Drip. Drip-drip-drip. Drip.

Eyes closed, head resting against the damp, uneven stone of the cave wall, Bryce
listened to the stone and water talk.
Drip-drip. Drop. Drip-drip-drop.
It was more conversation than either Nesta or Azriel had offered up in the two hours
that they'd all been taking a breather. Technically, Bryce was supposed to be sleeping.
But without day or night to dictate her body's rhythms, she just sat in a semi-stupor, not
really asleep, not really awake.
Drip-drop-drop. Drip.
Bryce cracked open an eye, surveying her two companions. Nesta sat against the
opposite wall, head down, breathing lightly.
But Azriel was staring right at Bryce. She started, whacking her head against the rock.
White pain splintered across her vision. By the time it cleared, Nesta was awake.
"What is it?" Nesta peered down the tunnel to one side, then the other. Dripping
darkness filled both directions, interrupted only by the silvery, watery glow of Bryce's
star through her shirt. A steady shine that hadn't flared or dimmed. As if it was saying,
You're on the right track. Keep going.
Bryce rubbed the back of her aching head and sat up. "Oh, nothing. Just your usual
predator-in-the-night warrior, staring at me while I sleep."
"You weren't sleeping," Azriel said, faint amusement in his voice.
"How do you know?" Bryce countered, but her lips quirked upward.
Nesta yawned, stretching her arms over her head and rolling her neck from side to side.
"It's his job to be vigilant." She lowered her arms, frowning slightly at Azriel. "Were you
really watching her sleep?"
Azriel glowered. "When you say it like that, it sounds... unsavory."
"It's creepy," Bryce grumbled.
"You are a stranger to us," Nesta pointed out. "We'd be fools to take our attention off you
for one second. Even while sleeping."
Bryce crossed her legs, sighing. There was no hope of sleeping now. "Well, let's not be
strangers anymore," she suggested. A survival tactic Randall had taught her: endear
herself to any captor. Make them see her heart and soul so they might consider not
killing her.
Because even though they'd left that interrogation cell, even though Nesta had given her
back her phone, Bryce had little doubt that the killing option was still on the table.
"What is it you want to know?" Nesta asked carefully.
Bryce glanced between them. "How'd you two meet?"
She could have sworn Azriel tensed, like he was weighing how dangerous any answer
might be, assessing why Bryce might want to know.
"There was a war," Nesta said shortly.
"Between who?" Bryce asked.
Again, that assessing silence. Azriel answered this time. "Between an evil Fae King and
us."
"You two, or, like... everyone?"
Nesta gave her a withering look. "Yes, the King of Hybern declared war on just me and
Azriel."
Bryce shrugged. "Wouldn't surprise me with the Fae. Petty assholes and all that."
Azriel snickered, but said, "He sought to conquer our lands-- and the world at large. We
didn't intend to let him."
Nesta added darkly, "Especially after he turned my sister and me from humans into
High Fae." Vicious, yet haunted words.
"I'm guessing your side won?" Bryce arched a brow.
"We defeated Hybern," Azriel confirmed. A glance toward Truth-Teller at his side. THen
at Nesta. "Nesta beheaded the King of Hybern herself."
Bryce blinked. "Badass," she breathed.
A wild satisfaction shone in Nesta's eyes. "He had it coming." She studied Bryce. "From
what you have said, your world is constantly at war. There are... rebels?"
"Yeah." Bryce fiddled with the hem of her shirt. "They've been fighting against the Asteri
for a long time. My mate, Hunt, fought in a different rebellion centuries ago-- one that
failed. The human one started a century after that. And the Asteri were so fucking
pissed about it that they started the human conscription service."
"What's that?" Azriel asked.
Bryce frowned. "Every human is a member of the peregrini class, compared to the Vanir,
who are full citizens-- civitas. And every peregrini is required to serve in the imperial
military for three years. The Asteri send them right to the rebel front. Have them
slaughter their own kind. Kill the very people fighting for their freedom."
"Did you have to serve?" Nesta asked, eyeing Bryce.
