Hopefully, they wouldn’t make it any farther.

Crier paused in the middle of the courtyard, ignoring the stares and whispers all around her, weighing her options. Should she wait for them at the edge of the estate? Should she attempt to meet them halfway?

“Crier!”

Something prickled at the back of her mind. Why did she know that voice? She turned, scanning the crowd that had gathered, a circle of humans and Automae watching her with mixed fear and wariness and curiosity and, on a few faces, something she could have sworn was awe.

“Crier!” the voice repeated, and this time she saw him, wriggling his way through the crowd and breaking free, stumbling into the ground zero of empty space around her.

Hook. The boy who’d saved her from the Shades on the river, the rebel leader with his group of lost children. She felt her mouth drop open. The last time they’d seen each other, on the white shell banks of the Queen’s Cove . . . Crier had thought surely that was it, their paths would never cross again. But here he was, a little worse for the wear—there was a bandage plastered over his left ear, and his left eye was badly swollen—but very much alive, grinning even, just as wide and toothy as she remembered.

“All of you quit your gawking, give her some space,” he said loudly, making a shooing gesture at the crowd. Then he strode right up to Crier, looking totally unconcerned about the silver-white light pulsing from her skin. “Hello again,” he said, giving her a jaunty salute. “I’d hoped to find you here, but I’ll admit I didn’t expect you to be glowing.”

“You—” she started, not knowing how to finish the sentence. You made it? I’m glad you’re alive? I’m glad to see you again? I thought you wanted nothing to do with me? “You—hoped to find me?”

“Yeah.” His smile faded. “I . . . regret it. Leaving you there, I mean. I’m sorry.”

Crier nodded. “I forgive you,” she said. She didn’t have the time—or the desire—for anything else. “You were looking out for your own. I understood then and I understand now.” It was the most human thing in the world. “We both got here in the end, didn’t we?”

“That we did,” he said. “By the way, I think it bears repeating: you’re, uh, glowing?”

She leaned in, hyperaware of all the eyes on them, all the ears pricked to catch their every word. “I found Tourmaline,” she told him, lower even than a whisper. “I found it, Hook.”

His eyes widened. He opened his mouth to respond, but no words came.

Crier waited a few seconds, but he still didn’t speak. “Hook?” she said, tempted to wave a hand in front of his face. Was he really that shocked about Tourmaline?

Then she realized: He wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were fixed on something just past her shoulder, and he was still frozen. He was barely even breathing.