“I know.”
A silence stretches between us. I take her hand in mine.
“There’s no way out of this building,” she says. “I’ve checked, and Kai scouted the perimeter when we first arrived.” Her fingers grip my hand tighter, her eyes drop to the floor.
My thumb strokes the top of her hand, and I try to focus my thoughts. I want to ask her a million questions—but I’m just content Krewl hasn’t fastened some deplorable device on her. So I move past my worries. “You were trying to warn me about something. What?” My mind flashes to my last moments with Carina. And the knowledge of the full moon rising tomorrow brings the pressing anxiety full circle.
Lilly takes in a shaky breath and pulls her hand free. “We’ve been trying to find a way to escape before tomorrow,” she says. Her shoulders lift as she rings her hands, trying to keep from snapping her knuckles. “The Reckoning isn’t just a sport to the Otherworlders. Do you remember all those stories we heard growing up, of the moon goddess being punished and cast into the earth?”
“Sort of.” I scrunch my nose. “I remember the stories, but don’t recall her being the moon goddess, or what connection the moon has to the Otherworlders.”
Her brows hike past her copper bangs. “How could you not remember? The jokes . . . all the games we played during training making fun of moon mad—”
Her words cut off, but I finish her sentence. “Madness.”
She turns her head to the side. “Sorry, Kal. It’s been so awful here that it just slipped my mind.” She rubs her hands down her face and says a curse under her breath. “It was stupid that I didn’t remember.”
“I’m grown now,” I assure her, dipping my head in order to see her face. “I can handle it. More importantly, I need to know so we can fight whatever it is we need to fight.”
Her head tilts, and she stares into my eyes. “Yeah?”
I nod, urging her on.
“All right then.” Her eyes take on the glow of the ultraviolet light, and her cheeks bloom as she forces out a heavy breath. “How are we to fight a crazy goddess?”
As I work my way down the rock wall and into Bax’s training room, my thoughts plague me. Lilly is using the tunnel right now to go to Willa. I’m worried about them getting caught, but I wasn’t about to stand in her way. Nothing will stop her.
It was difficult to go in the opposite direction in the cave. I wanted to go with her. I miss Willa to death, too. But I’ve been gone longer than planned already. Caben is waiting for me.
I go over our strategy again, finding some comfort in the plan Lilly and I have formed—or rather, our last ditch effort if we fail to find another way out. But to make it happen, we’ll need to form an alliance among all three leagues. And that’s going to be damn impossible.
My head continues to churn theories, and I’m so lost in thought that I miss my footing. My fingers—slick from crawling through the stream—slip, losing their grip on the rock, and I drop.
Hard arms catch me mid-fall, and Caben and I collapse to the ground.
“At least you decided to tumble only a few feet up,” he says, sitting up and briskly setting me aside.
I open my mouth to thank him, but before words leave my mouth, he jumps to his feet and starts in the direction of the master cell.
“Caben,” I whisper roughly.
He stops walking and his back stiffens, but he doesn’t turn around. “I’m sure you’ve discovered many things of importance, but if I’m going to be of any use, I require sleep.”
His distant and harsh words needle my chest with sharp pricks of pain. Anger over his damned male pride flares, and I huff. I understand that he’s still upset with me, may even feel rejected, but there’s no time to coddle his ego.
Dusting the black earth from my pants and tunic, I move closer to his turned back. “I spoke with Lilly, and I know that you don’t believe in deities, but—”
“I never said that I didn’t believe in them,” he interrupts. “I just choose not to put my faith in them.” He rakes both hands through his dark hair and faces me. “I don’t trust them.”
The coolness of his blue eyes causes the words to falter on my tongue. I open my mouth a couple of times, trying to force them out. “You blame the goddesses for your mother’s condition,” I finally mange. “More so, you blame the Otherworld goddess.”
Crossing his arms, Caben rolls his shoulders back and stands tall, his face hardened into an unreadable mask. “The moon goddess—the goddess of madness and lunacy?” He chuckles harshly. “Bale’s a myth. She’s children’s stories. And no. I don’t blame the goddesses for my mother. But I do fault them for not protecting her from my father.”
“Why didn’t you say—” I bite off my rant. I want to give him my full attention and talk about his mother, but not now. Shaking my head, I suck in a steadying breath. “Caben, if you knew about their deity, why didn’t you mention it before? We could’ve made the connection sooner and not wasted time.”
A rigid smile crooks the side of his mouth. “Wasted time,” he repeats, low and callous. And I realize what I’ve said—that our time in the cave meant nothing to me. But it’s not what I meant. “Kal, it’s stories,” he continues. “Do you really think some god is—”
“Bale,” I correct him. “A goddess.”