8. Jace
Jace
The Void is lying to us.
I don’t trust it. The air’s warmer—not much, but enough that my breath doesn’t fog anymore. The familiars slip ahead through the dark—black smoke shaped like foxes and ravens, glimmering silver only when they move. They light nothing, but somehow still show the way.
I don’t buy it.
Gray carries Bree steady on his back, massive paws silent on the nothing of darkness. Seth walks beside him, hollow-eyed, but upright. The rest of us trail behind in varying states of exhaustion and barely-contained panic.
But we’re moving. We’re breathing. For the first time in what feels like years, we’re not running from something that wants to eat us.
So obviously, something’s about to go catastrophically wrong.
“On a scale of one to doomed,” I say to no one in particular, “how screwed are we right now?”
Rhett glances back, fire flickering faintly around his knuckles. “You’d know. You keep the scale.”
“Fair point.”
Wes’s stomach growls—loud enough that everyone hears it.
He presses a hand to his ribs, looking embarrassed. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize for being alive,” I say. Then, because the silence is worse than the fear: “When we get out of here, first order of business—pancakes. None of that thin-as-paper garbage. I want stacks that violate the laws of physics. ”
Theo doesn’t look back, but his voice carries. “With blueberries. She likes blueberries.”
The mention of Bree settles something in the air. Like acknowledging she’s still with us—unconscious, corrupted, but with us —makes it real.
“You flip them, I’ll light the stove,” Rhett mutters.
I grin. “Last time you lit something we lost half a kitchen.”
Gray huffs—a sound that might be wolf laughter if wolves could laugh.
Stellan walks at the front with Thane, both of them scanning the darkness like they’re waiting for it to remember we’re trespassing. But even Stellan’s shoulders have dropped an inch. Even Thane’s stopped looking like he’s three seconds from ripping someone’s throat out.
Hope is a dangerous thing.
Especially here.
The familiars pulse brighter, leading us around a curve where faint traces of color bleed into the black. Not much. Just enough to remind us what isn’t Void.
“Feels weird,” I say quietly, “walking toward light for once.”
“Don’t get used to it,” Rhett replies.
I wasn’t planning to.
Theo slows.
Just a step. Then another. His eyes go unfocused—that thousand-yard stare that means he’s Seeing something the rest of us can’t.
“Theo?” Wes moves closer, concern sharpening his voice.
Theo doesn’t answer. His hands start shaking.
“Shit.” I step forward, but Stellan holds up a hand.
“Don’t interrupt it,” Stellan says quietly. “Let it finish. ”
Theo’s breathing goes shallow. His lips move, forming words I can’t hear.
Then he gasps—sharp, like surfacing from deep water.
The vision snaps.
Silence.
“Theo?” Rhett’s voice is careful. Controlled. “What did you see?”
Theo blinks hard, eyes still glowing faintly silver. When he speaks, his voice is rough. Shaken.
“A year.” He swallows. “We’ve been here at least a year.”
My stomach drops.
“The sanctuary,” Theo continues, words tumbling faster now. “Riley’s on the Council. With them. Like she belongs there.”
Thane’s expression goes cold. “Riley.”
“And the Feeders.” Theo’s hands clench into fists. “Our Feeders. The ones who came for refuge—they’re not free anymore. They’re chained. Mining.”
“Mining what?” Stellan’s voice is deadly quiet.
“The veins.” Theo looks at him, and there’s something broken in his eyes. “The same silver Ether veins from here—from the Void. They’re spreading through the sanctuary now. They turned it into a mine.”
Rhett swears—low, vicious.
Wes looks like he might be sick.
Thane goes utterly still. When he speaks, his voice is lethal. “They enslaved Feeders. My people came to Bree for sanctuary, and the Council put them in chains as soon as she was gone.”
His silver eyes blaze. “I will burn that Council to ash. ”
“Wait.” Wes looks between Theo and the rest of us. “Why didn’t you see any of this before? You’ve been having visions this whole time.”
Theo’s quiet for a moment. “Maybe because it wasn’t a possibility before. The Sight shows what could happen, what might happen. If we never believed we’d get out…” He looks at the familiars leading us forward. “Maybe now we do.”
“Zira?” Stellan asks, and for the first time since I’ve known him, his voice cracks.
Theo closes his eyes. “Restrained. Overseeing the work.”
Stellan goes perfectly still.
The kind of still that comes right before violence.
“Then we get her back,” Wes says, quiet but absolute. “We tear it down.”
“With what?” I hear myself say. “We’re half-dead, Bree’s unconscious, and we’ve been gone a year . They’ve had time to fortify. To plan. To turn everything she built into—”
“Into a weapon,” Thane finishes. His silver eyes shift to Bree’s unconscious form draped across Gray’s back. “Against her.”
The familiars pulse brighter, impatient, pulling us onward.
No one moves.
“And then pancakes,” I say.
Everyone turns to stare at me.
I shrug. “What? We save the world, we liberate the sanctuary, we overthrow the Council—and then we make pancakes. It’s called having priorities.”
Rhett’s mouth twitches. Almost a smile.
Wes exhales something that might be a laugh .
Even Theo’s expression softens just slightly.
“Pancakes,” Stellan repeats flatly.
“Blueberry,” I confirm. “With real maple syrup. None of that fake nonsense.”
“You’re insane,” Thane says.
“And yet here we are, following smoke foxes through hell because they told us to. So who’s really the crazy one?”
The tension breaks—not shatters, but cracks enough that we can breathe again.
Gray shifts Bree’s weight, then starts walking.
The rest of us follow.
The corridor opens ahead, light rippling faintly at the edges. The familiars drift faster now, shadows streaked with silver, like they’re close to something.
I glance at Theo. His eyes still glow faintly, Sight not quite faded.
“We’re running out of time,” he says quietly.
“Then let’s stop walking like ghosts.”
The air feels lighter. My chest doesn’t.
You can’t joke away a vision like that. Can’t laugh off the image of our people in chains, the sanctuary we’d bleed for turned into a mine, Riley sitting with the Council like she belongs there.
But if I stop joking, I’ll start thinking.
And if I start thinking, I’ll remember that hope is dangerous.
That walking toward light in the Void probably means we’re walking into a trap.
That a year is long enough for everything to fall apart.
So I keep my mouth shut and follow the shadowed shapes ahead, silver glinting where they move .
Pretending they know where they’re going.
Because if I stop pretending, I might start believing we don’t.