By morning, they were in Maine.

It was a sudden decision, and Jaylin could admit, not well thought out.

Sadie had hurried upstairs for her luggage—still packed from her flight to Colorado. Jaylin took only a change of clothes and a tent that belonged to the witches. They met outside the gate of the Watch and trekked to the main road by foot. The only person who was inept enough to have caught on to their departure was dying on a hospital bed with a machine for lungs.

The cab took them to the airport and Sadie paid for their tickets on a credit card she'd set aside for emergencies. Jaylin promised to pay her back after all of this was over. He'd make everything right after he killed Ziya.

Tisper would hate him for this. Even Matt would have something to say about running off in the night without them. Jaylin knew that. But he also knew that time was a limited resource and Quentin's was just about up.

They'd be in danger if they came along anyway. The only reason Jaylin had even allowed Sadie to come was because she promised only to interfere with remote protections spells and to stay away from Ziya's keep. That's what they'd been calling it—the Queen's stronghold. Sadie had mused over the idea that maybe it was something of a castle, like Qamar's place in Colorado. But Jaylin could only imagine Ziya's keep as that sterile, impregnable white prison she'd kept him locked away in. Whatever the hell Ziya was holed up in, Jaylin could find her—he was sure of it. If he opened up his senses and felt for her, he could find her.

The moment they stepped off of the plane, Sadie dragged him to the airport bathroom. She didn't consider the men at the urinals, who cursed at the sight of a woman and huddled into their protective urinal stalls. She yanked Jaylin's shirt off over his head and dug into her bag for a bottle of sunscreen.

"Not even going to let me in on what you're doing right now?" Jaylin asked as she slapped a handful onto his bare chest. "You just drag me into a public bathroom and undress me."

"Hush and rub that in. Turn around, I'll get your back."

Confused, Jaylin did as he was told. He watched his own reflection in the mirror as Sadie worked the lotion into his skin. He hardly recognized himself anymore. Jaylin couldn't stand the sight of his own scraggly facial hair—too fair, too blond, too patchy. He'd never let it grow like this before and it didn't wear well on him. But what did his appearance matter if Quentin wasn't around to see it? Still, he shouldn't hate his own face this much.

"Didn't happen to bring a razer, did you?"

"Nope," Sadie said, leaving dots of cool sunscreen into his shoulders. "You'll have to wait."

"What are you doing anyway? You know it's like seventy-five here, tops. I'm not even sure I can get sunburned anymore."

"Do you not remember what it was like when Ziya was coming for you?" Sadie asked, stepping aside as the last man exited the restroom. She wrinkled her nose. "Men are disgusting. Not a single one of those guys washed their hands."

"What are you talking about? Of course I remember when Ziya was coming for me."

"So you remember how all those sentinels had been stationed around SeaTac?"

Jaylin raised his head and the look on his own face was confirmation enough that he hadn't thought at all about Ziya's wolves. How they'd pluck him right off of the street if he'd stepped foot out of the airport, stinking of this lichund scent.

"So you think sunscreen will help?"

"It'll have to," Sadie said. "I didn't have anything else on me." Her hands moved up the tense muscles of his shoulders and he nearly went weak when they pressed into his neck. "Yikes, you're tense."

"My boyfriend's dying," Jaylin reminded her.

Her hands went still and then dropped gently from his shoulders. "I know what it's like to be in love," she told him. "I would have done anything for Kat. And it still feels like what I had with her was nothing close to the way you feel about Quentin." Sadie stepped forward to stand beside him in the mirror, her head leaning to rest for just a moment on the slope of his shoulder. She pressed her warm cheek to his skin. "Did you feel this way about Tyler?"

Jaylin watched his own eyes—how even the way he gazed into himself didn't look natural anymore. "I've never felt this way about anyone."

They stood there, watching their own reflections in silence for a moment longer—Sadie's dark skin so bold against his pale shoulder. The sleep-smeared makeup beneath her eyes, the deep dimples in her cheeks as she worked her jaw in deep thought. With an inhale, she reached for the sunscreen and held it up to his face. "Put that on the rest of you. Hands, toes, everything." Then Sadie washed the lotion from her hands and hurried out.

By the time Jaylin was done, it felt like he'd rolled around in a vat of grease. His clothing stuck to his body, the lotion squished between his toes and fingers. It was uncomfortable, slippery and it stunk like chemical perfume, but he supposed that was the point.

It wasn't until they were standing outside of the airport that Jaylin's confidence wained. This was the farthest they'd made it in their plan to find Ziya. All this time, he thought he'd sense her the moment he stepped foot in her territory. Last he saw her, Ziya's presence was like a storm—but it was Ziya who'd come to him. Maybe tracking her down wouldn't be so easy as he thought. Maybe she didn't want to be found. Maybe she wasn't here to begin with.

The thought made him sick. The idea of wasting time—wasting Quentin's life, chasing someone who wasn't even in Maine.

Sadie must've noticed the look on his face, because she took him by his hand and dragged him off toward an idling cab. "We'll find her," she said. "If I have to sniff her out myself."

