  Jacob&#39;s Perspective
  The smell in the motel room was a mix of mildew and cheap industrial cleaner that made the back of my throat itch. I sat in the wobbly chair by the window, watching Celena. She was curled on the edge of the bed, meticulously cleaning her dagger under the sickly yellow glow of the lampshade. The blade caught the light in cold, sharp arcs. Her movements were focused, but I knew her mind was miles away. A faint frown creased her brow.
  She was worrying. I needed to distract her, or at least remind her I was right here, no matter what.
  I was about to say something stupid—maybe ask if she wanted to brave the plastic-looking donuts from the vending machine downstairs—when my phone buzzed in my pocket. Not a call. A text. From Lily. The sound made both of us look up, our eyes meeting across the dim room.
  “Lily,” I said, pulling out the phone and unlocking it. Ce

  Jacob&#39;s Perspective
  The stench of the sewer—a mix of decay and fresh blood—clung to the back of my throat like a piece of rotting meat. Celena and I moved in a low crouch, feeling our way along the damp, slime-covered walls of the pipe. From deeper within came the sounds of a struggle: impacts, scraping, and a shrill, inhuman shriek that made the hackles on my wolf-spirit rise. The beam from my flashlight cut through the darkness, illuminating streaks of dark, viscous fluid slowly dripping down the curved walls.
  &quot;Slow,&quot; I breathed, pulling Celena back, my own throat tight. &quot;Around the bend.&quot;
  We pressed ourselves against the cold concrete at the turn, edging just enough to see. The flashlight beam swept across the scene, and my stomach clenched hard.
  We&#39;d found it. Or rather, we&#39;d found the aftermath.
  It was worse than we&#39;d imagined.
  The f

  Celena&#39;s Perspective
  I was exhausted. My body felt like a collection of loosely connected parts, but my mind was painfully, unnervingly clear.
  We were two people now, a single unit, doing something we had to finish ourselves.
  I was so grateful to Jacob. The feeling was a heavy, precious weight settled in the softest part of my heart, welling up even before the love did.
  He had seen right through me. He&#39;d seen the still-boiling, stubborn magma beneath the thin layer of ice I&#39;d tried to freeze over.
  He had suggested this final search. For me. And for his own tangled knot of feelings about Brett—the guilt, the sense of unfinished duty.
  This was my last hope.
  Not the hopeless fantasy of bringing a laughing, hair-ruffling Brett home. The rational part of me, the part that had learned to view the world through a lens of icy clarity, had already pronounced a death se

Jacob&#39;s Perspective
  The smell in the motel room was a mix of mildew and cheap industrial cleaner that made the back of my throat itch. I sat in the wobbly chair by the window, watching Celena. She was curled on the edge of the bed, meticulously cleaning her dagger under the sickly yellow glow of the lampshade. The blade caught the light in cold, sharp arcs. Her movements were focused, but I knew her mind was miles away. A faint frown creased her brow.
  She was worrying. I needed to distract her, or at least remind her I was right here, no matter what.
  I was about to say something stupid—maybe ask if she wanted to brave the plastic-looking donuts from the vending machine downstairs—when my phone buzzed in my pocket. Not a call. A text. From Lily. The sound made both of us look up, our eyes meeting across the dim room.
  “Lily,” I said, pulling out the phone and unlocking it. Celena immediately set her dagger down and moved to my side.
  The message was long, broken into se

Chapter 238