"No," Bryce said thickly. "My mom worked out an arrangement with my biological
father, who's Fae. He got me appointed to full civitas status-- and thus exempt from the
draft. He's a waste of breath, in general, but my mom was willing to risk contacting him,
letting him into our lives again, for my sake. So I could avoid going to the front." She'd
never stop being grateful to her mother for it.
"But your mother, as a human, had to serve, I assume," Nesta said, her face full of pity.
"No," Bryce said again. "To preserve the brightest human minds, the Asteri offer a test to
place out of the draft. Score among the highest, and you're deemed valuable enough to
not have to serve. My mom took the test at age sixteen, pretty much aced it, and was
allowed to skip the service. My father-- my stepfather, I mean-- missed the cutoff by a
single point. They shipped him off to the front two weeks later. It, uh... it wasn't easy for
him."
Randall had long struggled with the weight of his years as a sniper. He still went to
therapy twice a week for it, still sometimes lost himself to the horrors he'd endured and
inflicted on others.
Gods, Bryce hoped he was safe. Hoped he was able to dust off those killing skills he'd
paid for so dearly to keep her mom and Cooper safe.
"Your mother must be quite intelligent, then," Nesta said. "And resilient."
"Yeah," Bryce said, her chest aching. "She's a pain in the ass, but I owe a lot of who I am
to her. Your mom must be proud of all your... badassery, too."
Nesta's back stiffened. "My mother would be thrashing in her grave if she knew I was a
warrior-- if she knew I wore trousers every singel day and that I'm mated to a Fae male.
I can't tell what would have horrified her more: me marrying a poor human man or
becoming what I am now."
Bryce winced. "She sounds like she was a real winner. No offense."
Nesta's mouth twisted to the side in a wry smile. "No offense taken."
Bryce jerked her chin toward Azriel. "You've got the broody look of someone with an
awful mother, too. Care to share?"
Nesta snorted. "Az never talks about his mother, and neither will our friends, so I'm
guessing she's even worse."
The Illyrian snarled softly, "My mother is anything but awful."
Nesta tensed, like she was surprised she'd gotten such a response from him. "I was
joking. Az, I didn't even know--"
"I don't want to discuss this," Azriel cut her off coldly.
Bryce didn't miss the wounded gleam in Nesta's eyes. Attempting to salvage the
conversation, she said, "Well, for what it's worth, my best friend, Danika, had a shitty
mom, too."
"I don't have a monopoly on that," Nesta said flatly, still mastering herself after Azriel's
outburst.
Bryce offered a smile. "Danika said it built character." And at Nesta's shuttered
expression, she found herself saying, "I think she was right-- in a way. I think her
mother's cruelty made her a kinder, more thoughtful person. She saw how Sabine
treated others, and was so disgusted by it that she wanted to become the opposite.
Danika lived in terror of turning into her mother."
Nesta didn't say anything, but-- there. A shallow nod. Like she understood. Like she
lived with that fear every day.
The water drip-drip-dripped again in the heavy silence.
"So that... phone of yours," Nesta said suddenly, as if eager to change the subject for all
their sakes. "You said earlier it has music inside it?"
Bryce fished the phone from her back pocket, its answering glare harsh against the
softness of the starlight. "Yeah. I've got my entire music library on here."
The clock on her phone read 3:56 in the morning. Her head spun. Was that the time
here? Or at home? What day was it here-- or there? How long had Hunt and Ruhn
been--
She pushed the thoughts from her mind.
"Can I... hear some of your music?" Nesta's question was tentative, as if she was
uncomfortable making such a personal request.
Bryce flashed her a half smile. "Sure. What kind of music do you like?"
At their confused silence, Bryce pushed, "Classical, dance, jazz... okay, those words
clearly mean nothing to you."
"Put on the music that represents your world best," Nesta said.
"I think Midgard could descend into another war over that," Bryce said. "But I'll play
you my favorite, at least."
She grimaced at the dwindling battery, well aware that playing music would drain it,
but the yearning for a taste of home overcame her apprehension.
