Chapter 34

“I will take Stefan, he would be most put out if I attempted to leave him behind.” Carina needed the older man’s steadiness anyway. He would put a layer in between her and Ishaan that she desperately needed to be present while she purged herself of him. Like an illness, a kind, gentle illness that had stoked a fire in her that she was still trying to put out. She had to keep it at bay, had to be the Soul of the Flight and nothing else.

She retrieved Stefan and opened the door to the ground before stepping onto the lush springy grass. Someday she would like to lay in it as herself, but she would not trammel the dignity of the Soul to be seen doing it. Ishaan led them to the familiar car, but took them to an area of the city she had never seen. The building was vast, but not in the same way that the council building had been vast. That building had been poetry, this building was a series of instructions, a set of upended boxes with dim windows and doors that slid open with a hiss.