Page 149 of The World Undone

Claude gripped my shoulder, lightly squeezing at my silence. For some reason, my throat tightened, like there was a metal ball stuck there.

His expression softened when I glanced at him.

“I hope it works,” he muttered.

I found myself believing that he did too. “Max is hard not to root for, isn’t she? Hard not to love.”

“Not just for her sake, brother.” He squeezed my shoulder again, and that obnoxious metal ball doubled in size.

Wade bent down over Slimeball’s slim form, and fished through his pocket. He pulled out the crumbled piece of paper, flattening it out as the sun beat down on us.

I took a deep breath. “Please tell me there are actual coordinates on that thing and that this wasn’t all for nothing.”

Wade pressed the sheet into my chest with a smug grin. “Let’s go home, get cleaned up, and then we can tell Max the good news.”

30

MAX

Ralph carried Saif to the medical ward, and while my uncle was most certainly not dead, I also had no idea if he would wake up again.

It was another mystery to add to the list of fifty that I already had to figure out.

The excitement and shock of encountering him had bled into heartache and a strange sense of acceptance.

But now, I was just numb.

“He just passed out?” Izzy asked again, her eyes narrowed in focus as she hooked his limp form up to several of the machines Greta had managed to scavenge. “You don’t know how or why?”

I curled my fingers into fists, a strange new buzz tingling through them that I wasn’t ready to dissect yet. “I think he whispered some spell.”

“A spell?”

I blinked a few times at her question. I’d somehow known the spell too, had chanted it alongside him, but the memory was like a shadowy wisp, one I couldn’t quite curl my fingers around. “Something about unblocking my?—”

“Max?” A deep voice called, cutting through my anxiety about Saif and whatever power transfer he’d initiated, only to make room for a new panic when I turned to meet it.

“Arnell?”

He ran into the room, his chest heaving in deep breaths, eyes blown wide with concern.

My stomach flipped at the sight, at the concern drenching every tense muscle in his body. Arnell was almost always collected, calm—even during some of the most dangerous missions.

He only got like this when?—

“Ro.” I latched on to Ralph, using him to keep myself upright. “My team? What’s wrong? What happened?” On instinct, I took a deep breath, searching for the tethers connecting me to them.

I exhaled. They were alive. Safe. But still shutting me out. Declan’s new project of giving me time to destress.

“I’m sorry—” he shook his head, “they said I couldn’t tell you.”

Any relief I felt disappeared. “Couldn’t tell me what?”

“They had a meeting,” he swallowed, his eyes not meeting mine, “with some people from The Guild.” He wet his lips. “With some high-up people in The Guild, just below the council.”

My mouth went dry.

“Dec stayed behind,” he continued, his voice higher than usual, his fingers trembling. “And I got a new message after the others left, about twenty minutes ago. From Jarrod. H-he must have found out about the meeting, about their attempted coup. He said something about a massacre for a massacre, the people he grew up with for yours.” He licked his lips. “We weren’t sure what that meant, but then Ro started panicking about the town you grew up in. They went to check, said they’d be back in five minutes once they verified things were okay. I—” he took a deep breath that did nothing to dispel the anxiety radiating from him. If they left twenty minutes ago, that five-minute time limit was more than up. “I tried to stop them, but Dec just disappeared. And then I wanted to go after them, but I realized that I have no fucking clue where you grew up. Whenever we talked about his childhood, Ro never gave me specifics about the location, just the people.”

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