It didn’t come. People were yelling in the darkness around me. Sturmhond was shouting my name. I heard the echoing shriek of a volcra. Close. Too close.

Someone wailed, and the ship listed sharply. I heard the thump of boots as the crew scrambled to keep their footing.

“Alina!” Mal’s voice this time.

I felt him fumbling toward me in the dark. Some bit of sense returned. I threw the light back up in a shining cascade.

The volcra that had descended upon us yowled and wheeled back into darkness, but one of the Squallers lay bleeding on the deck, his arm nearly torn from its socket. The sail above him flapped uselessly. The Hummingbird tilted, listing hard to starboard, rapidly losing altitude.

“Tamar, help him!” Sturmhond ordered. But Tolya and Tamar were already scrambling over the hulls toward the downed Squaller.

The other Squaller had both hands raised, her face rigid with strain as she tried to summon a strong enough current to keep us aloft. The ship bobbled and wavered. Sturmhond held fast to the wheel, yelling orders to the crewmen working the sails.

My heart hammered. I looked frantically over the deck, torn between terror and confusion. I’d seen the Darkling. I’d seen him.

“Are you all right?” Mal was asking beside me. “Are you hurt?”

I couldn’t look at him. I shook so badly that I thought I might fly apart. I focused all my effort on keeping the light blazing around us.

“Is she injured?” shouted Sturmhond.

“Just get us out of here!” Mal replied.

“Oh, is that what I should be trying to do?” Sturmhond barked back.

The volcra were shrieking and whirling, beating at the circle of light. Monsters they might be, but I wondered if they understood vengeance. The Hummingbird rocked and shuddered. I looked down and saw gray sands rushing up to meet us.

And then suddenly we were out of the darkness, bursting through the last black wisps of the Fold as we shot into the blue light of early dawn.

The ground loomed terrifyingly close beneath us.

“Lights out!” Sturmhond commanded.

I dropped my hands and took desperate hold of the cockpit’s rail. I could see a long stretch of road, a town’s lights glowing in the distance, and there, beyond a low rise of hills, a slender blue lake, morning light glinting off its surface.

“Just a little farther!” cried Sturmhond.

The Squaller let out a sob of effort, her arms trembling. The sails dipped. The Hummingbird continued to fall. Branches scraped the hull as we skimmed the treetops.

“Everyone get low and hold on tight!” shouted Sturmhond. Mal and I hunkered down into the cockpit, arms and legs braced against the sides, hands clasped. The little ship rattled and shook.

“We aren’t going to make it,” I rasped.

He said nothing, just squeezed my fingers tighter.

“Get ready!” Sturmhond roared.

At the last second, he hurled himself into the cockpit in a tangle of limbs. He just had time to say, “This is cozy,” before we struck land with a bone-shattering jolt.