If my aim wasn't terrible, the vial should have landed where Danox had been crouched mere seconds ago and missed him entirely.

Fortunately for me, he'd probably anticipated my intention and jumped in the opposite direction. Too bad he couldn't have foreseen what a terrible throwing arm I had.

The potion flew through the air, amber drops spilling as it spiraled and spiraled until it finally shattered on the ground right between Danox's two front paws. Within milliseconds, the liquid expanded and latched onto his pitch-black form. Eyes wide and feet scrambling backward, he tried to get away, but it was too late.

Forced to watch as it encased the majority of his body, he could do nothing but snarl and hiss in protest, large black paws swatting at the gooey substance. At least until it congealed into a thick orange gunk and he could barely move three of his limbs. Save for his head, neck, right shoulder, front right leg, and one of his back paws, he was imprisoned by my little science project.

After a moment, he stopped growling and just stared at me. Even in his panther form, the surprise on his face was clear as day.

Maybe my luck was starting to turn around.

Danox closed his eyes and took a deep breath, his whiskers quivering softly. When the goo around him started to shake, I knew he was shifting again.

If he thought his human body would be any less confined, he was in for a surprise. But maybe I didn't give him enough credit and he was ready to have a civil conversation now. Funny how it took scaring me half to death and a vial of Crescetra to get us here.

I turned around and slumped against a thick-barked tree.

"What the—what is this shit?" His deep voice was something between a snarl and a cough when he finally spoke.

Even now he couldn't bother to talk to me like a normal being. Well, no problem. Unlike him, I had all the time in the world. In less than five minutes, that goo would solidify into solid rock.

Good luck getting out of that, Jerk.

"Ariel?" he prompted, still hostile. When I didn't acknowledge him, he added in a much calmer voice, "You scared me, okay?"

"I scared you?" I huffed, still refusing to look at him. "Are you kidding me? You lunged at me."

"I didn't lunge at you. You threw this—whatever this is—at me, remember?"

"Well, sorry for not waiting for some oversized kitty that happens to have some kind of issue with me to make the first move," I muttered. "And you were the one who ran after me!"

"Only because you followed me here! I thought you were—never mind. I couldn't smell you, okay? That"—he lowered his voice—"that freaked me out."

Was that a teeny tiny bit of remorse in his voice?

Something about his reaction didn't sit right with me. Apart from that clear display of attack-first-ask-questions-later mentality, he hadn't just been surprised to see me, but rather anxious like he was the one in danger. It sort of made sense considering the whole illegal portal thing, though.

"Guess that makes us even then," I said, "'cause you sure scared the shit outta me. What are you doing here anyway?"

"None of your business."

And grouchy Danox was back.

I finally turned to look at him. To my surprise, he wasn't glaring holes into the ground, rather his head hung forward and his eyes were focused on something in the darkness of the forest.

Maybe I'd misjudged him. It was more than a little difficult to get a read on him in this position—hunched over in a half-crouch with his back slumped against a tree, almost entirely encased in orange goo...

"What?" he asked, voice suddenly devoid of any emotion.

I felt myself frown. "How about this? I'll get you out...if you tell me—"

"No."

"Fine," I ground out, getting to my feet. "I'll just be on my way."

He pushed against the goo and wide white eyes settled on me. "Are you seriously gonna leave me here?"

"That depends." I shrugged. "Are you gonna stop being difficult?"

He went back to staring at the forest floor and took a couple of deep breaths. "I can try," he replied after a moment.

The portal provided enough light for me to take in his angular facial features and lean build. The muscles in his jaw were taut and his eyes were hooded, but there wasn't just annoyance and resignation in them. If I didn't know any better, the most prominent emotion was sadness.

"Did you try to kill me?" The question left my lips before I could stop myself.

His head snapped up. "What?"

I crossed my arms. "You heard me."

"D'you seriously think I was gonna hurt you?" He frowned. "I told you, I didn't recognize you."

That sounded...unexpectedly genuine.

"No." I tried to laugh it off, but it came out as more of a cough. "Just making sure."

He rolled his eyes. "Haze was right. You're a terrible liar."

The nerve.

Wait, why was Haze talking about me behind my back? Why the hell was he talking about me at all? And even worse, why did I care?

Danox chuckled quietly.

I shook my head. Focus.

"Come on," I said. "You don't like me, remember?"

"First off," he breathed, "I don't not like you—'sides, Jay would have my head if I did anything to you."

Somehow I couldn't see Jaydis having anyone's head for anything. He was barely taller than me and about as frightening as a baby hellcat. But what did I know?

"Second, I don't have a death wish. You know what happens to a shifter who tries to kill an ambassador's daughter?"

So, they all knew...

"Anyway," he continued with a slight shake of his head, "me being out here has nothing to do with you, alright? And if you don't tell anyone"—he leveled me with a hard stare—"I got no reason to want you dead."

