“This is the last one,” Iannis said as he gently laid the shifter child down on a makeshift blanket on the ground. The little girl, with her blonde hair, long lashes, and tanned skin, could have been from my own clan. Laid out next to her in the camp were nine other children—two of them mages, the rest shifters like her.

“You should rest a little.” I placed a hand on Iannis’s shoulder as he crouched next to the child. “You just spent all this time and energy healing these children.” They’d all been infected with various diseases, though apparently in muted form, so as not to kill them off too quickly. Even so, they still could have spread epidemics without Iannis’s intervention. He and Fenris had joined us down in the corridor where the test subjects had been kept. One by one, Iannis had broken into each occupied cell and healed the terrified children. It had been excruciating to wait out in the hall while he attended them, but he wouldn’t let any of us near, fearing we might contract the diseases.

“I would like to rest, but I cannot.” Iannis briefly squeezed my hand, then stood and turned to face me. His alabaster skin was paler than usual in the moonlight, and faint lines of strain were beginning to show on his face. It seemed that Dr. Mitas’s claim about these diseases being resistant to magical healing was true. “There is still so much to do.”

“It’s nearly midnight, Iannis,” Fenris said. He sat near the mage children, his back up against a tree. “Lord Logar and his men aren’t going to get here until morning. The ward you put around the garage will keep the prisoners safely confined there, even if you sleep for a few hours. I will stay up, to make sure of that.” Unlike our raiding party, Iannis and Fenris had taken prisoners, mostly by using short-term immobilization spells. The majority of the scientists were currently huddled in terror in the garage, some of them still frozen as they waited for the spell to wear off.

“It’s cruel, keeping them there,” Noria said in a brittle voice. We turned toward her as one, apprehension sparking in my gut. She sat on one of the logs by the fire pit, staring into the crackling flame—now that we were no longer hiding, there was no reason not to have the fire for warmth. Fenris had found a blanket for her to wrap around her shoulders. Her magically shackled hands rested on her legs, glowing faintly in the darkness. Fenris had brought the shackles with him on the airship, and they would immobilize her if she moved too far away from him.

I felt a little bad that she’d been forced to wear them so soon after tasting freedom, but the truth was, she wasn’t free. She’d just exchanged one prison for another.