The sky overhead looked as if the stars were weeping, giant glittering tears falling against an invisible barrier. Aurora gave a low whistle, the signal that all was clear. The sound was barely discernible above the din of the storm, but somewhere out there, fellow rebels were running to join her. The plan was to enter the palace and kidnap at least one of the Lockes to use as a show of trust in their attempts to contact and reach a bargain for peace with the Stormlord.

Aurora tried not to think about that, about the fact that they were giving a human being over to a madman who had laid waste to villages across the continent of Caelira, who had wiped the city of Locke from existence as thoroughly as the city of Calibah had been destroyed two decades before. The Lockes had done unspeakable things to the people of Pavan, to her city’s soldiers, possibly to her own mother, certainly to Nova.

It was them she had to fight for now.

And more than that, she tried not to think of the Stormlord at all, for thinking of him made fear leech in from the shadowy places inside her. They shared a gift—she and this madman—and if she let herself think too long on that she began to worry that his fate would one day become hers. That was a fear for another day.

Aurora stepped forward to survey the palace gate, its skyfire clockwork as dazzling now as it had been to her as a young child. She began to hear the soft thud of footfalls, and knew that the others were sidling up behind her, keeping tight to the shadows.

“You sure you can deliver, hunter?” a low, feminine voice drawled.

Aurora looked over her shoulder, meeting ink-black eyes rimmed with long lashes. The rest of the speaker’s face was covered by a cloth mask. Long, dark braids spilled over shoulders fitted with thick, black leather armor. Even without those clues, Aurora would have known who questioned her.

Zephyr.

Aurora opened her mouth to reply, but then caught sight of a familiar pair of brown eyes just behind Zephyr, and she forgot her intentions. Those eyes had been so many things to Aurora—infuriating, enticing, and above all comforting. Now, they were just another part of the chaos, another thing she had to work to shield herself against. The silence must have gone on too long because Jinx answered for her, “She’ll come through.”