Bryce scrolled through her music until she pulled up the folk duo that had immediately
leapt to mind: Josie and Laurel. Her hand shook a little with the sheer magnitude of
picking which of their many songs to play, which song to be the first of theirs heard on
this planet. Her favorites always shifted depending on her mood, her current phase of
life. In the end, she went with her gut.
"Stone Mother" began playing, its rolling, thumping drums offsetting the wild, yet
mellow, guitars. And then Josie's voice filled the tunnel, sharp and yet soaring, accented
by Laurel's sweet, clear backups. The sound was foreign, earthy-- haunting. In the span
of a few notes, Bryce was back in her childhood bedroom in Nidaros, sprawled on the
carpet, letting the sound of the music run over her for the first time.
Then she was in the dry hills of Valbara, surrounded by olive trees. Then the palm-lined
quay along the Istros. Then with Danika. Then alone.
Then with Hunt.
This song had carried her through it all-- through the years of pain and emptiness and
rebuilding. It had carried her from light into darkness and then back into the light.
The wraith-like harmonies echoed off the stones, until the rock sounded as if it was
singing.
And when it was done, silence resumed. Nesta's eyes were wide. "That was beautiful,"
she said eventually. "I couldn't understand a word of it, but I felt it."
Bryce nodded, aching with thoughts of home, of the faces the song had brought to mind.
"That's a kind of folksy, country sound. But this is what we call classical music-- the stuff
performed in grand halls. My friend Juniper dances to this kind of thing in the Crescent
City Ballet. I used to dance, too, but... long story. This was one of my favorite dances. It's
from a ballet called The Glass Coffin." Bryce hit play again, and the violins began.
Again, Nesta was silent, knees now clutched to her chest, staring into the darkness. As if
she was dedicating every inch of herself to listening.
"This sounds like some of our music," Azriel murmured. Nesta shushed him.
Bryce tapped her foot along to the melody, reading the expressions stealing across
Nesta's face as the music played. Wonder and curiosity, joy and-- longing. Nesta seemed
to be thrumming with the music, though she didn't move at all. Like she was coming
alive merely listening to the sound.
When the piece finished, its thunderous finale crashing through the cavern, Nesta met
Bryce's stare and said, "I like to dance, too." It was a small piece of herself, but willingly
given. Bryce felt her heart warm toward the warrior, just a bit.
"Yeah?"
But Nesta pointed to the phone again. "Play more, please."
So Bryce did.

Two hours later, they were walking again. Maybe Azriel had been interested enough in
the music that he'd let them linger. Bryce had played them a sample of every genre she
could think of. Nesta had clapped her hands over her ears at the screaming, wailing
death metal, but Azriel had chuckled.
He'd probably get along with Ruhn and his idiot friends.
Nesta had loved the classical stuff the best, and both of them had been intrigued by the
pulsing, thumping club music. "That is what you dance to in your world?" Nesta asked.
Bryce hadn't been able to tell if she was intrigued or dismayed. Azriel, at least, had
seemed on board.
But now they were silent again, walking past carving after carving. They had to be
getting close to... whatever waited at the end of this tunnel.
What if they walked and walked and found nothing, though? At what point would they
decide to give up? Bryce's star still blazed, pointing the way ahead, but what if they
weren't reading it correctly? Maybe her instincts had been wrong.
Maybe she hadn't really been sent here by Urd. Maybe it was all one big cosmic fuckup.
A giant accident.
Bryce's throat tightened. She'd tried not to think about what was happening to Hunt and
Ruhn, but in the ongoing gloom of the tunnels, her fear crept in again. Were they safe?
Were they even alive?
"The music in your world," Nesta said suddenly, interrupting Bryce's doom spiral. "It's
all simply available to anyone?"
"In a way? There's a sort of... nonphysical library made by machines that can store all the
information in the world. Music, art, books-- anything. So yeah, you can find any song,
any piece of music, and listen to it whenever you want."
"You have wonders in your world," Nesta said.
