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There was a pause as Jerah his brain orking at half the speed it should Then he nodded slowly, and he murmured, "I suppose… I was mistaken About you… maybe even about Aiden Claremont… Maybe my father deserved to die"

At this, none of us responded In my eyes, obviouslyto murder the love of my life But Jeramiah had already received an a to disrupt the aardness, I re-entered the roo down, I withdrew the key to his charmed manacles from my robe and removed his chains My nephew stood up, and then, not quite level with e to it, and his eyes were hollow Eest now and, it seemed, so were my three feaze passing over the others "Youhere I wish to leave"

Still, none of us spoke He certainly wouldn’t be welcomed on the island by our residents and none of us were about to lie that he would I wouldn’t be surprised if Aiden and Kira lunged for him the moment they laid eyes on hi to do with us and left But I found o froether?

"We can transport you to wherever you would like to go next," I said I guessed I could pay him at least that h After what I had taken fro his head "I’ll… I’ll find my oay"

"What do you mean, you’ll find a way?" Vivienne asked "You do know that you’re in The Shade right now?" She shot lare

And I realized that I had not told Jerauessed

Jeramiah nodded "I know," he replied hoarsely "If you would just give , some sacks of blood for the journey… I’ll be on ed We both had tooour own son to be able to put y into someone else’s

"Okay," I said heavily "Coed another word as we exited the chah the depths of the Black Heights until we arrived in the clearing before the forest Rose suggested that she race to fetch soo, and as the re four of us headed for the forest path, I silently prayed that ould not bunizethe pace for the rest of theh Jeramiah was slower than I would’ve liked By the tiht up with us, carrying a bulging backpack She handed it to Jeramiah, who took it with a murmur of thanks I walked onto the jetty and looked around for a suitable boat We had many new additions to our fleet, thanks to Caleb We waited for Jera one of the s

Jera the backpack down in one corner Rose, Viv, Sofia and I stood in a quiet line, watching as he began fu around at the front of the boat He looked so disorientated, I wondered if he even kne to navigate it out, but he seeh Just as he was about to cut the ropes that bound the small boat to the jetty, a voice yelled from behind us

"Derek!" Corrine’s voice

I whirled around to see the witch rushing toward ures… three of whom made me believe that Herbert hadupon us our strange yet wondrous bodies, the fae did not hang around Sherus had assured me that he could track us down, and he had made his deer

Despite our terrifying lack of time, the six of us--Nolan, Chantel, Marcilla, Kailyn, Lucas and I--couldn’t help but just stand there for severalat our new forest to accept what had happened He kept running his hands through his hair, clasping his palers into the snow, as if he just could not quite bring hi to wake up at any moment back in his dark pool in the deepest levels of The Underworld

Then we could wait no longer I was the one who drew us all out of our stupor as I said, "The first thing we should do is return to The Shade" My skin was positively tingling at the thought ofmy family and River I could already picture the smiles on their faces, the tears in their eyes

"The Shade?" Lucas stammered

I turned my focus back on him "Uh, yes All my--our--allies are there If we’re to have any chance of pulling this off, we need as h I didn’t want to rope erous escapades, this was soh to attempt to do alone I’d known that froestion to Sherus