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Once the plane was in the air and stopped shaking and rattling like it was on its last legs, Elijah got up and made his way to the open cockpit. He didn't like that he couldn't see where he was going, and from where he'd been sitting, he could see spare seats beside and behind August.

"What are you doing up here?" the fae asked as Elijah slumped down into the seat beside him.

"Sitting," he replied.

"I told you to sit back there," he muttered, glaring out the window.

Ignoring him, Elijah set his eyes on the mountains in the distance. Knowing that he had to sit there for twelve hours irritated him, but there wasn't anything he could do about it. He couldn't sleep because he didn't want to end up in The Darkness and face Maverick again, not until he knew more about that place and who that man was. Staying awake wasn't going to do him much good, either. He'd start overthinking, asking himself questions that he couldn't yet get the answers to.

August glanced at Elijah. "So, where'd a bunch of researchers get all that cash, anyway?"

"Zoe's parents are rich," he muttered, leaning to his right to stare down at the city as they flew over it.

"And the guns?"

"Protection."

"So...you are her bodyguards? You and that other kid."

"No."

August frowned.

"You've been over the wall before," the demon then said, turning his head to look at him. "Why?"

"I transport things; it's the only way I can make money out there."

"What sort of things?" he questioned skeptically.

"A lot of crystals," he said, looking confused. "There's stuff over The Ice Wall that people can't get inside it. Silver out there actually grows out of the ground. How cool is that?" he said with a grin.

Zoe then joined them, sitting behind Elijah as she asked. "It grows?"

"Yeah," August confirmed. "Well, they call it organic silver, but it's literally just silver."

"Who pays you to transport these crystals?" the demon asked.

"Uh...well, I never actually meet the client directly; things are always done through their lawyers or representatives. Makes things less messy," the fae said and glanced back at Zoe. "I hear your parents are rich. I'm not going to find a bounty on my head when I get back because I was the last one seen with you guys, am I?" he joked, but it was clear in his eyes that he was actually a little concerned.

Zoe shrugged. "It's possible."

"Just get us there and back and you'll be fine," Elijah muttered.

"Roger," August mumbled, fiddling with his headset.

"Is August a fae name?" Zoe then asked curiously. "I've never heard it before."

The fae man chuckled. "I suppose it is in one way or another. The realm that I lived in harbours a portal to another world, one much like this. August is that world's name for the month Tria Quarteria here; I was born in Tria Quarteria, so my parents decided to name me August."

"Oh, wow. That's really interesting," she said, resting her arms on the back of Elijah's seat so that she could lean forward and see a little more of August. "What world is it from?"

"Celitrianas. I hear it's not too different from Aegisguard...save for the massive human population. Two-thirds of the people in that world are human," he answered matter-of-factly.

"Did you grow up there?"

"Nah. My father came from there, though. Everyone always talked about how my parents meeting was fate, which of course burdened me, their halfling son, with huge expectations."

"Why did Wes call you prince?" Elijah questioned.

August glanced at him. "Well, my mom was a Monarch of the Winter Court, which is royalty. That makes me a prince."

"What's a prince doing all the way out here?" Jake questioned as he joined them in the cockpit, sitting behind August.

The fae sighed. "Looking for an heirloom."

"What for?" Zoe asked.

August glanced at them all. "The fae aren't exactly keen about halflings and outsiders. Before my father could marry my mother, he had to prove himself to the Court; he went on this huge quest back to Celitrianas to find a group of young fae who went missing through the portal. He'd tell the story to me all the time as a kid."

Zoe smiled a little.

"Anyway, now it's my turn to prove myself. If I want to be welcomed to the Court as one of them, I'm supposed to return with an heirloom. I spent years hunting for it, and when I finally found it, I lost it again."

"That's what Wes took from you, right?" Elijah suggested. It wasn't very hard to piece it together.

"Yeah," August muttered.

"Can't you trade it back off him for something else?" Zoe asked.

August sighed deeply, staring out the window at the mountains as they got closer to them. "Probably not. Wes and his pack have claimed pretty much the entirety of the Citadel as their territory; there's hundreds of them. I'd need an army to take them down, and—"

"Why not just sneak in?" Jake suggested. "If you're fae, surely you have some like...super cool fae powers that could help."

