She needed to find Thomas Monahan and the aeamon, half-breed daaeman humans, who resided on this planet. They called themselves elemental witches here. They were the only ones who would understand what had happened. They were the only ones who could help her now.

Claire knew little of them, didn't know where to find them, or how they functioned in this world. She couldn't even use her magick, not with Rue's gift fluttering inside her. She had no idea how her power would react. If it was elium Rue had imbued her with, accidentally tapping it could mean utter destruction. The inability to use her power was perhaps the worst thing about her current condition.

Worse than the cold. Worse than the hunger or the fatigue or the fear.

In every way imaginable, she was hobbled.

Claire had never been so cold. In all the demonic winters she'd spent on Eudae, where the temperatures ranged into the bone-shattering range for an aeamon, she'd never been this miserable. The wound she'd sustained on her foot the first day as she'd run from the Atrika hadn't so much healed up as it had frozen up. Hunger constantly distracted her and made her weak. By now she was so bedraggled, people on the street gave her a wide berth and pitying glances.

Never had she been so humiliated.

Today she'd walked down streets, not knowing where she was headed. She'd only known she had to keep moving since the Atrika might be able to track her magickally.

People had pressed paper and coins, which she recognized as money, into her palm once in a while. However, when she'd inquired where she could find the elemental witches, they'd only given her strange looks and hurried away.