Azriel added from a few steps behind them, "And terrors."
Bryce grunted her agreement. "I'm sure you do, too."
"We do," Azriel said quietly.
Bryce filled the gap of what he couldn't reveal. "But you've never seen things like guns
or bombs, right?" She assumed they hadn't, since they'd seemed so shocked when she'd
shown them her memories in the Veritas orb.
"Did the Asteri invent those weapons?" Azriel asked darkly.
"No. Some other sick fuck did," Bryce muttered. "But they're everywhere now."
"They should all be destroyed."
"Yes. They bring nothing good into the world." Bryce angled her head to the side. "So
you guys have swords and stuff?"
"Something like that," Azriel hedged. He clearly wasn't going to enlighten her about
their defenses.
"And your magic is..."
"Don't push it," Azriel said, a hint of that earlier chill entering his voice.
Nesta's lips thinned at the tone, like she was remembering it, too. Like it didn't sit right
with her.
"Okay, okay," Bryce said. "But it'd be cool to know something about your world. Or
about you."
They were both silent.
Bryce asked Nesta, "You have a mate, right?" She nodded to Azriel. "Do you?"
"No," Azriel said quickly, flatly.
"A partner or spouse?"
"No."
Bryce sighed. "Okay, then."
Azriel's wings twitched. "You're incurably nosy."
"I think that's the nicest thing you've said about me." Bryce winked at him. "Look, I just...
I'm curious. Aren't you?"
Azriel didn't answer, but Nesta said, "Yes. We are."
Bryce ran a hand over one of the carvings-- a young girl sitting on a toadstool, a hound
sprawled on the ground beside her. "It's crazy to me that in fifteen thousand years,
we've developed all sorts of tech and your world is still, you know, like this." She
motioned to their clothes, the cave. At Nesta's narrowed eyes, Bryce quickly added, "I'm
simply wondering why similar changes didn't happen here. I mean, we had the Asteri,
but a lot of our inventions didn't come from them."
"Maybe it was the result of so many different worlds blending together in Midgard,"
Nesta mused. "Each brought all of its learning. United, they figured it out. Separate,
perhaps they wouldn't have."
"Maybe. But we also had firstlight-- a communal source of power. You don't have that
here. Just individual power." Granted, Midgard's communal power was thanks to the
Asteri. Was it a good or a bad thing? Bryce didn't know where to even begin sorting that
out. Her feelings about it were a messy tangle of gratitude and rage.
Nesta asked, "Without firstlight, would your world become like ours, do you think?"
Bryce considered. "I don't see another way to power our cars or phones, so... probably."
Azriel asked, "Do the guns need firstlight?"
"No," Bryce said. "And some of the bombs don't need it, either." The weight of the
darkness pressed in. "Those evils will remain in Midgard forever, even without
firstlight."
"And people would still kill each other, even without those weapons," Nesta said
gravely. "The wicked will always find a way to hurt and harm."
"Is this the part where you remind me that you guys will always find a way to hurt and
harm me if I step out of line?"
"Yes," Azriel said softly. "But this is also the part where I tell you that we're the ones who
usually try to find a way to stop those wicked people."
"Isn't that a little revealing?" Bryce teased. "You're supposed to maintain the image of the
big, bad assholes. Not tell me you're a bunch of crime-fighting do-gooders."
"You can do good," Azriel warned, "while still being bad."
Bryce whistled. "I know a number of males back home who could only dream of
delivering that sentence with such cool."
Nesta chuckled. "I know a good number, too."
Azriel threw Nesta an incredulous look. But Nesta was grinning at Bryce.
Bryce grinned back. "Male egos: a universal constant."
Nesta laughed again. "If you weren't our captive," she said, shaking her head, "I think I
might like to call you a friend, Bryce Quinlan."
Bryce didn't know why the words hit something deep in her.
"Yeah," Bryce said hoarsely. "Likewise."
They walked in silence again, but it was no longer tense. There was something... lighter
in it. If only for the moment. Like they weren't her captors, but rather her companions.