"Yeah, well I didn't get much in the way of training. My dad died when the Shadow Court decided to terminate the alliance, and my mother followed not long after. Once they were gone, I was seen as no more than the halfling outsider, and no one would teach me. I know like... one-eighth of my potential."

Jake looked intrigued. "So...what can you do?"

August shrugged. "I'm really good with plants."

"Plants?" the pardus muttered, sounding disappointed.

"Good in what way?" Zoe asked.

"I don't know...we get along well."

"Do you like...talk to them?" Jake questioned.

The fae shrugged again. "Something like that."

Elijah crossed his arms as he leaned back in his seat, making himself comfortable. "Where's that map you mentioned?"

"Oh, right," August muttered. He pulled open a small drawer beneath the console and took out a folded piece of paper. "I mean you paid me to guide you, but it's probably a good idea if you all have some kind of clue as to what to look out for," he said, handing it to Elijah.

The demon took it from him and unfolded it. He stared at the spear-tip-shaped continent, but there weren't any marks or notes.

"Oh, flip it over," August said, glancing at Elijah as he adjusted the control wheel; the plane shook slightly but soon settled as the fae fiddled with the controls.

Elijah flipped the paper over, revealing a much more detailed map of the very tip of the continent. There were markers for known dragon nests and grazing spots, lakes, rivers, and areas where August had seen jeeps, helicopters, and humanoid patrols.

"I couldn't tell whether the people I saw were human or Caeleste, so I just marked them as humanoid," the fae said, glancing at Elijah again.

Zoe leaned around the side of Elijah's seat and looked at the map, too. "So, is that where we're landing?" she asked, pointing to a part of the map labelled 'airstrip'.

"Yeah. It's one of the only flat pieces of terrain I could find that was big enough to land on. Don't worry, though; it's far from any dragons or people, hidden in this really beautiful valley."

Elijah examined each mark on the map, hoping he might find something that would tell him where the lab was. There was a rather large area circled with red ink, and when he looked at August's noted key on the side of the paper, he understood that red indicated extreme danger. There were also a few smaller red circles, and he wondered if one of them could be where Lyca Corp. had set up.

He looked at August. "Tell me more about these areas circled in red."

"Uh..." he drawled, taking his eyes off the horizon for a moment. "The little ones are smaller, less dangerous nesting dragons, and that medium on is an Ascelan Frostwing's territory—we wanna steer real clear of that. And then that huge one is this like...black zone. Fences and guard towers. It's where those people I was telling you about have set up. Very high security."

That had to be the lab.

"There aren't any dragons around there, though. Whatever those people are doing, it's weird enough to spook them," August said.

Elijah was over the whole researcher cover story. August was going to guide them, and that jeep he had back there would come in very handy. "This is where we're going," he said, pointing to the black zone.

August glanced at him and scoffed amusedly. "Yeah, right."

"I'm not joking," the demon muttered. "We're not going over the wall to study dragons."

The fae man looked confused, and concern quickly warped his face. "Wait...seriously?"

"We're looking for someone," Zoe said.

"And he's not a dragon," Jake added.

August scoffed again, glancing at each of them as he slowly realized that they really were telling the truth. "Are you kidding me right now? Why lie? I don't want to get wrapped up in whatever those people are doing over there!" he exclaimed. "I'm turning back—"

Elijah grabbed his arm before he could steer to the right. "You're going to keep going and get us over that wall. Then, we're all getting in that jeep back there, and you're going to take us to this black zone."

"Forget it," August growled, pulling his arm free. "Do you have any idea of the kind of firepower those people have? I saw gunships and tanks, man—tanks!" He tried to steer to the right again, but Elijah snatched his arm and glared at him.

"We'll pay you whatever it takes," Zoe said. "Name your price. We just...need to get there."

August shook his head. "No amount of money is going to—"

"Double what we paid for the ride," the girl said.

The fae man hesitated.

"Fine, triple," Zoe said firmly. "A cidaris and a half."

