The forest was too quiet.
Not peaceful—dangerous.
The kind of quiet that came when every bird had flown, when predators waited in the branches, and the trees leaned just slightly toward you, as if listening.
Aurora knew that kind of quiet.
She'd learned it the hard way.
---
Echo hadn't spoken since Hollowpoint.
He walked beside her barefoot, his eyes wide, his arms clutched around himself like he was still inside that glass cell. Every few minutes, he flinched at something no one else could hear. Shadows. Sounds. Whispers that curled into his ears like smoke.
Jace kept his distance from the boy.
"I don't trust him," he muttered that night as they camped near a shallow stream. "There's something wrong with him."
"There's something wrong with all of us," Aurora said.
"That's not what I meant."
"I know."
