93 DAYS UNTIL THE AUTUMNAL EQUINOX, NIGHT
Finally, we had a plan. We’d leave at dawn. Rives, Paulo, Zane, and I would go on a Search for clues; Thad would stay behind, with the rest. Paulo seemed as eager to go as I was. Our destinies were still linked; I felt it.
Inside the Shack, I fingered the rope, debating whether to add it to my satchel.
“Rives.” An unfamiliar silhouette appeared in the doorway.
“James!” Rives stuck out his hand, smiling. “Good to see you, bro.”
“Thank you.” James nodded, his expression intense. “I accept your hospitality, if your offer still stands.”
“Of course,” Rives said. “This City is yours, too.”
James’s eyes flicked around the Shack, landing on our satchels. “Taking a trip?” he inquired.
“More like a scavenger hunt,” Rives said. He turned to me and said, “Skye, meet James. He helped with the bear burial today, which sounds as weird as it was. James, meet Skye.”
“Hello, Skye.” He lifted a hand in greeting, then glanced behind him.
Rives stepped forward. “See something, James?”
“Nothing.” James’s voice was troubled. “We are alone.”
Wrong, I thought, watching Rives stride outside to inspect the perimeter. Not here.
Darkness circled my mind; it was ever present, like the cloud of fatigue. Nil may have stopped haunting my dreams, but it hadn’t stopped haunting me. Nil wanted to rest, forever, and it needed our help.
I’m trying, I thought, abruptly frustrated. Give me something, won’t you?
The darkness in my head surged like a tsunami. I recoiled. My mental walls held, but my certainty shattered.
In that terrifying moment, I sensed Nil wanted something else entirely: something darker, something greater, something it coveted more than me or my help. Nil hungered for life on a scale beyond my comprehension.
Rives was talking to James outside the Shack. The rope shook in my hand.
Because I suddenly feared Nil was exactly as Thad always warned: a games master, a cruel croupier, and I was too blind—or naïve—to see it; I feared Nil was using me for its own horrible ends. And if I’d led my friends and my love back here only to watch them die, I’d never forgive myself.
Never.