He still looked hesitant, but after a few moments of counting on his fingers, he glanced back at Zoe and said, "All right, you've convinced me. But I'm telling you, these people are military or something. I don't have a tank back there."

"We don't need a tank, right Elijah?" Jake asked with a smirk.

Elijah rolled his eyes.

August frowned at him. "What...you some sort of one-man army? Because we're gonna need one."

"He's been dealing with those people for a while," Zoe said.

"So...you know who they are?" the fae questioned.

"Lyca Corp.," Elijah answered. "They operate out of hidden laboratories, experimenting on lycans and demons, whom they kidnapped as children."

"Elijah escaped one of their labs and is looking for his boyfriend," Jake said.

"They were separated not long before Elijah escaped," Zoe added.

"He's at this black site," Elijah said, pointing to the circled area.

August looked a little startled and took a moment to process it. "So...you want to break into this place?"

"Yes," the demon mumbled.

"And...you're gonna do that with my jeep and your rifle?"

"Yes."

He didn't look convinced. "Yeah, I...feel like a whole lot more planning is needed for something like this."

"I'll need to scope the place out first," Elijah said as he continued examining what terrain he could see on the map. "There's always a way in."

August didn't reply. He stared out the window with a pondering expression, and then he glanced back at Zoe. "You're rich, right? Can't you like...hire some people to help you guys out?"

"We can't risk bringing anyone else in," Zoe replied. "These people have eyes and ears everywhere. We've...already lost someone because they traced our phones."

The fae man's eyes widened. "Wait, there used to be four of you?"

Zoe shot an irritated glare at Jake, who sunk down into his seat. "Her name was Enid."

"Wow...okay, now I'm reconsidering," August said worriedly.

"We've already gotten into one of these labs," Jake mumbled. "It wasn't hard. Elijah knows what he's doing."

"Okay, but was this other lab a huge black site with an army guarding it?"

"Just shut up and fly," Elijah grumbled. "We need you to get us back over the wall once we're done, so don't worry. You'll make it out."

August grimaced. "Right...that makes me feel so much better."

Elijah didn't respond and glared out the window to his right. He couldn't exactly plan much without seeing the lab, but if August was telling the truth and it was as heavily guarded as he insisted, then things might not be as easy as he'd hoped. But they never were, were they? Something or someone always got in the way and slowed him down, but he managed to compensate. Whatever waited for him at The Spear, he'd find a way to deal with it.

"Do you got like...blankets or anything? I need some sleep," Jake questioned, looking around.

"There's some in the back with the fur coats I grabbed earlier," August said, waving his arm towards the back.

Jake got up and went searching for them.

"You should all probably get some sleep. I'm gonna put the autopilot on once we get over the mountains and catch a few hours myself," the fae said, glancing at Zoe and Elijah.

Elijah didn't want to sleep—well, he did, but he couldn't. He didn't want to risk ending up in The Darkness again. As much as he wanted to find out what the rest of those fragments meant, he didn't want to face Maverick until he knew who he was and how to deal with him. The last thing he wanted was to have his arm pulled from his dream and wake up missing a limb.

"Get some rest," he said to Zoe.

"What about you?" she asked.

"I'll be fine."

"Are you sure?"

"I've gone longer without sleep," he muttered, trying to relax, but his seat kept rattling every time the aircraft shook.

Jake then came back with a few fur blankets in his arms. Zoe took one from him, and August reached back and grabbed one, too.

"All right," the fae man drawled as they flew over the mountains. "It's all sea for the next few hours, so there won't be much to look at," he said, looking at Elijah. "These seats recline if you change your mind about sleeping," he told him as he pressed a few buttons and flipped some switches before reclining his seat. He placed his blanket over himself and sighed loudly as he relaxed. "See you in a few hours." He took his headset off and put some earplugs in.

Elijah watched as both Jake and Zoe reclined their seats and got comfortable, too. He wasn't going to lie, he was tired, but for Haru's sake, he needed to stay awake. He couldn't liberate him from Lyca Corp. if he got trapped in The Darkness or lost a limb.

With a quiet sigh, he made himself as comfortable as he could and stared out at the ocean, hoping that by tomorrow, he'd have Haru back at his side.

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