By Sadie's demand, they stopped first at a diner. It was nearly three in the evening and neither of them had eaten a bite since the night before. The food—along with everything else—went on Sadie's card.

Jaylin sat there, digging at the unappetizing eggs on his plate. "I'm sorry. I know you just got out of debt from your trip to Europe."

"At this point," Sadie said, pushing all of the ooze out of her berry pie, "money just seems like a thing. Lately things don't seem so important, you know?"

Jaylin sighed into his low-fat omelette—the only organic thing on the menu. "Maybe we made a mistake, Sadie."

"Stop it, we did not."

"What if he dies?" Jaylin asked. "While I'm here, while I'm on a wild goose-hunt."

"He won't."

"How do you know?" Jaylin asked.

"I don't," Sadie said. "But what's the point in thinking that way, if not to just torture yourself even more? Look at you, Jaylin. If anyone can do this, it's you. Losing him is what you're most afraid of, isn't it? If he dies while we're here, he'd be dying while we were there. At least this way, we're doing something to help him."

Something prickled at the nape of his neck, and Jaylin turned around just in time to catch the inquisitive eyes of the waitress servicing the table two booths down. Sadie must've noticed too because she hunched forward over her food and frowned. "Think there are any wolves in here?"

"No," Jaylin said. "I'd feel them."

The waitress wasn't a wolf—Jaylin could tell that much. But she was definitely interested in what they had to say. For the rest of the meal, he caught her eyes every so often as she stood behind the counter, working numbers into the register. He ate his rubbery omelet, but his eyes scarcely left her vicinity.

When she was finished eating, Sadie unfolded a sheet of paper onto the table and sat there with her chin in her hand. "I wonder if we're the trees," she said, nails tapping against her cheek. "Maybe this is just some kind of prophecy."

"Where did you find the riddles anyway?" Jaylin asked.

"An old book Qamar had. Poems of the Reigning. My agate led me to it."

Jaylin didn't know what she meant by that, but he watched Sadie ponder on with a sense of sadness. What was he thinking dragging her here? What if Sadie's hypothesis was wrong? What if these proverbs really were just poetry?

"Your check."

A black check holder at the edge of the table—not by the same curly, red-headed waitress that had delivered their food, but the blonde that had been casting them glances since the moment they'd arrived.

"Thank you," Jaylin said. Then the woman turned away, rather abruptly, and rushed off to gather a handful of plates from the kitchen window.

When he opened the check holder, it wasn't a receipt Jaylin saw, but a blank guest check with a handwritten note between the lines.

I can help. Wait outside. Off at 4:00.

If there was one thing Jaylin could find comfort in, it was that the dumpsters behind the diner could cover for the stench of a rotting body, let alone his lichund form. Sadie had been frowning at the slew of incoming texts from Tisper, obviously denying herself the will to reply.

"She'll forgive us," Jaylin said.

"Not if that blonde from the restaurant takes us to her shady apartment complex and butchers us into ground beef."

Jaylin gave her a strange look and Sadie responded with the small shrug of her shoulders.

"What? It's happened to someone before, probably."

The sound of soft footsteps echoed through the alleyway and whatever Sadie was about to say was swallowed back down. The blonde waitress rounded the corner in a pair of old sneakers—her heels dangling from her fingers and a sweater over her uniform, but her hair still tied up in pink ribbon. She had to be in her forties, but the way she carried herself made Jaylin think of all the cheerleaders he'd met in high school. The girls with so much confidence, it showed in every bouncy footstep. Every sway of her high pony.

She stopped in front of them and untangled her phone from her sweater pocket. And then all at once, the woman popped an unlit cigarette in her mouth, pressed a series of numbers into her cell phone and handed it to Jaylin.

He didn't understand, but he brought the phone to his ear none the less.

The ringing stopped. A soft crackle severed the silence. "Marcy?"

He knew that voice. He definitely knew that voice.

"Marcy, I told you not to call me when I'm here. What is it?" When Jaylin didn't answer, the man on the other end of the line kept on, "Marcy? Is everything alright?"

And finally, Jaylin let the name out.

"Gunner," he whispered.

The line went quiet. On the other end, Jaylin heard footsteps—the sharp squeak of leather shoes. Then a door shutting, and silence again.

"Kid," that voice came through once again. "What the hell are you doing? Why are you in Maine? You shouldn't be here."

Jaylin swallowed hard and said, "Quentin's dying." A deep sigh on the other end hit the speakers like sparks. "It's Ziya's blood," Jaylin explained. "So I have to find her, I have to kill her, Gunner. I—"

"Stop," said Gunner. "Stop. We can't talk about this right now. If you're with Marcy, you're in a hell of a lot of danger. God damn, kid. There are wolves all over that town, how have you not been found by now?"

"I haven't sensed any," Jaylin said.

"Good. Good, but you need to leave. Do you have money for a hotel?"

"No. I've got a tent."

"Even better. Have Marcy drive you North. Ninety percent of this fuckin' place is forest, and there are only one of Ziya's sentinel hubs in the entire state. A place called Portland, on the Southern coast. Get as far away from Portland as you can."

