But Empyreals didn’t trigger transformations in other ones.
‘Help!’ Chloe screamed as she swung the chair Nicole had been sitting in against his back.
It only shattered. He didn’t move.
‘Don’t,’ Nicole wheezed. She couldn’t involve more people. He’d been changed, she could see in his eyes, to kill anyone. ‘Run.’
But the historian didn’t. Instead, she reached for the ancient blade on her desk, and with only a moment’s hesitation, brought it down on Alexander’s arm.
Despite its rusted hilt, it somehow tore through the material to the blue tattoos beneath, which momentarily glowed in Nicole’s periphery.
Chloe ripped off his mask from behind, trying to gain some sort of purchase, and then his face filled Nicole’s fading vision.
The face of the man that killed her mother.
The face that had been painted in theDantepiece.
Who Kyan was supposed to have killed over a hundred years ago.
Alexander’s features were hewn and feral, his hair a dark red and shorn short. And his eyes: there was no understanding him, no stopping him.
There was nothing there but the ferocity of a killer.
She’d tried to study her way out of a fucking murderer’s path. She was an idiot.
‘Go to sleep,’ he growled, and amid the blackness that flushed across her vision, was surprise that he could indeed speak. That he could Influence her.
Her last thoughts before it overtook her were,He’s taking me away from them, I can’t let him find them—
And then she heard Chloe say something: some strange language she’d never heard before.
Alexander let go of her, but she barely had a chance to relish the rush of air back into her lungs as the ground rushed up instead.
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
Nicole
WHEN NICOLE AWOKE, IT WAS TO FIND DRKANER HOVERINGabove her, fanning her with someone’s essay.
‘She’s waking up. Oh, thank god,’ she said to someone else. ‘I don’t know, he just attacked her! He’s gone,’ Chloe assured Nicole. ‘Just rest, I’m going to call an ambulance and the police.’
Nicole tried to tell her no, but couldn’t make a sound. Her voice was a wheeze and her throat razored with pain as stars danced in her vision.
‘Stop,’ she croaked.
‘Just relax,’ said another voice: a woman in her forties who came into Nicole’s vision as Chloe darted back to her desk. ‘Just lie still, we’re getting help.’
Nicole reached up for the woman and, as they helped her, she put all her energy into her Influence.
‘Forget everything she’s told you.’ Her voice was thready, but her Influence seemed to work. ‘Leave.’
‘Woah, hey—’ Chloe said, her phone forgotten in her hand.
‘Where did he go?’ Nicole rasped, struggling up. Her body was swiftly healing, but Alexander’s grip had been so intense she was surprised he hadn’t killed her.
‘I don’t know. He got spooked when I – I stabbed him.’
Nicole shook her head. He’d been impaled with a metal bar, it wasn’t the blade that had spooked him. ‘Did you speak? Did you say some strange words?’
