Page 189 of Storm Caller

I’ve been avoiding thinking too hard about what comes next.

I’ve just exposed myself. Revealed everything.

My face is everywhere. I’ll never be safe in New Manhattan again.

But I started this, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I stiffen, and Rook pulls back, cupping my face in his hands.

“Poet?”

“I want to be with you,” I whisper.

He’s sweeping away a tear when another echoing voice cuts through whatever he’s about to say. It’s coming from outside.

“You are surrounded,” it booms. “Come out now, unarmed with your hands up, and we won’t hurt anyone.”

“General Sol,” Henry says, standing at the window, peering down. “She found us.”

We break apart, pulling aside the curtains to find that we are indeed surrounded by dozens of guards and . . . General Sol.

I cover my mouth when I see who’s standing with her, their hands tied behind their backs.

“Domino!” I shout. “Journey!”

They’re both wide-eyed. Terrified. With them, also bound, are a few members of the Fog.

General Sol takes the bullhorn and begins speaking. “We’ve intercepted your little rescue mission to the Tempestade. We’ve recaptured every prisoner and acquired some new ones. But I’ll make you a trade. These two, in exchange for Poet Graves and the Solitude. Send them out.”

“What do we do?” Henry asks Ada, who has that look on her face that tells me she’s trying to think of something.

“If they don’t come out in the next two minutes, we’re coming in,” Sol adds, her voice slightly muted through the windowpanes. “You’re surrounded, and we know you’re outnumbered.”

I stare down at Journey and Domino. I can’t let anyone hurt them.

“I’ll go,” I say. “Maybe she’ll be content with just me, and the rest of you can sneak away while they’re distracted.”

“Poet,” Rook says. “Absolutely not. You aren’t sacrificing yourself.”

“Well, I’m not leaving my friends with her!”

Ada lifts up her hands in a slow down gesture. “Let me think.”

“We all go,” Fisher says. “But we keep our weapons. We can fight our way out against a bunch of useless Crusts.”

“What if they hurt my friends?” I demand.

Calliope shrugs. “So be it. They don’t mean anything to us.”

Rook whips around. “They’re my friends, too.”

“Crust friends?” she asks, her lip curling as she scans him up and down, while Fisher frantically types on his phone. “Maybe we shouldn’t have bothered saving you after all.”

Whatever admiration I felt for her during our rescue mission quickly evaporates.

She glares, and he glares back.

“You stay here,” Rook says to me. “I’m going down.”