Koth nodded and walked over. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath then held his hands out. The air pulsed then glittered around the Elan’s giant eagle body. As the glitter settled into his fur, his feathers faded away until a normal human-looking man lay in its place. The man had long, straight jet-black hair and deeply tanned skin. He was shirtless, wearing only some kind of brown leather pants. Every inch of his skin from the neck down had dark brown swirling lines.

Saber choked on a gasp. She covered her mouth with her hands as her eyes teared up.

Koth’s eyes widened. “What . . . the fuck?”

I frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh.” Everest’s face fell. He glanced back to Saber, but I couldn’t see his face.

“Who is that?”

“That’s not Elan⁠—”

“You’re not Elan⁠—”

“Where’s Elan?”

“Who the hell is that?”

Koth just shook his head, his jaw hanging open. He stared at the guy.

I looked around to everyone and spotted that they all wore matching confused expressions—-except for Saber, Bentley, Everest, and Thorne. “Guys? What’s going on? What happened?”

Silas crouched down by the guy’s face. “That’s not Elan.”

Thorne nodded in Saber’s direction. “Go ahead.”

She wailed and dove for him, sinking to her knees at his side. With shaking hands, she reached up and cupped his face. Words in another language spilled from her mouth. She cried and shook him when he didn’t wake. Everest rested the palm of his hand on her back. It was such a fatherly way of consoling her. I didn’t know how I missed it before. He whispered something to her, but she just cried and buried her face in this not-Elan’s shoulder.

A deep, bellowing horn ripped through the night sky.

Saber gasped and sat up straight. “What’s that?”

“Help,” Everest said with a sigh and a small smile. He glanced to Thorne. “You called for him?”

Thorne nodded and looked to the sky just as another eagle soared towards us, except as it got closer, I realized it was gold—-as in, it looked almost metallic in color. The gold eagle had been nearly the same size as the other one but as it landed on Thorne’s shoulder it shrank down to the size of a regular pigeon. Even small, this animal was majestic. It threw its head back and that bellowing horn sound burst from its little mouth.

I was so busy watching the gold eagle that I missed Riah’s arrival until he appeared beside Thorne. His gold gaze was locked on the gold eagle. “Then next time you should wait for me.” Riah rolled his eyes and turned to the unconscious man on the ground.

Everest stood and shook Riah’s hand as he approached. They spoke in Seelie then Everest cleared his throat. “Thank you for coming.”