Raymond hooked his hand around Isaak’s elbow. “Hold on tight, Dad,” Isaak told him in English. Then he turned to me. “You ready?”

The postern began to glow, tracks of light forming geometric patterns between the stacked stones.

I nodded and reached for Isaak’s hand.

The light of the arch grew brighter and brighter. The doorway was opening.

“All right, everyone,” Isaak said. “Let’s go.”

We stepped forward, and the world exploded.

It wasn’t just the force of the postern. We hadn’t passed through the arch yet, but the ground beneath my feet began to rumble. My ears were filled with the sound of an explosion. Then something thrust me forward, knocking me into Isaak, and we toppled into the light.

The last thing I felt before being torn into nothing was Ceilos’ hand slipping through my fingers.

Chapter 37

As always, traveling through the postern was about as pleasant as getting squeezed through a meat grinder. I gasped for breath as my atoms reassembled themselves, agonizing pain giving way to normalcy. I was just about to congratulate myself on managing to not collapse after rematerializing this time when a body staggered hard against me, knocking me over. I slammed into Dad and the group of us tumbled onto the ground.

“What the hell was that?” Dad muttered, rubbing his ribs.

“He let go.”

I lifted my head to look at Nadin, splayed sideways over my chest. She shakily pushed herself up onto her knees, looked around the empty crater around us. “Ceilos?!” she called.

I sat bolt upright. We were in one of Erick’s dig trenches, but the excavation crew was nowhere to be seen—even their equipment was gone. But that’s not what caught my attention.

It was that there were only three of us.

“Where are the others?” I asked, dreading the answer. “Emil? And Gitrin and Ceilos?”

Nadin’s eyes were frantic. “Isaak, he let go.”

“Who let go?”

She swallowed. “Ceilos. He had my hand as we were stepping into the postern, and just as I passed through, just when I heard that noise… he let go.”

“What’s she saying?” my dad demanded.

I ignored him. “What does that mean?” I asked. “Where did they go?”

“I don’t know,” Nadin said, her voice breaking. “If the postern closed before they made it through, they’ll still be back in Elytherios. But if Ceilos let go of my hand after they were already in the postern…”

Silence hung over us for a long, grim moment. Then Nadin leaped to her feet, ripping the posternkey out of my hand. “We have to go back!”

“How are we supposed to do that? First we have to get to that cave that my dad and I—”

“Then let’s go!” She pulled me up to my feet, frantically dragging me over to the trench’s edge.

“It’s not going to be that simple,” I argued. “Emil said that GSAF—”