"If you're trying to convince me to get you out of that"—I gestured at his current predicament—"you're doing a terrible job."

He laughed, deep and a little insane. "I don't give a shit anymore."

There it was again, that tinge of sadness. And it probably had everything to do with that portal.

"What are you doing here, Danox?" I tried again.

"Nothing."

Why did he have to be so...difficult? "Look—"

"No, you look," he cut in, straining against the hardening goo. "I. Don't. Care. So, how 'bout you just mind your own business and get outta here?"

So, he'd rather throw himself a pity party and stew in it. Well, not on my watch. I was getting my answers one way or another.

"I don't know what type of self-punishment bullshit you're trying to pull here, but I can totally continue to talk your ear off the whole night." I gave him with a pointed look. "No problem."

"For Ketea's sake, you're annoying."

"So I've been told." I smiled teeth and all. He looked more than a little hilarious stuck inside that rock. "Now get talking, or I will. Did you build that portal?"

With his free hand, he probed the nearly solid stone and sighed. "Yes."

I raised my eyebrows. "And...?"

"And nothing. It's useless."

"But I saw you with two twin crystals—"

He sighed again. "They don't work. I've tried everything, but the gateway... It just won't open."

And suddenly everything made sense. Why he was out here, why he was hiding the crystals, and why he was visibly upset and unable to conceal it.

"They're for Vespyrea, aren't they?" I whispered.

He didn't have to say anything. His face was confirmation enough.

No wonder he'd been in a foul mood since I'd met him. I would be too if I lost my home in a blazing inferno. A lifetime might not heal those wounds, and it had barely been four years since the loss of the shifter realm.

"Danox..."

"Don't."

"I'm sorry."

"What are you sorry for?" The muscles in his forearm protruded as he clenched and unclenched his fist. "Not your fault your human ambassadors shut everything down like it never existed."

"Because there's nothing left," I said softly.

His eyes blazed. "You don't know that!"

"It's public knowledge, there's records—"

"Oh, yeah?" he hissed. "What records? 'Cause we've never seen shit."

"What—what are you talking about?"

He laughed. "Nobody cares, Ariel. Don't be stupid. We're outsiders everywhere. We don't belong. Your kind doesn't want us here. Flumerra is too bright and the naiads are even more annoying than you with their stupid water therapy bullshit."

I couldn't argue with him there. All the naiads I'd met—which admittedly weren't too many—had a strange, almost obsessive relationship with water.

That made most of them fairly easy to get along with since they never engaged in any arguments because, you know, water was calm and all. When someone pointed out the possibility of storms, they simply blamed the wind and other circumstances.

"You can't seriously be that surprised," Danox said, blinking at me.

After finding out about Kenas's father and everything going wrong in Ardua, this was just another punch in the gut. One I should have seen coming too.

"I... I guess maybe I didn't wanna believe that they"—I cleared my throat—"that my father would do that."

Danox studied me with genuine interest. "It's not just him. They all decided that. He just went along with it. Not like his vote would have made a difference."

But it would have meant something.

"I'm such an idiot," I breathed, burying my face in my hands.

"If it makes you feel any better, you're kind of okay. For a human."

Damn him and his shifter hearing.

Something between a desperate laugh and a cough escaped me. I lowered my hands and blinked at Danox, fully realizing what this was turning into. "Oh, my—are we... Are we bonding?"

"I don't bond," he grumbled. A moment later, he added, "I don't even know how I got here."

I smiled. "You lunged at me, remember?"

He exhaled loudly through his nose. "Your word against mine. I'm the one stuck in a boulder."

Fair point. He'd earned that though.

"Naked," I added, setting my backpack down in front of me to rummage through its contents.

"Thanks for pointing that out...again," he sighed.

"Hey, since we're already doing the whole, uh, sharing thing..." I cast a quick glance in his direction to gauge his reaction. "How'd you get those crystals? Weren't they supposed to be destroyed?"

"Technically, yes." He nodded. "Most of them were. I guess, I always hoped these ones would work because they didn't destroy them..."

My hands finally found the plastic water bottle I was looking for. "There has to be a reason they kept them."

"I don't know... Anyway, unused and archived twin crystals are kept in a secure vault in the ambassador's headquarters in New York." He bit his lip. "I may have had a little help getting my hands on them."

"There's no point in me asking who helped you, is there?"

"Nope."

"Figures," I muttered. Weirdly enough, that made me like him a little. "Truce?"

He pointedly eyed his sandstone prison. "Not like I have much of a choice here."

I arched a brow.

"Fine," he muttered.

I handed him the bottle. "It's water-soluble. I'm going back to school."

His face was priceless.

Smiling to myself, I retrieved my blue lux crystal, threw my backpack over my shoulder, and made my way back through the forest.