Wisteria had reached one hundred and twenty-seven when a figure stumbling in and out of the trees caught her eye. His progress was slow, but as he moved closer, Wisteria recognized Seraiah's father. The way he held his right arm clutched against his body worried her.

  "What happened?" she hissed when he was close enough to hear her. Her eyes went straight to his arm. Blood leaked from between where his fingers clutched it.

  "There was a scuffle." His words came in gasps and pants.

  "Were you followed?"

  He shook his head and then winced as the movement jostled the arm.

  "How bad is that?" She lifted her chin toward his wound, her stomach roiling as she remembered how she’d sewn up Eryx's wounds.

  "It will be fine if I can get the bleeding to stop."

  "Here, let me bind it for you now. When we get back inside Nyrene, I'll have better supplies to care for it."

  Using a strip torn from her dirty dress as a makeshift bandage, she quickly tied off the wound. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best she could do.

  "That should hold for a bit. Now, we need to get moving." Wisteria beckoned him toward the beach. "We will follow this until we reach the wall."

  "Even though there is no cover?"

  "We should be fine," she promised. "I don't think anyone expects me to go back to Nyrene and I doubt they’d notice one missing human."

  They trekked across the sand in silence, both of them staring at the waves.

  "I've never seen the ocean before," Seraiah's father commented after a while. "It really is something."

  "Once you’ve seen it, you never want to leave it," Wisteria told him. "Or at least that is the way I feel. I can't imagine not being somewhere nearby."

  They fell back into silence again until the green-gray stones of Nyrene's walls came into view. The rest of the city rose above them, spiraling up the cliff face to end in the castle at the very top.

  "Oh," Seraiah's father breathed. "Is that it? Is that where we’re going?" He pointed up to the spires of the castle.

  "Not quite. We have a safe house in the lower part of the city. We’ll meet up with our other allies there."

  "And then find my daughters?”

  "Yes, then we will find Seraiah and Sterling." She hoped her words were true because, for all of their sakes, they needed Sterling back.

  They didn't approach the wall right away. Instead, they stopped at a rock outcropping nearby.

  "There is a hole there," Wisteria explained, gesturing behind them, "but you won't be able to see it because of the wards that help protect the wall."

  "Can you see it?”

  She shook her head. "I can feel it though, and from what I felt the first time I went through it, we might have a problem."

  "What is that?"

  Wisteria grimaced. "I'm not sure you’re going to fit." She had barely fit herself and while Seraiah's father was slim, his shoulders were still broader than hers.

  "Is there any other way in?"

  "Only the gates, which are always guarded, and no one is allowed in or out. If I can get some food and restore my strength, I might be able to use my magic to widen the hole." She waited for him to ask about the magic, but he said nothing.

  "We have one other small problem,” she continued. “The safe house is a bit of a walk from the wall, and the city is patrolled at all hours of the day and night. When I left, it was during the day because I could blend in with the other elves walking the streets. But you . . ."

  "I don't look like one of them."

  "Right. I can steal some clothes, but changing clothes will only go so far. We will have to time this carefully."

  And pray to the gods.

  "I will leave it up to you,” Seraiah’s father said. “I'm sure you know what is best."

  Wisteria gave him a tight smile. She was proud that he was confident she knew what she was doing, but at the same time, she desperately hoped that confidence wasn't misplaced.

  It took a little over an hour for Wisteria to find what she was looking for. The clothes had been easy. There were plenty of laundry lines to choose from around the buildings near the wall. It was finding food that was the hard part.

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  She would have given up on the search, but she needed her strength if she planned to call on her magic again.

  Finally, she found someone carrying a basket of fresh bread. The scent of it alone was enough to make her drool. Wisteria watched from the shadows as children ran around the female elf carrying the basket. She scolded the children, trying to get them to behave, but neither of them listened to her. They scampered out of her reach when she tried to grab them with her free hand.

  Set the basket down. You need to set the basket down if you want to catch them.

  A few seconds later, the elf did just that, leaving the coveted basket on a nearby step while she chased after her children. Quick as could be, Wisteria slipped out of the shadows and snatched it up. She was well away before the woman even noticed it was missing.

  Wisteria wiped the sweat from her face and felt for the edges of the hole. The vines she’d grown using her magic had worked to weaken the stone around the edges, and then she’d scraped away at it until the ends of her fingers were raw. She wasn't sure it was big enough, but it would have to do. She was completely spent.

  "It's ready," she called over her shoulder. “And we need to hurry. I don’t know how the wards will react to this.”

  Seraiah's father joined her at the wall, and she showed him how to find the edges of the hole.

  "You go first and wait for me on the other side."

  To Wisteria's relief, he made it through without any problems. She followed quickly behind.

