Page 5

Good. Fine. I can use that.

I plant both hands on his chest, deliberately avoiding the mark this time, and push.

Nothing.

‘Okay,’ I mutter. ‘New plan.’

I look around the bedroom, assessing in broken flashes.

Cracked Heartshard Glass. Clothes scattered like evidence. My weapons, which are too far away. His shirt on the floor and there’s blood on the linen. More than just the linen. There’s blood… everywhere… On his mouth, on the walls.

Gods, what the hell did we do?

Think, Eira, think.

I’m naked under the unconscious king of New York, trying not to have the world’s most inconvenient emotional crisis.

And it’s only a matter of time before the Twelve find a way in.

I drag in a breath, wedge my foot against the mattress, and shift my weight sideways. This time I use the arm around me. It’s still heavy across my waist but no longer locked. I pry his fingers free one by one, teeth gritted against the absurd tenderness of touching him like this.

His hand drops to the sheet, and the moment contact breaks, I feel the loss.

I hate that I feel it.

I roll out from under him and land on the floor with zero dignity, one knee smacking the rug, hair falling over my face. Throat throbbing, I snatch the sheet and wrap it around myself, then scramble back to the bed.

Valentin lies on his side, the mark blazing in slow, uneven pulses.

It has spread again; the branching edges have crawled higher towards his throat and lower across his ribs, thin black-red filaments threading under the skin. The sight turns my stomach over.

I reach for him, hesitate, then reach anyway.

‘Valentin.’ My hand lands on his scorching cheek. ‘Listen to me. I need you to wake up.’

His lashes twitch. And in my head, something opens again.

A flash of darkness. A woman laughing somewhere far away. A chrysalis suspended in void. Five men kneeling in blood. Valentin on his knees, younger and wilder, head bowed before a figure I cannot see properly.

Gods.

Then me.

No. Lyra. My old bedroom. My younger self staring up at him in terror. The vision cuts out so abruptly I nearly fall forward. ‘What the hell was that?’

Outside, Aaron speaks again, louder. ‘Eira. Listen carefully. We cannot break the seal without injuring him unless he releases the command.’

‘Great,’ I call back. ‘Ask him to release it.’

‘He’s not answering us.’

‘That makes all of us.’

Malachi’s voice slices through. ‘If he dies in there⁠—’

‘He’s not dying,’ I snap.

The room goes very still after I say it. My own certainty shocks me.