And then . . . Solomon screamed. Howled. The force of it doubled him over, and when he screamed again, he fell to his knees. He kept screaming. I’d never imagined a sound so big coming out of him.

“Hey,” I said, reaching out to touch his shoulder.

Solomon reacted on raw, unthinking instinct. When he felt my hand, he flinched. Twisted his body and pushed me away.

I fell. My butt hit the ground, hard.

He wasn’t trying to hurt me. I know that.

Fourteen

Solomon

Connor and I sat on the floor of Radha’s hut, drawing. He burned shapes and images into pieces of paper with his finger-fire, and I colored them in.

“The flames should be blue,” Connor said.

“Of course,” I said.

Physically, I felt fully recovered from my latest freak-out. My throat hurt, like I’d been screaming, which was weird because Radha swore up and down that I never made a sound, but otherwise I was fine. Physically.

Mentally, not so much. I remembered all the awful things I said to Ash before everything went bad, and that was painful enough, but I couldn’t ignore the suspicious timing of it all. Ash’s nine soldier-guards were going to use some scary, painful method to shock Ash’s power out into the open—and the very next day, Ash was sedated. Magically restrained. Subdued into a near-coma.

Coincidence, I told myself, but I was unconvincing.

“You’re outside the lines,” Connor said, snatching the crayon out of my hand.

“Sorry, brother.”

Normally, Connor would have been at the Narwhal . . . but the place was locked up tight, and no one had seen Quang. Radha had asked me to stick around, help watch Connor, and I’d been very happy to agree—especially when I saw how worried she clearly was about the possibility that Quang had disappeared, among so many others.

A knock from outside. Radha was in the kitchen making dinner, so I went to answer the door.

“Hello, Solomon,” said Niv.

“What the hell,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“We need a place to hide,” he said, his smile embarrassed and adorable. And that’s when I noticed the woman behind him, wearing a hijab, who I’d initially assumed to be another Underbridge loiterer.

“Ash,” I said, even before she turned around and I saw her face.

“Solomon,” she said, her eyes unfocused, her voice tiny and far away.

I pushed past Niv, to hug her. Her arms stayed at her sides. Part of her was still somewhere else. Somewhere terrifying.

I glanced past the two of them. They were alone. “You’re alone?”

“Had to get out fast.” Niv’s eyes darted left and right, scanning for threat in his periphery.