  Leading them over to the shadow of the nearby alleyway, Wisteria pulled Eryx's crudely drawn map from her pocket and showed Seraiah's father where they would go. When she was satisfied that he would be able to find his own way if he needed to, they set off.

  It was close to sunset, and the streets were filled with elves heading home for the evening. Any time a guard walked by, they ducked their heads and hunched their shoulders, but no one paid them any mind.

  A very tense half an hour later, they arrived at the front door of the safe house.

  Wisteria looked up and down the street to make sure no one else was in sight before knocking softly three times, pausing, and then knocking three more times.

  She had barely finished when the door swished open, and she found herself enveloped in a hug.

  "Where have you been?" Eryx demanded after he’d released her. His eyes darted to Seraiah's father standing behind her. "And who in the hells are you?"

  "Did you hear that?" Wisteria whispered.

  The three of them sat around the dining room table, discussing what Seraiah's father had been able to tell them about the human camp.

  He hadn't any idea how the humans had ended up in this world. He said one minute they’d been going about their daily lives, and then the next, they’d woken up in the woods. The only reason he’d been able to tell the difference between the woods here and the ones in Ratha was the lack of snow.

  By his count, the entire city of Ratha had been transported, and also the next closest town of Baromund. They’d been greeted by Elven soldiers, who informed them they would now be working for King Gavaran. The work comprised clearing trees and digging many holes, including the giant one currently in the woods outside of Nyrene.

  They’d been trying to work out what the purpose of this could be when someone had knocked on the door.

  "I think we all heard it," Eryx said, voice low.

  They waited in silence. Three pairs of eyes stared in the direction of the front door like they expected it to burst open at any second.

  The knock came again, slightly louder this time.

  "What should we do? Do you think it could be Virelai? No, never mind. What am I saying? Virelai never knocks," Wisteria babbled.

  "You are not going to do anything. I want the two of you," Eryx indicated her and Seraiah's father, "to hide, and I will deal with it."

  Wisteria reluctantly agreed. Of the three of them, Eryx was the most recognizable, but also the most likely to be able to overpower someone who was a threat.

  "Come on," she said to Seraiah's father.

  Wisteria led him into the spare room that wasn't being used and happened to be the furthest away from the front door.

  "You can hide here." She pointed at the wardrobe.

  "And what about you?"

  "I will do the same in one of the other rooms. No matter what you hear, don't leave this room. One of us will come get you."

  He nodded and climbed into the wardrobe. He was a tall man, so he had to stoop to avoid hitting his head.

  "It shouldn't be long," Wisteria reassured him before shutting the door.

  She hurried to get into her own hiding place, specifically choosing the room closest to the front door and, therefore, the best for eavesdropping.

  The sound of Eryx greeting whoever had knocked reached her through the wardrobe door she’d left cracked open, but their conversation was muffled.

  Wisteria nudged the door as far open as she dared and strained her ears, trying to make out their words. She thought she heard what sounded like her name, but she couldn't be sure.

  The conversation was over in a matter of minutes. The front door opened and shut and their home was once again silent.

  "You can come out now," Eryx said from the doorway.

  Wisteria pushed the door open the rest of the way and stepped out. "Who was it?"

  "You mean you didn't hear everything?" He gave her a pointed look.

  "No," she answered, not embarrassed in the least to have been caught listening, "but I thought I heard my name."

  "You did. Go get the human, and I will tell you both at the same time."

  When they returned to the dining room, Eryx was already seated at the table.

  "The visitor was Cylan," he told them after they’d taken seats.

  "Who?" The name meant nothing to her.

  "He served under me—under Kestrel," Eryx corrected himself.

  "And what did he want? Have we been discovered? Are we all going to die now?"

  "Calm down. He was sent here by Virelai and asked if you’d returned."

  "Oh." He was a friend then. She leaned forward eagerly. "And you told him, right? You told him what I found out about the humans, and how we need to get them out of there as soon as possible?"

  Eryx shook his head. "I lied."

  Wisteria sat back. "You what? Why?"

  "We can't trust him."

  "But—but," she sputtered, "you said Virelai sent him."

  "So he said, but I have no way of knowing if that is true. Even if it is, I still don't trust him. He was never shy about sharing his dislike of the royal family."

  "We are going to die."

  Eryx sighed. "We are not going to die . . . not yet, at least."

  "But if Virelai is working with this elf who hates Prince Kaimana, then that means she has abandoned our mission. And that means we are going to die!"

  "We don't know that," Eryx said calmly. "It could be that Virelai doesn't know anything about him. In fact, I'm sure she probably doesn't. She would’ve never had any interaction with him previously, so it's highly likely she only knows what he told her. In any case, I gave him a message for her—a warning. We can only hope she understands."

  "And if she already knows?"

  Eryx looked grim. "If she already knows, we need to be prepared. We need to have a plan in place for leaving the city or, like you said, we will die."