Page 116 of Stealing Embers

If we’re fortunate, we may come across someplace with a phone. We can call Seraph Academy and get picked up.

I still hold hope that the twins were found a few days ago and this whole jaunt has been for naught. I’d like nothing better than to find that they’ve been safely tucked in their beds at the academy while we froze in the forested wilderness.

As we draw closer to the flickering light, the trees thin. Through them, I can make out the base of a shear rock face. Night is almost upon us, so the details of the stone wall are smudged.

Like a lot of the mountains in the Rockies, I can see the stacked layers of rock and sediment, as well as veins of minerals running diagonally throughout the cliff. But the colors and the details in the stone are hidden in shadow.

Even though sparsely distributed, the trees grow right up to the base where stone juts up from the earth. We pause several hundred feet away and do our best to hide behind the thin trunks of some aspen trees.

The light we’re stalking is a lantern hung on a metal peg above the entrance of an old mine shaft. Not at all what I expected or hoped it would be.

From what I can tell, it’s an old oil lantern. A lamp like that would need to be refilled to keep light burning, meaning there must be someone—or something—nearby.

I’m about to ask Steel what he wants to do when the trickle of voices reaches my ears. It isn’t until two figures emerge from the hole in the mountain—carrying flashlights and, unlike me, decked out in weather-appropriate apparel—that I can decipher any words.

My fingers press into smooth white bark as I strain to pick-up their conversation.

“This had better work.”

“I’m over this assignment already. If that white-and-red-haired freak doesn’t show up soon, I’m just going to kill them and say they died in an accident.”

White-and-red-haired freak . . . that must be me.

“I’d think twice before I did that, if I were you. This order came straight from the top.”

“If it were up to me, I just would have smashed her on the head and taken her. I don’t know how Ronove screwed up so badly. She’s just one girl.”

Ronove. Shoot. Yep, they’re definitely talking about me.

Steel has clearly made the same connection. Tension is etched over his face and his fingers white-knuckle the bark.

He stands behind the tree closest to me, but that’s still fifteen or twenty feet away. His shoulder width is easily three times that of the skinny aspen he hides behind, so he has to twist to the side to cover more of himself.

We’re both sitting ducks.

“Let’s just get this sweep over with. A few more days of babysitting and I’m sure they’ll abandon this plan.”

“Guess she wasn’t as attached to the shape-shifter as they thought. Maybe their intel is going bad?”

“Let’s hope not. I’m dying for a fresh kill.”

The Forsaken separate, each walking the line of the cliff’s base in opposite directions. I assume they’re going to loop around and search the forest eventually, so we are officially on a clock. These trees won’t hide us from prying eyes.

Once the Forsaken are out of sight, Steel appears at my side.

“They’re in there.”

I nod. “Yeah, I figured that as well. And . . .” This next part is hard to get out. Not because of my pride, but because it hurts that it’s true—that those two innocents were taken because of me. It’s a horror I don’t want to let myself believe, but it can’t be denied.

“I’m so sorry.” I flick my gaze to the ground, unable to look Steel in the eyes when I admit it. “You were right. Blaze and Aurora were taken because of me.”

Eons pass before Steel speaks.

“Let’s not focus on that right now. Let’s just figure out how we’re going to get them out and to safety.”

“Where do we start?”

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