The landscape of the reservoir bed was lacking in cover, and they had to search for wrinkles in the terrain to take them out onto the valley floor and towards the shimmering portal. What if we go through and Grace shuts it forever? she thought. It was not a consideration. They were in danger already, and putting themselves at more risk in order to combat Mallian was inevitable.

They might not have very long.

They might not have any time at all.

“There,” Vince said, pointing ahead. His voice was flat. He held onto Angela’s hand as they went, and Sammi led the way towards the place where two worlds touched.

* * *

I can’t believe she’s gone.

Saving Lilou from Mary Rock’s thugs was how Vince had discovered the world of the living Kin. Before that they were merely relics to him, ancient remnants of obscure, ambiguous creatures that were worth a fortune on the collector’s market. He’d become a relic hunter for the London gangster Fat Frederick Meloy, another man who had subsequently fallen under Lilou’s spell, and who had sacrificed himself to save them all.

Now Lilou was dead, and Vince too felt exposed to the world of the Kin.

Angela was with him, gripping his hand. He had to hold onto that. Lilou would want them to be together, and she’d want them to continue the fight she had begun. The nymph’s cause had been strong enough for her to go against the creature that had been her best friend for far longer than Vince had been alive. He would never betray that.

How could such a rare creature be snuffed out so easily? She’s still burning, he thought. Somewhere behind us, Lilou’s corpse is still hot to the touch, because Mallian made Grace burn her to death.

He would do everything he could to avenge her murder. It wasn’t only about preventing Ascent and a conflict that might cost countless lives, both human and Kin. It was about taking revenge for the death of the other woman he loved.

There was no time to waste.

“Straight through,” he said when they reached the portal, and he pulled Angela and then Sammi after him into the Fold.

A brief disorientation came and passed. He shook his head and looked around at the new landscape, and it was depressingly familiar. He supposed most people might consider it beautiful, its wildness something rarely seen back in the modern world. He saw it only as a prison, and this time Angela was incarcerated with him.

“She might have felt us come through,” Sammi said, her gaze distant, not yet taking everything in.

“Maybe,” Angela said, “but that doesn’t mean she’d tell Mallian, or that he’d automatically know. Does it?”

Sammi shrugged.

“We need to find the relics,” Vince said. “The ones Gregor collected, and a new one Mallian got in here.”