Cole woke up frequently, distressed and in a cold sweat. He wouldn’t tell me what his dreams were about, but when I fed on him throughout the night, all I saw were jumbled pictures of dark, chilling images of screams that would come to life and turn into terrifying monsters. They reached inside my head and tried to steal my brain.

The images scared me, and I had to keep pulling back from Cole’s face.

In the morning I woke with a feeling of dread. I wasn’t sure if it came from the nightmares or from the enormity of our task. Jack made coffee for us. We sat down across from each other at the table.

Jack took my hand. “It’s going to work, Becks.”

I shrugged. “Even if it does . . . the chances of us destroying the network and escaping before the lockdown are about that of a snowball in the Ring of Fire; and even if it does work, what do we do then?” My lower lip trembled. “We’d still have to destroy the vault of hearts. And somehow we’d have to destroy every Everliving’s heart. And the Everneath would be on lockdown.”

Jack came to my side and held me. “Shh. It’s going to be okay. If getting rid of the network and eliminating the bond between the Shades is the first step in destroying the Everneath, then we do it and go on faith that the next step will present itself.”

“Faith?” The word popped out before I could think about it. “Faith in what? A higher power? The gods? The universe?”

My voice cracked at the end, and I realized what this whole thing had done to my faith, if I’d had any to begin with. I realized that the thought of a higher being in charge of all this made me angry.

Jack took my hand in his. “Do you want to try? Or do you want to give up?”

“It all seems so futile,” I said.

He pulled me toward him, crushing me against his chest. “Right now, the other options are that you take me to the Feed, or you become queen.”

“What?”

“I’m saying that if we run out of time and the only options are you dying or taking me to the Feed, you take me to the Feed.”

“Hell, no,” I said. “There is no way, literally no way in hell, I will feed on you.”

“Then we’d better try to destroy the Everneath,” Jack said. “Otherwise, we’ll be facing an epic showdown, and I’m bigger and stronger than you are.” The edge of his lips curled up and his eyes twinkled, but I knew that underneath it all, the threat was real. He would do everything he could to force me to feed on him.

Then I looked at Cole. The old Cole would’ve done anything to force me to turn into a full-fledged Everliving.

And hell, maybe he was the old Cole.

I was surrounded by a roomful of people who would both, to varying degrees, fight to make me an Everliving.

I frowned and started blinking uncontrollably. This whole thing wasn’t about bringing down the Everneath. It was about me trying to survive. Maybe I’d let myself believe that it was about saving the lives of countless potential Forfeits, but wasn’t it really just about saving myself?

Without me, there was no need, really, to destroy the Everneath. Forfeits weren’t exactly innocent. When it came down to it, they all had to choose to go to the Feed.

Without me, the old Cole would not be trying so hard for the throne. At least, he’d only be trying in the sense that he’d be looking for the next Forfeit.

Without me, nobody would be risking his life. In fact, this whole thing had started because I’d tried to run away from my own pain. It had started because I’d thought only of myself.

“Becks?” Jack said hesitantly. He glanced at Cole. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “Don’t do it.”

“Do what?” Cole and I both said at the same time.

“Can’t you see it in her eyes?” Jack said. “She’s running.”

Cole looked from my face to the spot where I was sitting on the bed, obviously taking it literally. “No, she’s not. She’s standing still.”

Jack ignored him. “Don’t do it, Becks.”

“Without me, you would both be fine,” I said.

“No,” he said. “I would never be fine. Ever again. And if you run, I will catch you. And if I can’t, I will try to take the Everneath down single-handedly.”

Cole finally looked as if he’d caught up. “And I’ll help him,” he said.

Jack glanced at Cole, and though he didn’t quite smile, the frown he gave Cole wasn’t as deep as it usually was.

I couldn’t think of anything to say. Would they really still try to take it down?

What if I were no longer alive?

If I were dead, there would be no point in Jack’s trying so crazily to take it down.

I closed my eyes and shook my head, shaking the thought away with it. I knew my own strength. There was no way I could ever take my own life. Unless . . . unless I was saving someone else’s.

“Becks, listen to me,” Jack said, grabbing my shoulders. “I won’t try to make you take me to the Feed. I promise. Just don’t give up. However this turns out, I will be monumentally messed up if you disappear on me now. If we put up a fight and we lose . . . well, we’ll have to live with it. But if I lose you here because you run . . . there would be no recovering for me.”

I nodded. Again, I knew exactly how that would feel. When Jack jumped into the Tunnels for me . . . and I didn’t have the option of fighting for his life . . . it was a feeling I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

I nodded my head. “Okay. But promise me, if this doesn’t work out . . . I cannot feed on another human being. I won’t. I’ll spend a century holding my breath. I. Will. Not. Feed. On. You.”

He nodded slowly. “Okay. Then we’re agreed. We’ll fight to take down the Everneath. We’ll give our last breath fighting.”

I nodded. “Sounds like a plan. Now let’s go destroy the network.”

Jack let out a sigh. “I told the professor our plan. His first reaction was, Wait, you’re only taking three people to destroy the network? You’ll need an army. So I got to thinking we need at least one more person. And I have someone in mind.”

TWENTY-NINE

NOW

The Surface. The hotel.

No way,” I said. “No one else is going to lose their life over me.”

“Silly Becks,” Jack said, ruffling my hair as we walked to his car. “You’re assuming that we’re all going to die. When did you develop this cup-half-full kind of attitude? Will’s already been helping us.”

