Once the actual death occurred, it was technically no longer my problem, but I couldn’t help but worry. If all the spirits suddenly gained the ability to break their daze and attempt to escape Chrysos’s inner city walls, that was a lot of souls lost to the void, unretrievable even by the universe itself.

And it was a sign that something much worse was going on, because souls didn’t just do shit like that for no reason.

“Did she say why they were trying to leave?”

Idris shook his head. “She’s gathered a few of them and is going to try to read their memories to see if she can figure out what caused it.”

As the goddess of rebirth, Ana had a particularly special ability. In order to properly reincarnate each soul, she had to view their lives and judge them to decide what they got to reincarnate as. So if a soul was kind of shitty while alive, she could choose to reincarnate it as a bug or a flower, giving it a life cycle as something small, powerless, and ephemeral. Their life cycle would naturally progress, working their way up from something small and short-lived, to something bigger with more longevity, until they eventually returned to what they were before and, hopefully, made better choices this time around. Not that Ana decided all of those reincarnations. Smaller creatures, like bugs, flowers, animals – those creatures went to the universe when they died and the universe returned them as a new creature. The only reason Ana had to decide the rebirth of mortals and half-immortals was because we had all these complicated morals and shit.

Anyway, Ana could essentially mind-meld with the souls to read their memories and judge their lives, which is what she was going to do to these souls. She was probably just going to reincarnate them while she was at it, regardless of where they were in the queue, if only because souls that had already managed to break their daze once were probably more likely to be able to do it again, and she didn’t want that headache.

And that was nice and all. Very good of her to keep everyone informed on the situation.

But where was my fucking rescue?

I had to accept the possibility, now, that she straight up hadn’t gotten my note.

But she wasn’t even a little suspicious that she hasn’t seen me in like a week? Did she even bother to ask about me? What the hell??

I was not going to let her hear the end of this. No fucking way.

Idris turned the lights off and settled in to sleep, apparently not finding the news about the souls nearly as alarming as I did.

I closed my eyes to try to sleep too, but there was way too much going on in my head for that. I lay awake in the darkness, only the faint moonlight half-obscured by clouds filtering through the window.

Half an hour later, there was a faint tremor in the air, and I frowned. It was a magical pulse, a sort of electrical feeling that usually preceded a large use of magic. I only felt it because I happened to be awake – Idris remained obliviously snoring next to me.

At least, until a giant explosion went off somewhere in the palace.

I sat up in bed immediately, Idris following right after as he was shaken from sleep. He automatically threw himself over me, and I spluttered as I suddenly got a mouthful of his t-shirt. Once he realized that the explosion was somewhere outside our room, he loosened his hold on me, ignoring my grumbling.

“Yo, fat ass! Get off,” I grunted, slapping at his side. “We have to go see what that was.”

Idris’s eyes narrowed. Even sleep-addled and panicked, he remembered to fucking sass me. “I have to go see what that was. Stay here.”

Stay here. Yeah. Um, what the fuck else was I going to do?

Idris caught the redundancy right after I did and sighed, dragging a hand down his face. “Just – behave. I’ll be right back.”

He scooted to the edge of the bed, but I lunged up and scrambled across the bed, catching his arm before he could stand.

“Idris, I need you to listen to me right now. I know you’re super powerful and everything, but what am I supposed to do if something happens to you? I’ll be trapped up here, at the mercy of anyone. I get that you’re trying to protect me, but wouldn’t it be safer to have me at your side where you could keep an eye on me?”

For a moment, I thought I’d actually gotten through to him. He went still, eyes lowering to the floor as he contemplated that, white eyelashes obscuring his emotions. I held my breath.

But Idris still shook his head. “If something happens to me, I’ll naturally be weakened too much to maintain the barrier, and you’ll be able to get out to save yourself. But if I’m not weakened, just detained, the barrier will keep any unwanted presences out.”

“Oh yeah,” I said venomously, fully fed up with his excuses, “and how am I going to eat, Idris? Or are you content to let me starve to death in here?”

Idris’s jaw set stubbornly. “I’ll obviously break away and return to you before it gets to that point. Now, please, Rook, I need to go see what that was and see if anyone has been hurt.”

I pursed my lips tight and released him, watching him leave the room with narrowed eyes.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to break something, anything. Even in this kind of situation, where we didn’t know whether someone was attacking the palace or if Gabriel had blown up another stove trying to make a midnight snack, he still refused to let me out. The idea of me slowly withering away to nothing in here apparently didn’t bother him in the slightest.

And I knew, logically, that it wasn’t because he didn’t care for me. It was his paranoia at the forefront again, telling him that if he let me out, I would be hurt, or taken from him, and he couldn’t stand that.

But my heart didn’t care about any of that. All it heard was that Idris would rather let me waste away in here, alone and hungry like I had been for far too much of my life already, and it ached.

How could you?

I swallowed hard and squinched my eyes shut, pressing my palms to my eyelids, hoping it would take away the stinging there.

It didn’t. Frustrated, I got up and stomped to the bathroom so I could wash my face in some cold water, but as I was turning on the faucet, I heard a strange noise and immediately turned it back off, straining my ears.

What was that?

I waited. Thirty seconds. A minute.

Nothing.

With a sigh, I turned the water back on and ducked my head down. This was all such utter bullshit. First Ana shows up and doesn’t even try to rescue me, and then –

Bang!

The bathroom door flew off the hinges, slamming into the shower case and splintering into pieces.

Oh, for fuck’s sake!

I turned the water back off and looked up, face still dripping wet, to see Ana standing in the doorway, hands on her hips. Of course, she had to show up when I was mentally badmouthing her.

We stared at each other in silence for a moment.

“You know, I only called you a princess once as a joke. You didn’t have to take it so seriously.”

“Shut up,” I snapped, and then rushed for the door, forcing her to back out and drop her heroic pose, “and get me the fuck out of here.”

“Bossy,” she muttered, but she still led the way out of the apartment, taking me not to the front door, but the balcony doors. I didn’t question her judgement and joined her in looking over the railing.

It was hard to make out exactly what was going on below, but I could see a magic shimmer in the shape of a circle, with several people around the edges maintaining the spell. They were giving us a safe place to jump.

I didn’t hesitate. Even if their magic trampoline thing didn’t hold up, I wasn’t staying there a second longer. I’d rather break both my legs.

So I launched myself over the railing, the wind stinging my eyes as I descended, and in moments, it felt like I was landing in a cloud, softly bouncing once before I rolled off.

I was immediately engulfed by two pairs of arms. A snotty nose landed on my neck, a sharp chin jutting into the crown of my head, and I relaxed.

Peace was the one crying all over me, face buried by my ear. Wisdom had herself wrapped around the both of us, holding me so tight it was a little hard to breathe.

I saw a brief flash as Ana jumped as well. Once she was safely on her feet, the magical landing pad disappeared, and six other figures came towards us.

Samir was there, of course, as Peace’s husband. Also with him was Gabriel, his three guard trainees, and, surprisingly, Ren. He gave me a grim smile when he saw me looking, but before I could ask any of the many questions building up on my tongue, Ana stepped forward.

“He’s not going to be distracted for long. We have to go.”

The others nodded, and Peace and Wisdom reluctantly released me, each of them grabbing one of my hands so we could teleport to whatever safe location they had in mind.

I couldn’t help looking back at the palace before we teleported away, my eyes drawn up to the balcony I’d just jumped from as if magnetized.

And in that second, I saw a single, lonely figure watching us from the balcony, expression unreadable from this distance. He wasn't shouting or moving at all, but I could feel his sorrow and his anger as though it was my own. My heart twisted.

I’m sorry.