My first feeling when Myers leads us toward the back door is one of relief.

Being inside the cluttered, dingy room makes my skin crawl. But the relief is soon overtaken by a wave of anxiety in the pit of my stomach. Myers bypasses the door, facing the disheveled pile of belongings stacked against a bookshelf that's nearly entirely concealed by the mess.

I glance at Killian by my side as Myers rumbles through the pile, shoving aside what appear to be decade-old unwashed mugs, broken pieces of wooden furniture, and torn books. Killian's stance reveals more than his expression, left hand positioned at his belt where his weapons rest. As if feeling my gaze, his eyes draw down towards me.

Neither of us says anything. But for the first time, I feel that I can read the words clearly in his eyes. You okay?

I nod.

Myers has cleared the path to the bookshelf by the time I look back at him. He turns to look at us over his shoulder, gaze lingering on Killian.

"Your Queens," he says, voice low. "Are they the ones authorising this mission of yours?"

"The Queens are both dead," Killian responds, not missing a beat. "It is Sanaa who leads us now."

If Myers is surprised by the knowledge, he does not show it. His head tilts forward as his gaze grows more speculative, like if he stares long enough, Killian will reveal a secret.

Eventually, he ducks his head. "I risk my life showing this to you. I pray I do not regret it."

He reaches for a book on the top shelf and wedges it from its position. Click. The bookshelf jolts out from the wall. Taking a step towards Killian, I watch wide-eyed as Myers uses the weight of his body to roll the bookshelf to the side, revealing a dark, winding staircase leading to the floor.

He does not look at either of us before he takes the first step down, the darkness swallowing him whole. Killian doesn't hesitate to follow, leaving me stuck to the spot by the bookshelf. I take a shaky breath. Everything inside of me wants to run in the other direction, but with a big swallow, I shove the fear to the back of my mind.

I take the first step down the passage. It isn't long before the darkness swallows me, too.

The air is cold and sticky. Below, I can see the outline of Killian's head, our footsteps causing the wooden staircase to groan beneath our weight. My breath comes in sharp, ragged intakes as I wind downwards, alarm bells ringing in my head as dust infiltrates my nose, irritating my airways.

Myers and Killian's footsteps halt before mine, both dark figures at the bottom of the staircase. I glance over my shoulder, back at the opening, but it's concealed from my view. No light seeps through. No fresh air. No warmth.

Below, a candle ignites in Myers hands, casting his shadows against the wall--I can't tell what it's made of, but blue paint peels down the edges. I reach the bottom platform of the staircase, halting next to Killian and glancing around. The staircase led us to an underground room, much more organised than his cabin. With the little light Myers candle provides, I can make out the metal shelves lining the walls centered around a wooden workshop table littered with tools.

"What is this place?" I murmur, my voice disturbing the dust in the air.

"My sanctuary," Myers responds. "A safe place for me to practice my gifts. And to keep relics of my past." His glasses seem enormous as he stares up at me, eyes wide.

"Nobody has ever found it?" Killian asks.

He shakes his head. "Nobody ever looked past the living room."

I stare at him, realising he is much more intelligent than anyone ever gave him credit for.

"Not even during the Red Moon ransacks?" Killian asks.

"I mask the entrance on that evening, just in case," he says. "But no shifters have ever searched my cabin."

He inches forward; shadows crawl along the length of the floor as he places the candle on the wooden table. Turning his back to us, he hobbles toward one of the metal shelves, rifling through a pile of papers. I examine the rest of his belongings. Glass jars filled with different plants and dried leaves litter a shelf, a variety of rocks lining another.

"Herbs and stones from Torinne," Killian murmurs, noticing my gaze. He walks over to one of the shelves, picking up one of the stones. It's grey and sharp-edged, with flecks of amber glinting in the candlelight. "This is from the Saulun mountains. Where did you get this?"

Myers glances over his shoulder, but does not respond., continuing to rifle through his papers. Killian turns to rock over in his hand, eyebrows furrowed, before placing it gently back on the shelf and examining the next.

I watch him from the table. His slender fingers almost caress the rock faces, the shifting expression on his face as he touches the surface of each. In his distraction, he forgets to mask the emotions crossing his face. Delight. Grief. Comfort.

My heart aches. Plants and rocks, seemingly such simple objects. I wonder how long has it been since he has seen such materials from his motherland. Since he smelt the warmth of his native herbs and felt the roughness of stones from his mountains.

"There it is." Myers' voice draws both of us from our trances. He puts a steadying hand on his lower back as he rises to his feet, a rolled-up piece of paper in his hand. Hobbling over to the table, he unfurls the paper.

Killian places the stone down and joins Myers opposite me, eyes like daggers as he inspects the paper. The sheet is stained yellow with age. As he unfurls it, placing rocks upon the four corners to keep it flat, I narrow my eyes.

"It's blank," I say, glancing up at Myers. "Can you... can you see anything on the paper?"

"No."

"I can't see anything, either," Killian says.

I frown. "So it's blank. You've shown us a blank piece of paper."

"Is it?" Myers asks. "Look again, Freya. Really look."

I focus so hard that my head begins to ache. But then lines appear in the darkness, lit up in blue like arrows as a landscape sketches out spread across the page. My eyes widen as I lean forward, tracing each line, the words, the sketches of mountains and forests. I blink.

"It's a map," I whisper, glancing up at them. Keen delight dances in Myers' eyes as he stares back at me.

"You see it," he says, a smile spreading across his face, so wide it reaches his eyes. "You see it."

"I... I see it. You don't?"

"Only those from Nala's bloodline can see this map. Only those linked to her gifts."

