It would stop. Ithadto stop.
But the city kept shaking.
Pushing the sweat-damp hair that had come loose out of her face, she lurched to her feet, crossing the short distance to the tower.
Singer disappeared into her shadow as she began climbing, clinging to the grooves in the panels of cristala with weakening fingers.
As she climbed, the tower shuddered and cracked. The fissures in the glass spiderwebbed beneath her palms, but she kept going, as fast as her legs could take her. Her muscles were shrieking in pain—in defiance. But she pushed on, gritting her teeth against every throb.
When she reached the very top, she wrapped her arms around one of the finials to keep from falling while she used the other to remove the forcefield projection. The magic burning there was so hot she had no choice but to drop it to the ledge below, the movement sucking her stomach through her ass.
Hundreds of feet of open air loomed below her feet, the sight of the city sprawled all around her—the businesses so small, it was as though they were toys—churning her gut.
And then, trembling with exhaustion, sweat streaming down her temples, she plugged the antidote into the forcefield’s place.
—
Darien felt it when the antidote washed over the city.
The screaming of the people he was pushing past, and the howling of the demons he was parrying out of the way with fists and ketamine darts, immediately ceased. It was as though the whole city fell asleep, as the demons began a reverse transformation, dropping in place like flies, the stupors they’d fallen into clearing an easier path to the Control Tower.
She’d done it. Loren had done it.
The medicinal stink of the antidote swept through the air, smothering the reek of blood and flesh and dust. It covered everything in golden granular too fine for mortal eyes to see.
And Darien kept moving. Toward the tower—toward Loren. Stepping over bodies as he went, he kept his eyes trained on that shimmering tower, praying she was okay. Praying she was alive.
The ground beneath his feet kept groaning and rumbling, the call of the Well growing to a blood-curdling shriek as the final seconds wound down.
And the end came at last.
—
The antidote was making her drowsy.
It felt like her legs weren’t her own, every step she took slow and clumsy as a doll bopped up and down by strings. Loren kept a hand braced on the glistering wall as she stumbled along the circumference of the tower, toward the door and the stairs waiting just beyond.
But making the short journey to that open door felt like an impossible task, and she found her legs crumpling beneath her. Her kneecaps slammed to the ground, bone popping on the cristala. She barely registered the pain, the antidote numbing everything, even her thoughts. The panic barking in her head quieted to the faintest whisper.
On the streets far below, the screams had fallen silent. Loren knew if she were to look, she would see hundreds upon hundreds of Angelthene citizens blinking away the nightmare of what had happened, only to find themselves surrounded by corpses and blood, the taste of their mouth rancid.
And itwasa nightmare. This was a Star-damned nightmare.
A little voice crackled in her ear. Calling her name.
Slowly, Loren turned her head to look over her shoulder, trying to find the source of the voice. It took longer than it should have for her to realize it was coming from her earpiece—from the headset perched atop her head like a lopsided crown.
Her fingers trembled as she slid the earpiece that’d popped partway out back into place.
“Darien?” The word was a breathy whisper.
“Loren, I need you to get off the tower,” Darien was saying, every word a strained gasp. “You—”Crackle.“The Well is—”Crackle.
“Darien.” Her vision swam, and she closed her eyes tight as nausea ebbed and flowed in her gut, the tower rotating like the gears of a great clock. “I can’t hear you.” Her heartbeat was an unsteady thump in her skull.
It took a long time to piece together the gaps in his sentences. From some faraway place in her mind, she finally understood was he was saying.
She had to get off the tower. The Well was going to blow—the others hadn’t succeeded at stopping it. This whole city was going to crumble.
