“Where what are?” Mallian asked.

“The relics you want. I was following him when he discarded them.”

“You’re sure?”

Bah’Lia nodded, and Vince knew this was his only and final chance. If this Kin was telling the truth, Mallian had no more use for him, and with the portal still standing open, Vince did not want to die.

He wanted to live, and escape, and find his old life once again.

“Thanks, Bah’Lia,” Vince whispered, and when he saw Mallian’s confused frown—when the Nephilim looked at the Kin with growing suspicion in his eyes—Vince rolled onto his side, stood, and ran. As he accelerated he reached down and snatched up the sharp half of his snapped spear.

Every part of his concentration wanted to drag itself to the unbelievable agony of his broken left arm pressed across his stomach, but he pulled back, focusing on the ground before him, a dark land in the midst of night broken by the sun he sought.

He hoped that Bah’Lia had lied, and that it had not been following him as he’d cast those sad remnants aside, losing them so well in the long grasses and waters of the Fold that he would never remember where they were. If it had seen, then Mallian might still be able to achieve his aim of Ascent. But part of him also hoped that it wasn’t a lie, and that even now Mallian and the Kin were starting to follow the winding trail he had led and retrieving those sad, dangerous relics.

If that were the case, their distraction might enable him to make it out of the Fold alive.

18

18

She runs, she races, and towards the place where she formed the portal between her world and the other, she even flies. Perhaps it’s that brief moment of flight—her first for as long as she can recall—that does so much to drain her energy.

She lands within the portal, and as she takes a moment to gather herself, she assesses what she has done. The time delay between sensing the actions of the fairy girl and forging this new pathway between worlds is slight. The energy required is huge, and it all comes from within her. If she’d taken a few moments to consider her actions she might have prepared better, and might have constructed the portal in such a way that the power required was used and distributed more efficiently. As it was, her reaction was instinctive, and the doorway before which she stands quivers and shakes with seeping energies.

I’m wasting myself just by standing here, she thinks, and she walks through.