“On the Surface. It’s a whole different kind of danger in the Everneath.”

“Will loves danger.”

I glanced at him sideways. The sun was shining through the window now, directly on Jack, making him a little too glorious for me to argue with.

“I have a good attitude.”

“Sure you do,” Jack said.

“I do,” I insisted. “I just have to measure my attitude with reality.”

“That’s called having a bad attitude.”

“No, it’s not. It’s called being realistic.”

“Or pessimistic.”

“Shut up.”

Jack smiled. “Ah, there’s that can-do spirit. Let’s go start a war. And let’s bring Will. This is just the type of thing he’ll love to do.”

Pretty soon, the four of us were sitting around the table in the hotel room, strategizing. We decided that the best time to try for the network was during one of the queen’s Feasts in one of the Commons. I’d learned of the ritual the first time I’d gone to the Everneath looking for Jack. The Shades and the queen gathered in the center of whatever Common they were in and then proceeded to make a feast out of humans and Everlivings alike who had crossed the High Court one way or another.

I remembered there being thousands of Shades in attendance, so that had to mean there’d be fewer Shades to deal with around the baetylus.

Everyone agreed. We were about to get to it, but Cole raised his hand. “How are we going to destroy the vault of hearts?”

We all looked at one another.

“We’ll have to figure that out later,” I said.

“We should figure it out now,” Cole said. “What if we get the opportunity to do something, but we can’t because we don’t know what that something is?”

I tilted my head, trying to decipher what he’d just said.

“He’s right,” Jack said. “We have to be ready for anything.”

Will leaned forward. “In the war, I was in munitions for a rotation.”

Jack took in a deep breath. “So?”

“So, I’ve got some old friends at Fort Douglas. They could help me concoct something along the lines of an incendiary device.”

Jack glanced at Will and wrinkled his eyebrows.

Will rolled his eyes. “You know, something that would make stuff get blowed up.”

I shook my head, thinking of my own cell phone’s behavior in the Everneath. “Stuff from the Surface doesn’t work right in the Everneath.”

“Electronic stuff doesn’t work. But something that is a simple elemental chemical reaction . . .”

Jack grinned. “Elemental chemical reaction?”

Will looked faux offended. “Hey, if I’m interested in a subject, I learn about it. And when I wanted to forget where I was in Afghanistan, I blew stuff up. It was much less destructive than other stress outlets.”

Jack nodded. “Okay.” He took out his phone and called Professor Spears, putting it on speaker. When the professor answered, Jack caught him up on our strategy meeting. “Will thinks that he could blow up the vault of hearts, because it would involve a basic chemical reaction. Do you think this would work?”

Professor Spears was quiet for a moment before saying, “Will’s probably right.”

Jack’s eyes went wide.

“The problem is finding enough of a fuse . . . and an ignition made of Everneath energy that would start the chain reaction. A simple match isn’t going to cut it.”

Jack turned to me. “You have the ability to conjure things up, right? Isn’t that what happened to you because you survived the Feed?”

I nodded, remembering the vague image of Adonia’s soldier, Nathanial, I’d conjured up when we were trying to escape her clutches. And more recently the railroad tie I’d made to block the door.

Cole scoffed. “She can, but she’s not very good at it.”

I glared at him. “How do you know?” I said.

Cole’s mouth fell open with a smile. “I remembered it! I was exasperated trying to teach you to harness your energy projection. It was a problem.”

My cheeks went pink at how difficult it had been for me to control my projection. “It doesn’t come naturally,” I muttered. I thought about how easily Adonia had created a blizzard. She’d probably only gotten better since she’d become queen. By the time I conjured up another railroad tie, she’d probably have already sandwiched me in between two spiky walls like she did the original queen. “I need a weapon the queen is specifically vulnerable to. Killing the queen is key for me.” I flinched involuntarily at the word killing. I couldn’t believe I was speaking so flippantly about ending someone’s life.

“I think if you can destroy the vault,” Professor Spears said, “you’ll kill the queen. Or significantly weaken her.”

We hung up with more of a plan than we’d ever had before, but we still had one significant problem. Destroying the vault of hearts would get rid of all the Everneath hearts . . . but what about the Surface hearts?

We could only hope an answer would present itself before it was too late.

While Jack and Will took care of a few things at home, namely a way to disappear without causing their mother to call in a search party, Cole went to the Everneath alone to find out when the next Feast was taking place. I was worried about him going by himself—especially given that there were Wanted signs with his face on it plastered everywhere—but he seemed to need a chance to prove he could do it.

I called my aunt Grace’s house and spoke to Tommy for a long time. He was enjoying spending time with our cousins and had been thrilled when my dad had taken him there.

I told him I loved him. I wished I could call my dad.

Will and Jack met me back at the hotel, and we waited for word from Cole. After what seemed like hours, there was a soft knock at the door.

I swung it open.

Cole was standing there. “Tomorrow. If we leave at ten thirty in the morning, we’ll arrive in the Everneath just in time for the Feast.”

It was a restless sleep that night for all of us. Jack, Cole, and I slept in the king-size bed as we had been doing the entire time. Will slept on the floor. He said his time in the army made him used to sleeping on hard floors, so being on the carpet was comfortable.

But I was up most of the night, and I could swear that I never heard the even breathing of sleep from any of the guys.