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My arm jerks behind me, but the rest of me keeps going. Echo’s boots scrape across the gravel as I drag her forward a step, and the resistance finally hits hard enough to punch a small hole through the warmth filling my head.

I try to stop.

My knee locks for half a second before my other leg moves anyway.

Fear finally breaks through.

Not the quick hit of adrenaline before a fight, but something colder. Something that drops straight into my gut when I realize I’m giving my body an order, and my fucking body isn’t listening.

I tell my foot to stop.

It steps forward anyway.

I tell my hand to hold tighter to Echo.

My fingers start loosening their grip.

And somewhere beneath my ribs, my hellhound finally realizes the peace settling over him was never fucking peace at all. The beast surges so violently that heat flashes through my chest, claws digging in from the inside as he tries to tear us free.

And Thessaly’s voice climbs. That beautiful fucking harmony pours through me again, smoothing over his fury, pressing him back down until the heat disappears almost as quickly as it came.

My stomach turns cold.

Nobody does that to him.

Nobody has ever done that to him.

“Fight it!” Echo shouts. “She’s pulling you into the water. Fight the fucking song!”

Water. That word gets through.

My eyes drop, and for the first time I actually see where we’re going.

Raze is already waist-deep in it. Water covers his boots and climbs toward his chest while he keeps walking. Maul steps in beside him without looking down, and Sentinel follows close enough that the tips of his wings drag through the mist hovering above the surface.

The water deepens by the second, and we’re all willingly walking straight into it.

Panic tears through the last of the warmth in my chest. I fight my next step hard enough that every muscle in my thigh locks, but Thessaly’s song curls around me again and the resistance drains away.

For one sickening second, I forget why I was fighting.

My foot moves.

Cold water closes around my calves.

Echo’s hand rips out of mine, and something inside me immediately reaches for her again. Thessaly might be dragging my body forward, but every other part of me is fighting to get back to Echo.

My head turns.

I need Echo.

Suddenly, a note rips through the air behind me with enough force to punch straight through Thessaly’s song—Echo. I know it’s her before my head even starts to turn because my whole fucking body knows that sound. It drives beneath my skin, rattles through my bones, and hits that place inside me that’s been reaching for her since her hand was torn from mine.

Another note crashes into the first, louder and harder.

Echo finally lets her siren off the fucking leash, and holy shit, she’s coming for me. It punches straight through Thessaly’s harmony, cutting across whatever she has wrapped around my head before crashing into that place that has learned Echo better than I fucking have.

My entire body locks.