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Darien bit out, “They’ve led us into a fucking trap.”
115
Roman’s House
YVESWICH, STATE OF KER
Loren looked up from where she lounged on the pillows on her bed, trying to distract herself by reading her romance novel, as Malakai drifted into her room.
For the third time since the others had left.
“I’m so fucking bored,” he complained, ripping a frustrated hand through his shoulder-length hair.
“Malakai,” Loren sighed, flopping her book into her lap. “Must I entertain you every few minutes?”
“The others are boring. Arthur’s teaching Dom and Blue about science shit. Blegh.” He leaned against the dresser, the handles on the drawers rattling as he nearly knocked it over. “What are you reading?”
Loren glanced down at her open book. Back up at Malakai. Gave him a cunning smile. “A romance novel. Want me to read it out loud to you?”
“Eww, no.”
She flourished the book before her.
He stepped back as if it were a spider. “Get that thing away from me.”
She snickered.
The speaker on Malakai’s watch crackled.
He turned the face until it clicked. And then he held it up to his ear, listening. Loren listened too, nerves twisting her stomach into tight knots.
This was the first form of communication the others had given them since they’d left. But she couldn’t pick up on anything except bursts of static; she couldn’t even tell who was speaking.
Malakai cursed and walked out into the hallway, watch still lifted to his ear.
Loren sat up, holding her breath, willing her mortal ears to pick up on what the person on the other end was trying to convey.
The minute Loren recognized Darien’s deep voice coming through the speaker, barely audible and intercepted with static, she closed her book and got up, following Malakai on quiet feet.
It had taken her a while to stop crying after Darien had left. And although she was still upset about his decision to bargain away his life, they had a different problem to deal with tonight, one that was approaching immediately instead of within the next ten months. No one’s fate was certain; different decisions led to different destinations. The Widow might have said she would die by the age of twenty-one, but she could not accept that Darien would die, too. There must be a way out of that bargain—a way out that would save him, even if she still had to die.
The Reaper was standing just outside her door, watch raised to one ear, a finger pressed against his other.
Loren stood in the doorway. As she listened to that horrible truth coming through the speakers, every word broken up by static, her pounding heart lurched into a painful sprint.
The city was going to blow up. The replica had already been activated by the flow of magic from the Caliginous Chambers.
Which meant she had done this. Her treatments at Caliginous on Silverway had been feeding the monstrosity below the streets.
And if she didn’t act now, she would be responsible for ten million people dying. Ten million deaths pegged on her.
And some of those deaths would be the people she loved. Dallas, Ivy, Tanner. Jack, Max, Travis.
Darien.
She couldn’t let this happen. She wouldn’t.
“Malakai,” she said quietly.
