Isabelle glanced at the pregnant air witch. She was beginning to get a lovely baby belly. “You need to get back, Mira. Not me. I’ll be fine.” She turned her head and speared Jack with a hard stare. “Get her out of here. Get her home and fed. This dank building is the last place she needs to be. While you’re at it, take the rest of these witches with you.”

“We don’t want to leave you alone,” Jack answered.

“Do it anyway. Please.”

Silence.

Isabelle resumed willing Thomas back into this dimension with only the power of her mind.

Finally Micah spoke. “Tell me about that shirt you’re wearing.” His tone was downright covetous and she’d seen the way he’d been staring at it all evening.

“On the other side I used my shirt to wrap Thomas’s wound. Since they found me topless, one of the Ytrayi demons dressed me in this. It’s yours at first opportunity, Micah. I promise you I never want to see it again.” Sorrow sliced through her stomach like a surgical blade.

Micah opened his mouth, but Mira shot him a chilling look from across the room, and he closed it again. Isabelle would’ve bet every cent she possessed that he’d been about to ask more about the Ytrayi demons. She’d tell him all she could…later.

More silence. More staring.

Adam cleared his throat. “Listen. I’ll stay with her. The rest of you can head back.”

“I don’t need anyone to stay with me,” she responded woodenly.

“Please, shut up. You’re not as tough as you pretend to be,” answered Adam. “Now go on the rest of you. We’ll let you know if there’s any change.”

Isabelle barely noticed when the others left. She heard their low conversation, but understood none of it. It reminded her of the time she and Angela lived with Martha Newcomb, one of her mother’s rich friends, for the summer. Martha’s aunt had died that season and her funeral had been like that—low, hushed voices, slow-moving people, long faces.

Adam sat down next to her with a heavy sigh. He drew a random line with his finger on the concrete floor. “We all love him.”

She turned to look at him. “I just found him, you know? The horrible thing is that I thought I was going to have to let him go anyway, but I thought I was the one who was going to die.”

“He’s not dead, Isabelle.”

She chewed her lower lip. “No. You’re right. He’s not dead.” Isabelle stared hard at the empty air in front of her. “And he’s coming back soon. If he doesn’t return on his own, I’ll find a way to break him out.”

“You really do love him, don’t you?”