Wrenfir urges me forward and I frantically slip onto the staircase’s small landing, followed swiftly by Or’myr and Wrenfir as footsteps sound from the curving hallway’s far end. Or’myr swiftly touches his wand’s tip to the runic arch, murmurs a spell, and the vanished stone bursts back into being. We all still, breath suspended and cast in the blue rune light of a single hanging rune lamp as muffled boot heels thud by then rapidly fade.

Or’myr puts one finger to his lips for my continued silence and grabs the lantern. I follow them both down the stone steps, then through a long tunnel, the blue light from Or’myr’s lantern swinging over us like a fitful pendulum.

We round a sharp bend in the widening tunnel and I halt before the blue-lit military skiff waiting just ahead, a tall, muscular Vu Trin soldier aboard it.

Apprehension tightens my gut as I meet the emerald eyes of my former kitchen enemy, Bleddyn Arterra, a glowing blue rune stylus in her hand. Her craft is no larger than a rowboat and hovers a trace above the stony ground, a sapphire rune rotating beneath it.

Bleddyn’s verdant hue is brightened almost to turquoise by the skiff’s rune light, the multiple green-metal piercings edging her pointed ears and brow glinting. Her long green hair is styled in the same heavy coils she wore at Verpax University, but now she’s garbed in Vu Trin blacks. My mind spins, our situations so wildly altered.

“You’re lucky I was here early, Ny’laea.” Bleddyn’s mouth curls around my false name with unmistakable sarcasm, but her gaze is urgent as she holds her hand out to me.

“We’ll come for you as soon as we can,” Or’myr assures me as she pulls me aboard, then taps her stylus on the controls. Runes blink into existence on the skiff’s sides and begin to whir, my uncle Wrenfir’s spider tattoo eerily wavering in the brightening light.

“My fastlines,” I tell them, the desire to get back to Lukas burning hot in my chest. I hold up my glamoured hand. “Vogel is running magic through them, just as we thought.”

“And we’ll run our own through them soon enough,” Or’myr firmly counters, a glint of defiance in his forest green eyes.

“We need to move,” Bleddyn chastises, effectively silencing us all. “Hold on to these,” she orders as she hastily passes me some folded papers. I slide them into my tunic’s pocket as she taps the control board again. The glow of the skiff’s runes intensifies.

“Thank you,” I tell Wrenfir, voice quavering as the skiff rises, “for getting medicine to Nym’ellia and her family.”

Wrenfir’s blackened lips twitch. “You’re welcome, Ren.”

“Hold tight to me,” Bleddyn demands and I throw my arms around her broad waist.