When he inspected the weapon closer, he noticed the edge of it shimmered with the multicolored light he was starting to associate with Jack.

“Oh wait, one more thing.” Jack took the weapon back and ran his hand along the base of the staff, leaving a blaze of rainbow fire in its wake. He handed it back to Fourteen. “This end is for humans. Any of those that come at you could have a nightmare inside of them, and if they do, that should knock it out if you can get it through their shields.”

Fourteen held out the metal plate from his jacket and showed it to Jack. “I used this to take out a witch’s shield earlier. Is there any way to attach it to this?”

Jack gave a low whistle. “That… would be a bad idea right now. I’d need time to keep it from blowing up in our faces, but maybe we can experiment after this is over?”

Fourteen’s inner smile broadened. He was starting to like this guy. Violence toward him was officially suspended indefinitely.

Jack continued, “The other end is for anything coming at you that’s squiggly, slimy, or just fucking terrifying. It might not stop ’em, but you should be able to slow ’em down until we can deal with them.”

“Time’s up,” Adelle, announced. “We have to do this now, Jack, or their shield won’t survive what we’re about to do!”

“Looks like it’s showtime.” Jack grabbed Fourteen by the arm and pulled him carefully over to Adelle. “Take her hand, and when I say jump, you jump with everything you’ve got.”

“Copy.” Adrenaline flooded through Fourteen’s system. He had no idea what was about to happen, but he was ready for this fight.

Jack flung the egg from earlier at the rocks overhead. It suspended in midair and pulsed, faster and faster, until it looked like a strobe light. Fourteen’s night vision was going to be completely shot.

By some unspoken gesture, Adelle dropped her shield a split-second before Jack shouted, “Jump!”

Fourteen complied and was relatively unsurprised as the ceiling gave way before them as they flew up and out of the pit. He hadn’t been certain what to expect, but he’d already decided Jack and Adelle were to be trusted—for now—and he only gave his trust to people competent enough not to smash themselves against several tons of rock for no apparent reason.

As they came up and out of the pit, Fourteen tried to find Cym, but the debris from their dramatic entrance made it impossible to see anything.

Rather than smacking into the ground as it rushed toward them, they touched down lightly. Fourteen assumed he had his boots to thank for that.

“Was that the only jump they had in them?” Fourteen didn’t want to have to take off his boots to keep fighting, but he didn’t like the idea of fighting in something he hadn’t practiced with.

“The only big one, yes, but for the next hour, you’re going to want to be careful with your fancy ninja moves,” Jack informed him, ignoring a spell that crashed against his shield.

“What about this?” Fourteen shook his new weapon. “How long will it last? And I’m not a ninja,” he murmured that last part to himself.

A handful of witches staggered toward them out of the gloom and dust. Even at a distance, Fourteen could see something white and malignant pulsing inside their bodies—it looked like he was about to get a crash course in fighting with Jack’s upgrades.

“You keep telling yourself that,” Jack said with a laugh and put his back against Adelle’s. Fourteen saw him pull something out of his sleeve that looked like a sword made of living flame—it crackled and hissed angrily. “Your weapon will last as long as I want it to, so have at it.”

Beside him, Adelle pulled off her belt and snapped it. It blazed with orange fire, lengthening and growing until it grew to the size of a bullwhip.

Maybe these guardians weren’t so bad after all.

Chapter 22Cym

Cym, Sterling, and Hester flew skyward, bouncing around inside their shield like a trio of unfortunate hamsters inside a ball. Absently, Cym noticed it looked like they weren’t the only ones affected by the blast. Most of those assembled around their shield had become airborne as well.

The shield sailed through the air, arcing over the heads of dozens of huddled figures looking for cover, and bounced into the forest, exploding upon impact with an old rotted-out log. The shield’s dying act had been to take the brunt of the fall, but all three occupants lay dazed and disoriented in a tangled mass of limbs on the dark, dank floor of the forest.

“Get your ass off my face!”

“Stop stepping on my hair then!”

Cym lost a chunk of hair in the ensuing struggle as three bodies tried to untangle themselves after being tossed around like wet knee-socks in a dryer.

Unfortunately, Cym only remembered that one of their members needed to be watched closely after the rock smashed into the side of his head.

Gods fucking dammit. He’d just had someone fix that. He was going to need to look into getting a helmet at this rate.

He dropped to his hands and knees, barely registering the muffled swearing from Sterling as he fought to keep Hester from escaping into the night. Since Sterling was only a kid and Hester was at least two hundred years old, Cym wasn’t surprised that he lost.

“Well, I’m pretty sure I just swallowed a bug,” Sterling said mildly, like he hadn’t just gotten his ass kicked by his great-something-grandmother. There was a nasty squelching sound as he made an abortive attempt to pull his body out of the mud pit he’d been knocked into. “Good riddance to her anyway. At least you and I made it out.”

“We still have to find Fourteen before we can leave here.” Cym’s stomach clenched. What if he hadn’t survived the blast? “If he’s still alive, I mean.” Cym tried for a neutral tone, but his voice cracked on the word alive.

Sterling waved his comment away, a blurry gesture in the dim light. “Your champion will be fine. That asshole can clearly take care of himself, and he’s with the guardians—I wish we’d been in that hole too.” He finally heaved himself out of the muck with a loud grunt.

Cym wished he could have been as positive, but until he saw Fourteen with his own eyes, he wasn’t going to be okay. “How can you be so cheerful after getting your ass kicked by our mom? Don’t think I’m letting that go any time soon.”

Sterling sputtered indignantly. “Okay, first, that creature isn’t our mother, and second, could you not mention this to Adelle next time you see her?”

Cym laughed and instantly regretted it. “Ow.”

He poked the side of his head gingerly and sighed. He really should have paid more attention when Adelle had fixed him up, but in his defense, he had a lot on his plate right now.

Regardless of their predicament, Cym could feel the grin stretching across his face. Of course a sixteen-year-old boy would get an instant crush on someone as beautiful as Adelle. It was nice to have something as normal as his brother’s hormones to laugh at amidst the pain and horror of the past two days.

“Here let me help you up.” Sterling’s form loomed over him, and he took Cym’s hand without thinking.

Cym’s head went swimmy when he was yanked upright, and he suddenly felt giddy. He’d lost Fourteen and Hester and now they were stuck in the woods, but in that moment, he was halfway to feeling euphoric. He was just a dumbass guy doing stupid shit with his brother.

Something he should have done a million times. The fact that this was a first for Cym had magnified it times a thousand.

“You really are the best, you know? Hey, remember that one summer when we did that thing with Helen?” Cym knew he should be making a plan to find Fourteen and escape, but it was a small concern.

Fuck. Cym felt fantastic.

Sterling put an arm around his shoulders and laughed.

“You mean when we took all of Astin’s clothes and put them on every horse in the stable?”

“No wonder he hates us so much!”

“It was Helen’s idea!”

Sterling began giggling like a twelve-year-old learning his first fart joke. Cym was supporting most of his weight at this point and began sinking slowly back to the ground, taking Sterling with him, but he found he didn’t care. He felt warm inside. Not at all like he had just lost his very important person and then been blown across a field.

His knees hit the dirt, and he did his best to keep his brother off the ground.