My arms were red. My face felt wet, my neck, my body inside my suit… All of me was covered in blood. It had slipped out of my pores. It didn’t matter. Magnolia Green was dying, and I would go with it. Every pulse of its core resonated through me, and they were so weak and slow. I would hold the inn to the very end, so it wouldn’t perish alone. I owed it that.

The stasis light around Wilmos died, and the old werewolf collapsed onto the floor. The dome quaked, groaning.

Sean sprinted across the room, slung Wilmos over his shoulder, and hurried back to me.

The core of Magnolia Green had grown so dim. It wouldn’t be long now.

“We have to go!” Sean snarled.

“It’s okay,” I told him. “Leave me.”

He grabbed me. “Dina, you can’t be here when it dies!”

Something crunched. Cracks formed on the dome. Karron’s ocean was coming in.

Sean grabbed me by my waist and jerked me off my feet, away from my connection with the inn.

“I can’t let it die alone! Leave me, Sean!”

“Never.”

The last root of Magnolia Green snapped, caught the three of us, and dragged us through the dust, through the sterile hallways, through the hole in the ceiling… Behind us thunder pealed.

The portal loomed in front of us.

“No! I won’t—”

The root clutching me split. A thin green sprout spiraled out of it, beautiful and free of corruption. It broke free, a little branch with a single leaf on it, and I caught it.

With the last pulse of its core, Magnolia Green hurled us into the portal.

* * *

I cradled the sprout to me, trying to shield it against Baha-char’s sun. It was like a four-foot-long grape vine, but it was a brilliant shamrock green, as thick as my wrist at the base and narrowing down to a wispy tendril with three tiny leaves. Two more had sprouted in the time I carried it. It hugged me as I paced on the far side of the alley leading to Gertrude Hunt’s door.

I had no idea how long it could survive. Every moment counted, but this was an incredibly dangerous idea. It was better to be safe than sorry.

The sprout glowed softly, brushing against my neck like a kitten eager for a stroke.

“Don’t die,” I whispered. “Please don’t die.”

An hour ago, Sean, Wilmos, and I fell out of the mining portal in front of the Barsas. I couldn’t even talk at that point. Sean had loaded me and still unconscious Wilmos into the shuttle, stabbed me with every medical cocktail he could find in the shuttle’s first aid kit, and then he flew at breakneck speed toward the planet’s portal center.