I slammed into a chest like stone. I staggered back, nearly falling. Looked up. A man stood in our path. Broad-shouldered. Immaculate. Not a hair out of place. His black suit looked like it had been stitched by royal tailors, not meant for this place.
He didn’t draw a weapon.
He didn’t have to.
Beside him stood a guard, hand poised near his blade, but it was the suited man who held the power.
He exuded it.
His eyes were cold. Unblinking. Calm in the way that terrified me most. And he looked at us like we weren’t even worth the trouble of getting his hands dirty.
“This area’s restricted,” he said.
“Sorry,” I said. “We got lost. We’re just looking for—”
“They’re escaping!” A voice screamed. ”Lock it down!”
The suited man didn’t even blink.
He just looked at me. And smiled.
I could swear the world stopped.
I felt it happen. The way time bent around me like the hallway had folded in on itself. Everything slowed to a crawl. My breathing. The flickering lanternlight on the stone walls. Even the screaming somewhere behind us dissolved into something distant, stretched and warped, like sound underwater.
And I reached for him.
Not for his body, or the pistol tucked neatly at his hip. I reached for the rhythm beneath all that. For the blood coursing through his veins. For the pulse buried deep in his chest, slow and steady, unaware it was no longer his to control.
I felt it.
All of it.
His heart, his lungs, the fragile rhythm of life holding him upright, and I closed my grip around it, felt the shudder run through him like a tremor inside my mind. I traced the path of it like I’d known it forever. The artery in his throat, the slow churn through his heart. I felt his lungs contract, ribs shifting with breath.
And Isqueezed.
I clenched my will around his rhythm like a vice, wrapping it tight and unforgiving. His brow knit in a brief, confused twitch as his hand lifted to his chest, fingers splaying, digging into his ribs as if he could claw the pain out from the outside. He staggered, just slightly, head tilting as though trying to make sense of what was happening to him.
“Let. Us. Leave,” I growled.
The guard beside him moved, and just like that, time caught up. The stillness shattered as everything snapped back into motion. The guard crossed the space in two strides.
No warning. No mercy.
His hand slammed into the side of my face with the force of a weapon. For an instant there was nothing, just a burst of white light, a rush of air, then the world snapped back and the pain hit. My body lifted off the ground, thrown sideways. I crashed into the wall hard enough to rattle my teeth, and I felt my skull crack against it. The floor vanished beneath me and then surged up, cold and unyielding, against my cheek.
“KERA!” Licia’s scream tore through the blur, as my vision wavered, fractured into shards of color, then into black.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
When I opened my eyes again, I was in a different room. Warm light flickered from a nearby oil lamp, casting shadows across polished wood floors. A massive oak desk stood in the center, and behind the desk, shelves of liquor stretched from floor to ceiling, every bottle glittering like a jewel.
The boys were there.
Will and Aran, tied to the legs of the desk. Slumped. Silent. I tried to move, but I couldn’t. My arms were bound behind me, tight. The ropes bit into my wrists with every twitch, and everything hurt. My face. My ribs. My head throbbed with each breath. But worse than the pain was the weight—this bone-deep exhaustion crawling through my body. I could feel it, thick and cold, like the magic had drained everything from me just trying to keep me alive.
Will stirred faintly, his head lolling to the side, a swollen eye cracking open. He tried nudging Aran with his shoulder, but there was no response. Aran stayed limp. Still. Licia lay on the floor not far away, her arms twisted beneath her, skin ghost-pale. Her chest rose so faintly I thought I’d imagined it.
