how he managed to position himself behind her, but then I realize that part of Nolan’s plan must have been to distract her long enough for Maddox to sneak around the forest edge, hidden underneath the cover of the trees.
Malia’s arm jolts. Moonlight reflects off metal as a dagger flies through the air, straight toward Maddox’s chest. Charlie screams, racing forward across the sandy shore, but Maddox dodges, the dagger lodging in a tree trunk directly behind him.
He lets out a growl, then lunges for the Seer, but Charlie has already caught up to them. She throws herself at the woman, and I cry out, unable to consider anything but the possibility that my child might fall upon the rocks in the midst of the struggle.
“Nolan,” I scream, but my husband is already off, his legs charging toward the fray. I hobble after them. The adrenaline might have given me the energy I needed to continue on, but that doesn’t mean it provides the stability I need to run on the sand.
