I don’t wait, I grab her hand and dart down the corridor and into the first door I find.But it’s just a room of doors.
“Fuck,” I say and yank Midnight with me.We wrench open another door, as a blast of thick, dark ribbony magic obliterates everything but the handle I’m holding.
Midnight shoves me inside and drags me across the room so fast I stumble over my feet.
Another blast of magic shoots over my head missing me by a millimetre.My arms flare to life, the runes sensing danger.
“Oh gods!Midnight, you need to get to safety.I blew two wraiths to pieces.”
“Not leaving you.”
I scramble up, and we race through the next door.There’s a table just inside this one, and Midnight shoves it against the door under the handle.
“It won’t hold for long.Better than nothing.”
She nudges me down this corridor and we find ourselves back in the central staircase.Gods, this fucking tower is one endless déjà vu.
I think we’re clear when Interitus walks out onto the opposite side of the spiralling staircase two floors up.
“Fuck me,” Midnight says.
Interitus flings a half dozen threads of magic, all of them with loops on the end.Nooses.She’s making god-damned nooses.
I poke at my arms, prodding the runes, but they remain quiet.Not even a fucking flicker of power.I can’t seem to make them work.Why can’t I control them?They fucking worked when the wraiths were after me, and now what?They just abandon me?
Midnight dives in front of the ribbons, slashing and swiping at them with her scythe.But Interitus is too quick and one of the ribbons slides between Midnight’s legs and coils around my ankle.
I’m dragged up and over the bannister by my foot, screaming and yanking at the ribbons.I can’t get the magic off me, and the harder I fight, the tighter the loop cinches around my leg.I’m whisked into the middle of the staircase’s spiral.There’s nothing but free fall below me.
I stop fighting the magic.
That thread is the only thing holding me up and away from a thousand-foot drop to concrete.
“Let her go, motherfucker,” Midnight says, brandishing her scythe as she leans over the bannister to try and reach me.
I’m dead centre of the stairwell; there’s no way she will get to me.
“No… I don’t think so,” Interitus says, a note of triumph in her voice.
There’s a speck below me in the darkness, it moves and undulates and rapidly grows bigger and bigger.What the hell is?—
I’m launched up, up, up.
Arms clasp me.Enormous wings flap, making wind rush around my ears.I’m thrown back over the bannister and clatter to the stairs.
Architecti.
The floor rumbles, an enormous cut in the Veil appears.There’s shrieking.
Thunderous booms as two sets of wings careen into each other.
Midnight appears, her hands sliding under my arms and scooping me up.“Go,” she hisses, and we run down the staircase as fast as we can.
Above us, the angels battle.Circling the enormous gash in the Veil that hovers mid-air in the stairwell.
Fists crunch into jaws and ribs.
Feet into wings.
