at communication. I looked at Soul. “Time is coming. I asked him to gather as many of the First Tenners as he can.”
“And I have already reached out to Death, brought her into the loop,” Soul added. “I’m not sure what good that’ll do, but hey… I did my part.”
Sofia stared at the clone corpses, many of them torn to shreds by our ghouls, who were now sniffing their way down a path that led to the Port beyond the woods. “We’re currently receiving reports from all over the island. Some places were hit, others weren’t. There were multiple shimmering portal sightings, too.”
“They’re gone now,” Rose said. “As soon as the horn sounded just now, the clones just up and left.”
“It means that whatever they came here for, they got it,” I replied, shaking my head as I once again thought of Claudia’s doppelganger. “Where are the others?”
“When the attacks started, they were in different locations around The Shade,” Sofia said. “Some were verified by your team and Thayen’s and sent back to the Great Dome. We tried to get as many of ours back that way, but without the comms running, there was very little we could do.”
“The casualties are at a reduced number, too.” Ben sighed, running a hand through his hair. Then he spotted his own clone among the others. “Good grief, this is creepy and then some…”
I glanced his way, knowing I’d have a little bit of reaping to do. “How many of your people are dead, do you think?”
“Less than a hundred. We’ve got officers doing the rounds and scanning the island from one end to the other,” Ben replied, still staring at his copy. “There’s a lot we don’t know yet. Hell, I’ve got at least twenty questions of my own about what happened here.”
“Oh dear.” Sofia gasped when she finally came across Isabelle’s clone. “What happened to her? Where are Thayen and his crew?” She gave me a horrified look, and I didn’t know what to tell her, exactly. I offered a full account of what I saw and heard during the melee, but without more information, I couldn’t tell Sofia what had happened to her son.
“How did you all get here?” Soul asked the Shadians.
Derek pointed up at the trees. “We had scouts climb up to the top on a half-mile radius around the Great Dome. Some were tasked with watching the skies; the others had to keep an eye on the ground in case more people were headed toward us, originals or otherwise. One of them spotted movement in the sky near the Port. He gave us a troubling description of two dragons being shot down. We figured this was the place we needed to be.”
“So, Thayen went that way?” Sofia asked, pointing toward the path that Stan and Ollie were investigating. I could barely see them now, their bony figures moving through the rich underbrush. Their heads poked out once in a while, their black eyes finding mine. I gave them a nod each time, encouraging them to keep tracking.
“Yes,” I said, then turned to Phoenix. “Where is Viola? Something tells me Astra wasn’t the only Daughter they were after. Of all the clones I’ve come across so far, two of them were made after you, yet none after Viola. Nor Astra, for that matter. It’s the one pattern that stands out.”
Phoenix exhaled sharply, and I almost felt his anguish as though it were mine. “I haven’t found her yet. I suppose Astra didn’t have much luck, either?”
There was a hopeful look in his eyes, and it broke me to have to shake my head in response. “I’m sorry, Viola wasn’t here,” I told him. “We need to head to the Port. Now.”
We were all in agreement. While the rest of The Shade was pulling itself together, recovering after what had easily been the single most complex and brazen hostile infiltration it had ever faced, complete with raids and violent attacks, our confused little group still had work to do. A dull sensation persisted in the pit of my stomach as we made our way down the forest path, chasing after Stan and Ollie. I couldn’t shake the feeling that despite the peaceful silence that had taken over the island, things were nowhere near better than five minutes ago.
This had only been the beginning, and it would only get worse going forward. Soul walked along with me, his hand occasionally brushing against mine. We exchanged glances, and I knew we