Even after I’ve made the declaration that I’ll spill every detail, my insides stay as tangled as a heap of spaghetti. With each breath, my lungs contract.

  Raze moves first, striding toward me and scooping me off the ground into his muscular arms. As he tucks me close to his broad chest, he turns toward the others. “She’s been through a lot today and expended a lot of energy. And we don’t know how much the sorcerer is monitoring this place. Shouldn’t we wait until we’re back at the van before we talk about anything important?”

  Is he offering to carry me all the way back? He trusts himself enough not to hurt me all that way?

  The thought lights a warm glow inside me. I am tired—from grappling with the power that surged out of me, from my headlong hurtle through the woods, from the hike that brought us here in the first place. My feet are aching with little jabs racing up my calves.

  But in Raze’s embrace, the tension in me melts enough that I can nestle my head beneath his chin. His hold tightens just a little, as if to reassure me that he’s got me.

  At the edge of my vision, I see Jonah nod. “We’re going to have to make the trek back anyway. Peri can take the time to rest and decide the best way to tell her story.”

  A rough laugh hitches out of Mirage. “Story time. Gather ‘round.”

  He comes up next to me and brushes gentle fingers over my shoulder. “You don’t owe us anything, Rainbow.”

  The nickname reminds me of the brilliantly colored illusion that flooded the sky just minutes ago. The beautiful image he created to call me back.

  Simply because he wanted me here, safe and sound.

  I half expect Hail to grumble a protest against the fox shifter’s words despite his initial apology. Instead, the fae man shrugs. “We’d better get walking, then. The longer that degenerate sorcerer has to plot his next moves, the harder he’ll be to tackle.”

  He hefts the bag of damaged equipment without complaint.

  We set off between the trees toward the spot a couple of hours distant where we had to leave the van. For the first few minutes, I’m lulled by the heat of Raze’s body and the rhythm of his steps. His scent, tart but musky, wraps around me.

  I can’t completely forget the conversation we’re going to need to have soon, though. The commitment I made to revealing all the awful things I’ve been a part of.

  A lump rises in my throat, but a more urgent concern dislodges it. “You found evidence that the sorcerer was nearby. Did you figure out where he went after I hit him with my power?”

  “It seems clear he was injured,” Jonah says evenly. “But not so much that he couldn’t run off—by whatever means. He might have had shadowkind under his control close by to help him.”

  Raze’s rumble of a voice reverberates from his chest into my body. “I followed his trail to a rough dirt road a few miles from the rift. One that wasn’t on any maps, so we wouldn’t have known to use it ourselves. There were fresh tire marks. He must have driven away—as soon as the road connected to a paved one, I couldn’t tell where he went from there.”

  My posture sags with a sigh. “Then we still have no idea where he is or where he’ll turn up next.”

  To my surprise, it’s Hail who speaks the next words of encouragement. “Maybe your story will help us with that, Cream Puff.”

  He says his silly nickname with a lilt that sounds more amused than disdainful this once.

  I hope that he’s right. And his new friendliness sends a pang of guilt through my gut.

  Would we have ended up in this much trouble if I’d told them everything from the start? Or at least back when we found the cabin and I had my first outburst?

  I was so afraid of what they’d think of me, of revealing the awful things I’ve done, that I might have paved the way for even more awful things to happen. If they’d had the full picture from the start, they might have been able to put the pieces together alongside me, faster.

  They might have been able to support me so I wouldn’t have exploded with anguish yet again.

  Imagining telling them everything makes my stomach churn, but I know that I have to. I owe it to them after how much they’ve accepted my mistakes.

  By the time we reach the van, the sunlight is starting to dwindle. The pain has faded from my feet, and only a faint twinge shoots through my ankles when Raze sets me down.

  As we get into the back of the van and sit on the benches, tension coils around my insides again. But the only emotions I pick up from the men around me are tangy curiosity and concern as comforting as fresh-baked bread.

  This is my team. We’re more than just fellow students now. We might have argued and chafed against each other, but we’ve accomplished a lot too.

  I need to do my part.

  All the same, I find I can’t look anywhere except at my hands, clasped tightly in front of me. “I told you the sorcerer captured me and kept me caged for a little while. It was actually… a pretty long time. I think. It was hard to tell how many days and weeks passed, but it was definitely years altogether.”

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  Raze lets out a fierce growl. “He’s going to pay for that.”

  I can’t totally appreciate his protectiveness when he doesn’t know the full situation yet. “He didn’t just keep me caged. The mementos he kept—the people he wanted to hurt—he figured out about my power, how I could do so much damage if I got upset enough… He made clothes that could protect him from the worst of the effect. He’d bring me to places where he wanted to sabotage people, and then he’d hurt me—say horrible things and stab my feet until all the awfulness burst out of me…”

  Jonah’s voice stays even but quiet. “That isn’t your fault, Peri. He was using you.”

