Brax, the overgrown guard who set this all in motion when he caught Jinx, plopped down onto the ground and said, “I have time.”

“Well, I don’t,” Aurora replied. “I cannot sit in here while people are dying out there.”

She pushed Jinx’s hand away and raised the bottle to her lips. Then a familiar haze emerged between Aurora and the storm’s consciousness. This time she knew for certain that the power she felt in the air belonged to Cassius. It had the same cold, menacing potency as his presence the first time she met him. It filled the air like his deep voice filled a room. And while she loathed the Locke prince, the presence of his magic over the city eased the pressure she felt against her own barriers.

She returned the cork to the bottle and the necklace to its home against her sternum. “Never mind. It’s no longer necessary.”

She didn’t bother explaining further before she crossed to the ladder and scaled to the top. She shoved back the door, and the sound of screams came back with a vengeance. High above, a near-translucent barrier quaked from the impact of falling embers. Flames licked at the magic, and it looked to Aurora as if the sun had fallen from the sky and stopped mere moments away from crashing into the city.

Smoke filled up the space beneath the barrier, and even though the embers were no longer razing the city, that did not stop the current fires from spreading out of control.

She turned, intending to call for Jinx, and was surprised to find all the inhabitants of the shelter standing just behind her, gazing out at a blackened, burning city.

Zephyr was the first to jump into motion. “I’ll do what I can, but I cannot create water from nothing. There’s only so much I can pull from the air.”

“I can help with that,” Jinx replied, peeling back one side of her jacket to retrieve a jar of storm magic from a holster near her ribs. She held out the jar, the inside of which was swirling with torrential rain.

“A hunter?” Zephyr shared a knowing look with a tall, dark-skinned man whom Aurora could not recall speaking a single word since his appearance.

“Two hunters,” Jinx replied, glancing at Aurora.

A rush of gratitude filled Aurora’s chest. Jinx had every right to be furious with Aurora’s lies, but she still included her as one of them. For now.