“No,” Vince said. “We know where they’ve gone.” Battered and bleeding, hurting in a dozen different places, he staggered across the clearing to where Angela still lay slumped against the base of a tree. She was in a shape she should not make, arms and legs all wrong, head tilted to one side and resting on her shoulder. Blood leaked from her ear, nose and mouth. Moonlight painted it black, but the sun smeared the eastern horizon now, bringing some hint of dawn colour to the grey, dead valley. Mostly red.

He knelt beside Angela and reached for her, afraid to actually touch in case he found her too still, too cold. He couldn’t take that. Not now. It didn’t matter if they’d won or lost, didn’t matter that Mallian had gone and his Ascent forces were now fighting a battle with no leader. All that mattered was Angela.

Her eyelids fluttered. Vince’s heart did the same.

“Angela? Baby?”

Her left eye opened and swirled in its socket, until it focused on him. The panic left it, though not the pain. She lifted her left hand and reached for him, and he held her hand. Even his good arm hurt.

“She’ll live,” Sammi said. She was standing behind him, a presence he did not recognise.

“Who’s that?” Angela asked, and she frowned and closed her eyes. It broke Vince’s heart. She’d spent two years with Sammi, the only family she had left. Now she did not recognise her own niece.

“It’s me,” Sammi said, but even the girl’s own voice did not sound convinced at who she was. Vince saw her confused, troubled tears, and that also broke his heart. Was it possible that drawing together had driven them all so far apart?

He realised that the shooting and shouting from deeper in the woods had grown less intense, and instead there were cries of confusion. Helicopters circled above, sweeping the hillside and valley back and forth with powerful probing searchlights. Bursts of gunfire still chattered here and there. Shadows skittered through the trees nearby, and then fell still and silent.

A series of lights flickered on down on the valley floor, and the sound of engines broke through from a different direction. Shooting rattled through the dawn. Lights flashed left and right. Shadows darted, shapes stalked.

“What’s happening?” Bone asked. He held Dastion up, the dwarf favouring one leg and bleeding from a gash on his cheek.

“They’re leaving,” Sammi said. “They’re running. Now that their leader has gone they’re adrift.”

“They know he’s gone?” Vince asked.

“They must.” Sammi looked around, then focused on Vince and Angela again. “We should go. I don’t know what’s going to happen here, but none of it will be good.”

“We can’t let them capture the Kin,” Bone said. “Vince. You know what’ll happen.”