Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

F ire and ice. It coursed through my fingertips, shattered the bones in my arm, surged up past my collarbones and into my skull. I tasted blood and magic and—ginger.

I twisted aside, gagging on the perfume taste, but a hand fastened over my mouth when I tried to spit it out.

"No," a raspy voice commanded. My brow knotted. Wane? "Keep it in your stomach, itzaia; it's healing you."

I grumbled, cracking my eyelids apart—and my whole body jolted when I remembered falling through the liquid shadow. Were we dead? Was this the Elysian Fields? Or were we back in Hell, in the Damned Realm?

"It's not Hell, but I don't know where we are."

My shadow mate removed his hand when he was satisfied I wouldn't throw up the ginger, 1 and I sat up with a scowl that immediately fell off my face. I reached for Wane with a gasp, staring at the mess of dried blood on his face, and worse, a deep green poison mark.

"I'm fine," he assured me, his silver eyes warming several degrees. He skimmed my jaw with the backs of his fingers and pressed a quick, comforting kiss to my lips. "I'm already healing, and Harvey will be back soon—"

"Where is he?" I demanded, pushing to my feet and wavering into Wane's waiting arms. Fuck, why was I so dizzy? I glanced at my hand, the bone pin still gripped in my hand, pouring its violent magic into me. Was that why I was dizzy?

"He went to explore the island," Wane explained, squeezing my waist.

The island? What island? I swivelled my head, my heartbeat kicking up. We were surrounded by strangely still grass, no winds buffeting the hill we stood on. And the island was entirely surrounded by water. Oh gods, we were stranded.

"Kai and Wynvail went with him," Wane went on, misreading my panic. "Verena hasn't woken up yet, and Emlyn's still knocked out. Cronus did something to us. The blue veins of magic in that portal … I don't recognise it."

The blue magic—I gasped and snapped a panicked look down at my ankle.

"It's still there. The lightning's still around my ankle."

Wane dropped to his knees, his fingers hovering over my leg. The blue thread of magic had wrapped so tightly around me that it bit through skin and muscle and burned my bones. I gritted my teeth when Wane brushed his fingertip close to the wound, and pain cracked through me like a whip, like the magic that had coiled around me in the pool, like—

"Haley," he breathed, interrupting my panic. But there was no relief in Wane's mercury eyes when he looked up at me. "This is—it's titan magic."

My stomach plummeted. "What does that mean? Am I going to die?"

Wane scrubbed his hand over his face, throwing a desperate stare around us like the island would offer salvation. "Cronus's power is time. He's marked you, Haley. This magic … it's eating through your timeline."

What did that even mean? I shook, a lump rising into my throat.

"What do we do? Wane," I demanded when he just stared at the blue cord around my ankle, the blood dripping from the open wound. "What do we do?"

"We need to find Harvey and—" He got to his feet in a rush, wrenching me against him. "It's shifting. Can you feel it? Time is shifting."

I shook my head, panic making my eyes burn. "I can't feel it, Wane. I'm scared."

He held me tighter. "The grass was still, but now it's moving. The ocean is moving, too. Remember when the clock froze before he forced us into the Labyrinth? He froze time. This … I don't know what this is."

"Wane!" Harvey yelled from a distance.

I startled, twisting so I could see him. He was racing across the grass towards us, his hair flying behind him, wings ruffling, and panic in the whites of his eyes. Kai and Wynvail were close behind him, moonlight slashing through the air around Wyn like he was ready for a fight.

I jerked forward a step on instinct, and my leg buckled. Wane swore and hauled me up against him, cradling the back of my head. Icy fear bled through his soul, burning mine as cold as the bone pin.

"Run!" Kai yelled, his voice so full of panic that I flinched.

"Where?" Wane snapped.

Pain dug into my leg so badly that I gasped, and the scream I'd held back in the chasm poured out the second my mouth was open. I felt it then—the ripple of power around us. We were inside a bubble of it, the air thick with magic. It shifted under our feet until everything felt off, wrong.

I choked down a breath, cutting off the rising scream in my throat, and I reached for Wane, but my fingers passed through open air. I swore softly when my pain-wracked body dropped into an armchair, the soft cushions swallowing me eagerly.

Wait, what?

Where did the damn chair come from?

"Hales," Emlyn grumbled, stomping into the doorway to glare at me across the living room, a white tea towel in his big hand. I didn't know this room with its rich crimson furniture and warm velvets. It wasn't our old home, wasn't the safe house in Edinburgh, either. "Can you come carry this turkey to the table? Like I asked you to do. Ten minutes ago."

I frowned, getting to my feet, my heart slamming against my ribs. What the fuck was happening? Where was the chasm, or the pool? There'd been an island, and time had shifted…

"Turkey?" I asked with a frown. "But we only have turkey on Christmas."

Emlyn let out a breathy growl. "And today is Christmas Day. Stop messing with me, Hales, I need this dinner to go right. You know full well it's our first Christmas with Kaida."

"Kaida," I repeated. Ka-i-da.

Emlyn's eyes softened, something so exquisitely tender in his expression that I wanted to burst into tears. Emotion clenched its cruel fist tighter around me and a teardrop escaped, tracking down my cheek.

Em sighed and crossed the room to me, throwing the tea towel over his shoulder. "Go, be with her. I'll figure out dinner. Are you sore?"

"No," I answered automatically, but—I was. My pussy hurt viciously, like the guys had run a train on me for a full twenty-four hours. The soreness went deeper, too, twinging when I shifted on my feet. "Yes," I sighed.

Em kissed me, chaste and sweet. "Go. I'll run you a warm bath after dinner."

I stumbled away, unease wrapping around my chest. I hadn't been here; I'd just been somewhere else, but it was already too hard to remember, the memory slipping from my grasp.

Had there been grass? Wind? I shook my head, following the direction Em pointed out and finding a warm hallway painted a soft fawn that reminded me of the old house. The house Wyn burned down before he rebelled against Locke and helped us kill him.

It even smelled the same—lilacs and musk and fresh ink.

My heart thudded as I walked down the hall, instinct guiding me to the second-to-last door. I pushed it open, the hinges soundless, and I forgot every second of unease I'd felt in the last few minutes when I realised I walked into a nursery.

Kaida.

I rolled my eyes at myself for acting as if I'd never heard that name before when I was the one who found it. We'd been vigilant in naming her—no Greek mythology names, nothing connected to any god or titan. Kaida was Japanese, and its meaning was pretty, fierce, and simple: little dragon.

I smiled, watching her sleep in the wicker basket Kai and Harvey had built for her. 2 Her skin was light brown, her long eyelashes sweeping her cheeks in twin shadows, hiding eyes as steely as a storm. She slept with her tiny bat-wings wrapped around her body. Not just Wane's wings, but Erebus's.

"Sleep, little dragon," I murmured, unable to draw my eyes away from her. "I'm not going anywhere."