I emerge under a canopy of sparkling stars in an indigo sky.

Something pricks at the edges of my awareness—the instinct that something is wrong. Even if Isolde and Olani were trying to keep a low profile, it shouldn’t be this dark and still and silent. There should be some sign of their presence, not silence disturbed only by my breaths and the distant wind whistling high above us.

“Isolde?” I call cautiously.

No response.

Against the cliffs, almost out of sight, my eye catches something moving. By the time I turn to see it, it’s gone.

The feeling of wrongness increases, and I push forward, picking up speed.

“Seelie, wait!” Raze hurries behind me, a protective arm around the firedrake egg in its sling.

I ignore him. “Isolde!”

That time, I think I hear a response, and I have to stop moving to strain my ears for it. There it is again: muffled squealing, like someone trying to talk through a gag.

I turn, just as light blooms in the canyon, sparkling white on the stone. My hand flies up to protect my eyes, seared with pain after so long in darkness, but I try to squint through it. It isn’t actually that bright, maybe a little lighter than it would have been around sunset, illuminated by a ball of pure white light suspended in the air.

It’s plenty bright enough to see Isolde ten or fifteen yards away, sitting on a toppled column back-to-back with Olani. They’re bound together around the shoulders, with another binding around each of their wrists. My sister’s face is pale, a rag tied tightly over her mouth biting into the corners to silence her. Her injured leg stretches in front of her awkwardly, still pained. Olani is unconscious, and she doesn’t have her quarterstaff.

Beside them, holding the staff, is someone with a delicate, angular face I hoped I’d never see again. Green eyes flash in the artificial light.

“So nice of you to finally join us, changeling,” Aris purrs.

I have to fight every instinct to not run to my sister and untie her, hold her, protect her.

There are a few other people in the canyon. I think I recognize some of them from our scuffle at the inn. But here, there’s no cliff, no distraction, no help from Isolde and Olani.

We’re doomed.

Raze stands behind me, arms wrapped around the bundle at his chest, as if that might hide his cargo.

“Aris.” He sounds disgusted, not even bothering with his usual veneer of pleasantness. “How did you find us?” His eyes dart around, and in the stiffness of his shoulders, I read his second, unspoken question: Where’s Leira?

Aris folds her arms over her chest. “You leave a trail of incompetence and disaster everywhere you go. It’s not exactly hard to trace, Raze.”

My head swims. We went in and out of the faerie world and landed in a hidden spot in the deepest ruins of the Western Range. I can’t imagine what she means. Even our wagon is gone, lost with Birch in the faerie forest.