My stomach feels heavy at his words, denial on the tip of my tongue. "It's dark down here, the lines are faint. It took me a moment for it to be clear for me too--"

"It's not the darkness, Freya," Killian says. "I can't see anything, and I assure you my vision is nothing if not spectacular."

If it had been any other moment, I might have scoffed at the arrogance in his words. But I just blink at both of them before looking back at the map. "What do you see?" Killian prompts.

"It's... a map." I study the words and follow the dotted line right from the coast of the piece of land all the way into the mountains where it stops. "There's a trail leading to somewhere. I... I don't recognise any of the place names. All I know is that this isn't Elel."

"It is Torinne," Myers says.

"Torinne?" Killian's voice is strange, slightly strangled. "Where did you get this map from?"

Myers' eyes grow far away as he gazes at the paper, unable to make out the lines that etch so clearly in my vision. "I broke into the Palace after she was taken for a second time. I had protected your identity. But I was not going to give up on Nala like your father did. I was not going to leave her there to get tortured and beaten."

I flinch at the disgust in his tone, resisting the urge to bite back. My father was all loving. And now he is dead. It doesn't matter what past Myers had with him, he could at least respect that. But I keep my mouth shut, afraid of stopping Myers altogether.

"When I got there, she was already near dead." His voice grows cold. "Ereon had been draining her gifts, transferring them into a piece of Vaciras."

Killian catches my frown. "Vaciras is a stone from Torinne. Kinjri use it to amplify their gifts, sometimes share it with another."

"He was forcefully transferring all her gifts, never giving her time to rejuvenate or recharge. He was taking it from her."

"So he could control it," Killian finishes, gaze darkening. "Nala's gifts created the cloud. He was using her to control it. But he wanted to use the Vaciras instead."

Myers nods. "And he did. When I got to the Palace, she barely had anything left. Ereon had created a way to control the cloud without any Kinjri at all. Nala said he called it Hyacerite."

Killian repeats the word, rolling the r. He meets my gaze."It means weapon."

"Hyacerite." I try to the word in my mouth, raking my brain for why it sounds familiar. Then, it hits. "The King and Elora both asked me about the hyacerite. They demanded that I tell them what I knew of it. They thought I knew." I look back at Myers. "What happened? Did he lose it?"

Myers' eyes grow dark. "I went to the Palace to save Nala, but she didn't want to be saved. She was tired. She was without her gifts; stripped of her very being. She begged me to take the hyacerite and leave her there. To hide it from Ereon somewhere he would never dare venture. By that time, the cloud was already ravaging much of Torinne."

"So you left her," I say. "You left her with the King."

"I had no choice." His voice sharpens with pain, eyes like daggers. "We both knew if the King had possession of the hyacerite, it could be the end of all other countries as we know it, as well as humankind which he so despises."

"Could you have taken them both? The hycerite and my mother?"

His voice is very small. "Yes."

"But instead you left her there to die."

His grip on the table tightens, his knuckles turning white. "She wanted to die. I would not defy her wish and prolong her suffering. You do not understand what it cost me to leave her there."

My eyes blur; a fluster of emotions rages through my body. Grief for a mother I never met, pain for what she endured at the hands on Ereon. It surges through me like a wave, shifting from hurt to rage. "But you loved her."

Killian puts a hand on my shoulder. "Freya--"

I shake him off, my eyes burning as I glare at Myers. "You said you did. You could've taken her and the stone. You could've saved her but you left her there to die. You loved her and you left my mother."

"Freya." Killian grabs both of my shoulders, forcing me to face him. I try to resist his grip but he's relentless, dark eyes searching my face. He blurs in my vision, but the warmth in his eyes is unmistakable as he looks at me and holds me steady.

We need his help, a voice whispers through my head.

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to shove the rage away. The emotion does not feel like my own as it blazes through my body, righteous for somebody I never got to meet. I focus on the warmth of Killian's hands, fighting the chill in the air, the steadying pace of his labored breath.

When I open my eyes, the rage has reduced to a simmer deep in my belly. I turn back to Myers. He stares at me with an expression I cannot place, but there is no warmth in his gaze.

"I... I didn't mean that."

"Yes," he says calmly, "you did."

A tense silence stretches between us.

"I do not care for you," Myers says. "Nala thought I would. That I would see her in you, that you would be enough. But you are the reason she was captured again. You were her biggest mistake, whether or not she knew it. I see your father in you more than anything else." I try not to flinch. "Know that it is because I loved Nala that I am not kicking you from my residence and refusing my aid right this very moment."

I swallow at his warning, trying not to let the fire of his words burn deep.

Eventually, he continues. "Nala drew me a map. I took the hyacerite and fled straight to Torinne. At first, I tried to destroy the stone. But I could not draw her powers from it, nobody but she could do that. The cloud was a danger, but it was more manageable. I journeyed through the day, faced the harsh mountains to hide the hyacerite deep in the countryside. When I left Torinne, the cloud was isolated. We had no idea it would continue to get bigger without the King using the hyacerite."

"How did you use the map if you can't read it?" Killian asked.

"I put a mask over it when I got back. The mask that allows only Freya to read it. I did not want to remember where exactly I hid the stone, in case Ereon found me and tortured me for the answer. It faded from my memory over time."

I look back at the map, running my finger along the blue dotted line. "So this map, it leads to the stone?" Myers nods. I take a shaky breath. "And if we find it, what then?"

"Then you destroy it. You are her blood. You are the only one who can."

"And what if I can't?"

He meets my gaze, the coldness from before still there. "Then we are all doomed."