“It’s best if you come see for yourself,” he told me, and now I was rocking some full-blown professional-level anxiety. Rebirth had clearly done nothing to help with that.

Coming back from the dead really should include a slight reprieve from the drama.

For five minutes at least.

* * *

Shadow took us through a pocket of energy, and when we stepped out on the other side, we were once again in a familiar, burned-to-a-cinder outlier island. I noticed a few new cracks in the ground to go with all the ash, but thankfully everything else appeared to be intact.

Including our friends.

“Look at you,” Len said, clapping his hands together, a true smile on his face. “Reborn into the fiercest of beings. Powerful and beautiful. Shadow has his hands full.”

None of them showed any sign of concern that they’d almost died via one raging beast. Instead, they hurried forward and hugged me tightly, their only visible heartache from the way I’d almost gotten myself killed.

“We failed you.” Reece’s voice was low as he dropped his head.

“No, you didn’t!” I said in a rush. “Not even a tiny bit. I had a choice to make, and I’m really sorry for hurting you all.”

“You achieved what we couldn’t,” he replied, finally meeting my eyes. “Dannie would have destroyed us all, so we should be the ones thanking you. Your sacrifice was what we needed to best her.”

“We didn’t take Shadow into account, though,” Lucien added with a laugh. “He just about achieved the impossible and dismantled a fucking world in his fury. Not that any of us were surprised; we were ready to ride out the storm and hope that whatever emerged from the destruction was salvageable.”

I didn’t like the sound of that, but unfortunately, I couldn’t make grown-ass gods promise not to take risks like that again. The bastards got to make their own decisions—bad management, if you asked me. And that was maybe a little hypocritical considering what had happened with my last solo decision.

Potato potahto.

“What changes did your rebirth bring?” Alistair circled me, my flaming wings bright in the near-night dark sky, catching his full attention. Wondering if I could tuck them away like I had my wolfie-phoenix side, I imagined them fading into my back, and with a small pop, they disappeared.

“Whoa,” I said, not even remotely answering Alistair since we were all discovering my new abilities in real time. “Wings,” I murmured, and with the thought of needing wings again, they were once again on my back.

“Utterly fascinating,” Alistair whispered, shaking his head, my fire reflecting off the blue-green pigments in his curls. “You’re part phoenix.”

My smirk was instant. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”