"Gunner—"

"I have to go," he said, quieter now. "I'll get in touch, kid." Then the line went dead.

Marcy was nearly finished with her cigarette when she dropped it from her fingers and stomped it out into the pavement. She took the phone from Jaylin and returned it to the pocket of her apron.

"I don't understand," Jaylin said. "Who are you?"

"I got a wolf coming in to work the closing shift any minute now. We don't want them catching stink of you." The blonde tugged her purse strap tight on her shoulder and turned off toward the parking lot. "We'll talk on the way.

If the stench of cigarette wasn't uncomfortable enough, Jaylin was twice as bothered by the sounds coming from the engine of Marcy's old Pontiac Grand Prix. It rattled and whirred and sometimes clunked out a noise that wasn't exactly settling, driving at speeds of up to sixty miles per hour. When Marcy finished her second cigarette, she dumped it into the ashtray and rolled her window up.

"Name's Marcy Rowly. Never married. Gunner's my brother," Marcy explained. "Sent his kids and his wife away to Canada to keep'em safe. I've been living with him. Where he goes, I go. Where Ziya takes him, I'm dragged along for the ride."

"So you know about Ziya?" Jaylin presumed.

"Know about Ziya. Know about you. Other than that, he doesn't tell me much. Talks in his sleep though, so sometimes I listen through the door. When he's actually home. Lately, Ziya's kept him over there. Locking him and all the others up at night until their project's completed."

Sadie popped her head up from the back seat. "What project?"

Too eager to wait for an answer, Jaylin hurdled over her question with one of his own. "Where? Where's Ziya?"

"Couldn't tell ya," said Marcy. "Gunner keeps it all tucked away in his head. Doesn't want to get me involved in it, or maybe he knows Ziya's always listening. You're from the West, right? I say fly back home, as far away from the wicked bitch as you can get."

"I can't," Jaylin said. "Not until she's dead."

Marcy took her eyes from the road to look at him. Her bony arms slumped in her lap as she slid her hands down the steering wheel. "Think you can really kill her?"

"We have to," Jaylin said. "I can't leave until we do."

"I hope you figure it out, honey." Marcy rolled down her window a good few inches and reached for the carton of cigarettes, bouncing around on her dash. Her third cigarette found it's way easily between her fingers. "I'd give anything to see my brother walk free again. A man without a family is a man without a purpose."

"I know," Jaylin said. Then he rolled his window down to escape the stench of Marcy's cigarette.

Marcy dropped them off near a gas station, where nothing existed around them but a dense wall of tall forest trees and a single road that snaked up, out of the states and into New Brunswick. "Lots of coyotes in these parts," she told them, "but seeing as you're the lich and all, I don't see a reason to be worried. At most, they'll keep the wolves away." Then she typed her number into Sadie's phone and told them, "Only emergencies. Can't afford the gas coming up here. Gun'll get a hold of you somehow. He always does."

And once she was gone, they were left with nothing but the bags on their backs and the tent in Jaylin's arms.

"I'm sorry," he told Sadie again, as they moved between trees, in search of flat land to set up camp. They hadn't so much as a blanket to lay on. He felt terrible for dragging her out. They were so unprepared, riding all the way across the states on the wings of a single whim.

"It's fine, Jay. Seriously." Sadie dragged her hands along all the old brittle bark of the trees as she followed behind him. "Gas stations just a mile back. I've still got my credit card, we'll be fine."

We'll be fine. He laid those words down in his mind and played them on in repetition. If she could believe it, maybe he could convince himself too.

But the tent proved more difficult to pitch than it looked and Jaylin hadn't any matches to start a fire. He tried for hours to light a spark with tried tinder, rough stone and the buckle of his belt. At one point, he'd earned a small spark—but only enough to smoke a hole into a dried maple leaf and then die out. By the time he'd given up and crawled into the tent, Sadie had buried herself beneath heaps of their clothes, shivering too hard to catch any sleep. Jaylin wasn't cold himself, but he curled up beside her to offer all the warmth he could.

"You shouldn't have come," he told her, relieved once her teeth stopped chattering.

"I had to," Sadie said.

"Why?"

Sadie replied, groggy with sleep, "You were a good fake boyfriend, Jay."

Jaylin laughed. "What?"

She turned to him, slowly so she wouldn't lose the pile of clothing that kept her warm. "High school. When you pretended to date me so I could stay in the closet. You were a really good fake boyfriend."

Jaylin felt his lip split when he grinned. Dry from dehydration. They'd hike to the gas station for breakfast in the morning, but he didn't want to leave Sadie here alone. So he swallowed the dry feeling in his throat and wrapped his arms around her—and the cocoon of clothes she'd huddled beneath.

"You deserve to be happy," she said against his chest. Every word sagged with sleep. "That's why I came." And then just when he thought she'd slipped away, softly Sadie added, "Plus... Cadence and Caliah wanted me to." And before Jaylin could ask what she meant, Sadie was fast asleep.

A.n.; Sorry I didn't update yesterday, this chapter was tough. One more coming out soon, going to try to get it done today ♥