I rushed to them and flung an arm around each of their necks. “What happened?” I asked. “How come you’re back so soon?”

As I glanced from my mother to my father, their faces lit up in smiles.

“We found him,” my father said. “Your werewolf friend.”

My jaw dropped. Oh, my God! It was everything that I had been hoping for, but now that my father was confirming it, I could hardly believe my ears.

“We discovered him on the ogres’ shores,” my father went on. “He had been adrift in the ocean for some reason. He reached a beach and crawled for shelter amid some shrubbery.”

“He was in a bad state when we—or, I should say, Micah—found him,” my mother continued. “We were thinking to just send him back here with Arwen and Brock to be treated, but the rest of us could do with stocking up on weaponry. We’ll be leaving again soon, perhaps even within the day.”

I was burning to ask how the mission had gone so far, but right now, I couldn’t think about anything other than…

“Bastien,” I breathed. “Where is he?”

“In Meadow Hospital. The fourth floor. Being treated,” my mother explained.

I wished that a witch could vanish me to the hospital in an instant. I darted into the elevator and hurried down to the ground. I grabbed my bike and began racing as hard as I could toward the hospital.

I passed family and other League members along the way, including Ben, River, and Aiden, but I couldn’t bring myself to stop. I called greetings to them as I dashed past, until I finally reached the edge of the sunflower meadows. Panting, I left my bike by a tree and ran the rest of the way through the flowers, skidding to a stop at the hospital’s rotating entrance. I rushed in. Since all the elevators were occupied, I took the staircase and rushed up to the fourth level on foot.

My parents hadn’t told me Bastien’s door number. But many of the rooms up here were clearly vacant at present. It didn’t take me long to find the right one. As I arrived outside a door near the middle of the long corridor, low muttering drifted from inside. I held my breath and knocked softly.

“Come in,” a male voice responded.

I entered to find three jinn hovering around a bed: Horatio, Aisha, and one of Aisha’s cousins, Fina.

I darted to the bed, my entire being lighting up as I found myself gazing down at Bastien Blackhall, either asleep or unconscious. The jinn had covered his body with blankets, so the only part of him exposed to me was his upper chest and face. I moved near his head and placed a palm over his forehead. Then I leaned in, planting two gentle kisses over his eyelids.

I could hardly contain my excitement at the thought of him waking up. I would finally have the chance to get things straight with him and allay any doubts he might have that I could have betrayed him. I would be able to hear his deep voice, feel his fingers closing around mine… gaze into his beautiful gray eyes again.

As he lay with eyelids closed, he looked ever so worn and weary. I hadn’t even asked the jinn what was wrong with him yet. I would soon, but for now, the only one thing that mattered in the world to me was that Bastien was here. He had found his way back to me… just like Saira had predicted he would.

He was safe now. Safe in The Shade. Safe with me.

Bastien

A surge of heat spread through my body. My limbs slowly awakened. I did not feel pain, even though I should have. I did not feel dampness beneath me. I was not resting on my stomach. I was lying on my back… in my human form.

My bed was no longer lined by undergrowth, but rich cotton sheets. I opened my eyes slowly. My vision was blurry. I was in some kind of room, a warm room glowing with soothing, orange lighting. There was someone leaning over me. A face. An angel. Am I in heaven?

A soft palm pressed against my cheek and then a pair of lips pressed down against my forehead. I wished I could see who this person was.

My senses returned to me one by one. My vision was still lagging behind. But I could smell again. And it was a sense that flooded back to me far more quickly than my vision. I breathed in a heady mix of ointments, the smell of a burning lamp, and other things that were strange to me. But pervading all of them was a familiar scent, a scent that made my spirit soar as I breathed in.

I knew that scent. It was the scent of home. The scent of longing. It was the scent of Victoria.

Maybe I really had gone to heaven, or was stuck in some fantastical dream of the afterlife.

I reached up to her face, still blurred, and cupped it in my hands. I slid my fingers down her neck, around the curve of the base of her head, and drove my fingers into her silky hair. I pulled downward. And then she was close enough for me to be able to behold her beauty through my patchy vision.

Ocean-blue eyes. A gently rounded nose. Dark, expressive brows. A small, pert chin. And her lips… I couldn’t help but brush a thumb against them. Soft like flower petals.

She breathed my name. I tried to sit up, but she clasped my shoulders and pushed me back down against the pillows.

“You need to rest,” she whispered.

“I don’t want to rest,” I croaked, only half aware that I had spoken aloud, rather than in my head.

I had just found Victoria again, in whatever strange half-existence this was. How could I possibly rest?

She placed her hands over mine and gave me that familiar squeeze.

“It was Detrius all along, Bastien,” Victoria began, gazing down at me through starry eyes.

I found myself trying to figure out what in heavens she was talking about, and what my cousin had to do with anything. Only as she continued did I remember how Victoria and I had gotten wedged apart to begin with. The hunters. The mutants. Brucella yelling that Victoria was a traitor, for me to cast her aside. And then one of Victoria’s relatives swooping her away.