“Are you ready?”a woman’s voice says.Architecti grips the cell bars and hisses.
“Magically enforced,” I say.“To prevent an escape.Same as these.”I raise my cuffed wrists.
She pouts and takes a seat in front of the bars and makes herself comfortable.“Fine, we do this the hard way, then.Are you ready?”
“Ready?”
“To wield your power.”
I smile, the first genuine one in a long, long time.
25
Lucy
By the time morning arrives, I am drenched in sweat.My skin burns from trying to force the runes to power up and every muscle in my body aches.
As I thought, the runes have a hybrid etymology.Their structure is partly demonic, partly celestial.It’s why their shapes were so familiar and yet I couldn’t read them.
Architecti said there wasn’t time to learn to read them, instead she taught me to feel for their shapes, to lean into the rhythm of the vibrations.But more than anything, she made me realise I need to stop resisting the power becauseI amthe power.
It is me.
Her point, I think, is that if I can recognise the fact I don’t need towieldthe runes because I alreadyamthe runes, I should be able to control their power regardless of what the cuffs are doing.She seems to think I am far more powerful than a set of magically pissy handcuffs.
“Rest,” Architecti says.“I’ll return, I need to locate my sister.She’s been missing since I threw her back into Ora City.”
“The quakes?”I ask.
She nods.“She’s been stealing more mortal souls and continues to try and unravel the fabric.There have been cuts deep enough they’ve punctured all three realms.”
I wince.“Go, I’ll be okay here, and thank you…”
She smiles and disappears up the corridor.I must sleep for a while because I’m next roused by the sound of heavy boots.The stride pattern is hesitant and slow, almost as if the owner is broken.
Midnight.
I sigh.
I don’t turn around.Not when she shuffles to a stop outside the cell.Not when she makes the tiniest of murmurs, like the words rose up and caught on her tongue.
And not when she clears her throat, clearly trying to signal my attention.
No.I am in control.While I recognise we have both fucked up, shesoldme and to fucking Ignatius, of all people.
She can wait.In fact, I make her wait an agonising amount of time.Long enough that I hear her slide down against the bars of the adjacent cell.
Finally, I turn.
Midnight flinches.Whatever she sees, it isn’t the Lucy that was dragged out of the apartment.Maybe it’s the fact I am dishevelled and dirty.My hair askew, my face streaked with dirt and dried tears, my arms smeared in dried remains of blood where I hit the stone floor.
I don’t think it’s any of those things, though.I think Midnight sees through that to what I am becoming: new.And dangerous.
They may have broken me down brick by brick, but I am the one piecing the armour back together again.
“Lucy—” But she falls silent when the heat of my furious gaze lands on her.She does not get to say my name.If I could scour it from her mind, I would.I’d cut it like a gangrenous limb from her body.
Fuck her.
