“Bells,” Roar said, glaring at the woods.

She remembered Harris’s words. “To drive away dark spirits,” she said.

“To drive me mad.” Roar took something from his bag. A black hat that he pulled over his head. Heavy flaps came down to cover his ears. “They disorient me.”

Perry turned. He lifted his head slightly, his eyes scanning as he drew a breath through his nose in a natural, wild gesture. This was him. The Scire. The Seer. He met Roar’s gaze, a silent message passing between them.

“We have to run,” Roar said.

Terror shot through her. She looked at Cinder, hanging at Perry’s side. “How are you going to run with him?”

He was moving before she’d finished asking the question. Aria reached into her pockets and scooped out the rocks she’d collected. She let them scatter on the ground.

Minutes after they started running, her muscles cramped. Nausea rose up in her, which she didn’t understand, as she hadn’t eaten in a day. She pushed on. Her boots caught on every small stone. Every step stabbed the bottoms of her feet. Trees loomed up ahead, shadowed shapes on the hillside. The trees would hide them. She ran and ran and still they seemed no closer.

“They’re running too,” Perry said after another stretch. An hour? A minute? All the color had drained from his face. She could see that even in the dark.

She didn’t notice when dawn came, gray and misty. Or when they’d made it to the incline where the trees began. She appeared beneath the pines suddenly, like she’d fractioned into a Realm.

“Move, Cinder. Run,” Perry told him.

Cinder’s feet dragged. He was barely supporting his own weight anymore.

Aria bit her lip, searching desperately into the woods for the Croven. The bells were loud now, disorienting like Roar said. “Let me take him, Perry.”

Perry slowed. His hair was slick and darkened with sweat. His soaked shirt sucked to his frame. He nodded, letting her take Cinder. Cinder was freezing to the touch. His eyes had rolled to the back of his head. Roar appeared at his other side. Together, they dug in, pushing, carrying Cinder between them as the slope grew steeper and the bells rang louder.

Roar stopped. “Straight uphill. Can you manage without me?”

“Yes.” She turned and her heart seized. “Where’s Perry?”

“Slowing the Croven down.”

He’d left? He’d gone back?

Roar drew his knife. “Keep moving. Get to Marron’s. Get us help.”

He tore down the slope, his black clothes fading into the shadows. Aria firmed her grip around Cinder’s bony ribs and pressed on, her every step weighted by terror. She couldn’t push back the thought . . . What if she never saw them again? What if that was the last time she’d see Perry? She wouldn’t let it be.

“Help me, Cinder.”