He nodded once and lifted his hand. Air curled around us in smooth invisible currents, sweeping across her skin, my body, himself. Blood disappeared. Sweat vanished. The room lost the thick scent of sex and violence piece by piece while he put on his pants with a mechanical calm.
My attention drifted past him toward what remained of Manshu. The sight punched every violent instinct I had right back to the surface.
Visions flashed of Via choking. His nails buried through her throat so hard they were coming out the other side. The look in her eyes while she struggled, dangling in the air.
My grip tightened unconsciously around her. Poisonous rage simmered beneath my ribs.
He got too clean of a death. I wanted to do more, wanted to see him suffer for a lifetime for what he had put her through, but we didn’t have time for that. Had a bigger mission, a larger purpose.
The weight of Via in my arms reminded me of that. Without even realizing it, she’d dragged me back from the edge again.
“Calix.”
Rack’s voice cut through my thoughts. I looked over just in time to see him holding up the fae-crafted gun in one hand and a bullet in the other.
The weapon still shimmered with that sick iridescent magic, but the bullet… didn’t.
Rack popped the clip free and slid another round out beside it. One gleamed unnaturally beneath the lights, while the mangled bullet looked dead and ordinary.
My brows pulled together immediately as I tried to recall what had happened in that moment.
I’d been in a blind rage, but I remembered him pointing it at me, his finger squeezing the trigger, and I’d knocked Manshu’s arm aside, making him miss. The shot had hit?—
I turned sharply and slowly crossed the space with Via in my arms, following the angle until I found the ruined electrical box hanging open from the wall. Sparks spat wildly from exposed wires.
My pulse kicked harder.
Glancing from the wires to the dull bullet, thoughts fired, one after another, ideas churning with the possibilities.
“I’ll need to test it,” I muttered, crouching closer. “But electricity moves in a continuous loop unless the circuit is physically broken. It just loops.”
Rack stepped closer behind me while I kept staring at the box, trying to make the theory stick.
“If the current kept cycling through the magic…” My mouth slowly curled. “It might burn it out.”
Ideas hit me all at once after that. Weapon designs. Containment systems. Countermeasures. Prototype failures. New rune structures.
I nearly laughed.
Instead, I lowered my face into Via’s hair, breathing her in hard enough to ground myself before I completely spiraled into invention mode. The sweet aroma of wild roses wrapped around me.
God, I wished she was awake right now. I wanted to tell her and hear her theories. Watch her tear the idea apart and rebuild it until it was better.Don’t get ahead of yourself,I warned myself, but it was hard. For the first time in days, hope had flickered to life inside my chest.
Heat spread across the side of my neck, not warmth, but a blistering heat that flared hotter and hotter until pain lanced sharply beneath my skin. My brows furrowed as I lifted my head, about to ask Rack to take her so I could figure out what the hell?—
I froze.
Right at the yoke of Rack’s back sat a dark rose-shaped mark, one that had never been there before. Perfectly clear. Perfectly unmistakable.
My heartbeat slammed against my ribs so violently it drowned out everything else. Air caught halfway into my lungs, turning into ragged, uneven breaths while I stared at the mark branded into his skin.
Why? Why am I always the one left out? Why am I not allowed to have happiness? What’s so wrong with me that fate’s determined I’m unworthy?
The questions crashed around my skull hard enough to make my vision blur. My chest tightened until every breath scraped on the way in. I clutched Via closer unconsciously, fingers digging into her as if holding her tighter could somehow change fate itself.
“Calix?” Rack’s voice hit me at the worst possible moment.
A raw sound tore out of my throat before I even realized I’d made it. “When?!”