  “But I still did it.” Tears well in my eyes. I swipe at them, swallowing hard. “I hurt so many humans. Lots of them people he didn’t even care about, they just happened to be nearby. Hundreds and hundreds… Because I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t control my powers. Just like I can’t now. If I couldn’t even manage it then…”

  Mirage makes a dismissive sound. “Extreme circumstances mean extreme impact.”

  Hail’s tone is drier but almost soft. “If someone smashes a bowl, you don’t blame the dish for spilling the food.”

  “Still. Still…” I inhale shakily. “I hated it, and I didn’t want to do it, but some part of me was made to do that kind of harm. I don’t know why. I want so much to make up for it now that I can—to bring more joy than I ever caused pain—but I don’t know if that’s even possible.”

  Raze slips his arm around me and strokes his hand up and down my arm. “It will be.”

  Mirage cocks his head. When I let myself glance up at the fox shifter, something in his expression sends a wobble through my pulse. He doesn’t normally look so serious.

  “How did you get away from him?” he asks.

  I cringe away from that memory too. Why is there always so much bad mixed in with the good?

  But they need to know everything.

  “The sorcerer had a daughter. That’s now I know a bunch of time passed—she was really just a kid when he first brought me to his house, and by the time I left, she was a teenager. He didn’t really her much, but she knew about the beings he kept in the basement. She’d come down when he was out and talk to us, bring us extra bits of food… One day she managed to break the power source that kept the blazing lights on us all the time, so we could all run off through the shadows.”

  Jonah smiles. “That was very brave of her, going against her father.”

  I duck my head. “I know. I heard him yelling at her while I was dashing away, and I wanted to help her, but it bothered me so much—I was afraid I’d end up hurting her too. So I just kept running. I have no idea what happened to her, if she’s okay. She used to talk about going to college in that town where you found me. I’ve been watching for her there, hoping I’ll see her. But I never did.”

  Our sorcerer’s voice stays soothing. “You don’t know how long it’s been. She might not even be old enough to go to college yet.”

  “Maybe. But if he’s going around up here now, spending so much time off in the woods… When he was keeping me, he lived where it was a lot hotter than here, more like around the school but rainier too. He’s come a long way. And we haven’t seen any sign that he brought her with him.”

  Hail turns to look at Jonah, unexpectedly deferring to the other man’s authority. “We need to track this prick down, don’t we? We can’t do much about the rift if he’s going to keep meddling—if there’s a chance he’d be able to break any protection you can give us and capture us.”

  “I can agree with that.” Jonah’s dark gaze fixes on me. “Peri, I know you don’t like thinking about this sorcerer or that time, but we need to know everything you can remember about who he was, how he behaved—anything that might help us track him down.”

  I square my shoulders. Of course. This is why I spoke up to begin with.

  “I think I know his name. Sometimes he’d answer his phone when he was in the basement with us, and if he was close enough I could hear the voice on the other end a little. Someone called him ‘David’ and a couple of other people called him ‘Mr. Blaser.’”

  Mirage perks up. “David Blaser. We find out what he’s up to, and then we smack him down!”

  One corner of Jonah’s mouth quirks upward. “There might be more than one. David’s a pretty common first name, at least. What else can you tell us about him, Peri?”

  I think back to all those days I spent in the basement and carted around in my former captor’s van. “He collected those trophies and medals and things. He liked to eat tandoori chicken. Like I said before, he was on the shorter side and kind of wide—he had light brown hair, but it might be going gray now. Dark brown eyes. Oh! I think he went to college at a place called Stanford. He ranted a lot about how stupid he thought other humans were, and sometimes he’d mention things that happened when he was ‘at’ Stanford.”

  Jonah is tapping notes into his phone. He aims a wider smile at me. “That’s really helpful for narrowing things down. Keep going.”

  I open my mouth and then close it again, my gaze lingering on the device in his hands. “After… after we talk about all this, are we going to meet up with Rollick and Sorsha and the others to tell them what happened?”

  Jonah hesitates.

  Raze’s hand goes still against my arm. “It wasn’t Peri’s fault that the equipment got damaged. She saved us.”

  “I know.” Our sorcerer rubs his hand over his face. His expression goes pensive for several seconds. Then he looks around at all of us. “Are all of you ready to be a real team? To go all in on working together, no sniping at each other or second-guessing? Do you all think you can trust the rest of us that much?”

  A glimmer of hope lights in my heart. “Yes,” I say without needing to think about it.

  It’s Raze’s turn to hesitate, but only for a moment. “I trust that everyone here wants to crush that sorcerer more than anything else.”

  Mirage grins. “I’ll give it my all with all of you.”

  We four shift our attention to Hail.

  The fae man grimaces, but I can only taste discomfort from him, not anger. “I know I’ve been the least interested in buddying up to anyone,” he says. “But you all… have done some pretty useful things.” He catches Jonah’s gaze with a slight arch of one eyebrow. “Even you, sorcerer boy. I’d rather take on this asshole with the bunch of you than anyone else.”

  A quiver of anxiety flits out of Jonah, but he sets his jaw defiantly. “Then I say we handle this problem ourselves and prove just how good a team we can be. That’s what Rollick sent us out here to do, after all.”