It was uncomfortable, really. Bryce had always prided herself on resenting any and all
Fae, her brother and his idiot friends being the rare exceptions, but these two strangers,
and what she'd pieced together about the people around them...
They seemed like decent, caring people who loved each other. She wasn't even sure the
Fae of Midgard knew what the word love meant. The Autumn King's definition of it had
left a small scar on her mom's face.
But these Fae were different.
Did it matter? The Fae in Midgard weren't her problem, and she didn't want them to be,
but what if they could be more? Was such a change possible?
"Do you like it?" Bryce asked Nesta suddenly. "Being Fae?"
"I didn't at first," Nesta said plainly. "But now I do."
Azriel seemed to be listening closely.
Nesta went on, "I'm stronger, faster. Harder to kill. I don't see a downside to that."
"And the near-immortal life span isn't so bad, huh?" Bryce teased.
"I'm still adjusting to the idea of that," Nesta said, eyes on the tunnel ahead. "That time is
so... vast. The day-to-day versus the sprawl of centuries." She slid her attention to Azriel.
"How do you deal with it?"
He was quiet for a moment before saying, "Find people you love-- they make the time
pass quickly." He caught Nesta's eye, and said a shade apologetically, "Especially if
they'll forgive your occasional snapping at them over things that aren't their fault."
Something seemed to soften in Nesta's eyes-- relief, perhaps, at the extended olive
branch. She said quietly, tentatively, "Nothing to forgive, Az."
But his words had lightened some of the remaining tension. And his next ones finished
the job entirely as he winked at Nesta. "And I've been told having children makes the
time fly, too."
Nesta rolled her eyes, but Bryce didn't miss the gleam in them. Nesta was willing to
play-- to get back to their normal dynamic. She admitted, "I wouldn't know the first
thing about how to raise a child." She pointed to herself. "Raised by a terrible mother,
remember?"
"Doesn't mean you'll be one," Azriel said gently.
Nesta was quiet for a heartbeat, then acknowledged, "My mother was even worse to
Feyre-- and my sister has turned out to be..." She searched for the word. "A perfect
mother."
"There's no such thing as a perfect mother," Bryce cut in. "Just so you know."
"Your own mother sounds pretty perfect," Nesta said dryly.
"Gods, no," Bryce said, laughing. "But she'd be the first to say so. Perfect is an unfair
ideal to hold anyone to. My mom taught me that, actually."
Bryce swallowed hard, thinking of Ember. Had the Asteri hunted her down and killed
her? If Bryce ever got home... would her mother be there?
Nesta laid a hand on Bryce' shoulder-- it seemed consoling, somehow. Like she sensed
all that coursed through Bryce's mind, the panic now thudding in her heart.
"What is it?" Bryce asked, glancing at the female.
Nesta nodded to Bryce's pocket. "Could we hear some more of your music?"
It was a friendly offer-- definitely intended to pull Bryce out of her brooding. A kindness
from a female clearly not accustomed to such displays. Bryce fished out her phone again.
The battery was inching toward the red zone. It would be dead soon. But for this... she
could spare it.
"What do you want to hear?" Bryce asked, opening her music library.
Nesta and Azriel swapped glances, and the male answered a bit sheepishly, "The music
you play at your pleasure halls."
Bryce laughed. "Are you a club rat, Azriel?"
He glowered at her, earning a smirk from Nesta, but Bryce played one of her favorite
dance tunes-- a zippy blend of thumping bass and saxophones, of all things. And as the
three of them walked into the endless dark, she could have sworn she caught Azriel
nodding along to the beat.
She hid her smile and played song after song, until the battery on her phone drained to
the dregs. Until that last, beautiful link to Midgard went dark and died.
No more music. No more pictures of Hunt.
But the music seemed to linger, like a ghostly echo through the caves.
And with each mile onward, she could hear Azriel humming softly to himself. The
rolling, wild melody of "Stone Mother" flowed off his lips, and she could have sworn
even the shadows danced at the sound.