Chapter 35
THIRTY-FIVE
Selene
The smell hit us first—a thick, cloying stench of wet fur, old rot, and the chemical tang of city runoff. We walked through the intestines of Ravenholt.
The storm drains were narrow, slick with algae, and freezing. The water rushed past our ankles, black and oily, soaking through my boots in seconds.
Torvin and Karys took the lead, moving with practiced efficiency. They cracked hooded chemical sticks, casting a dull, greenish glow—just enough to reveal the slick stones underfoot while keeping the tunnel ahead shrouded.
The silence pressed against us. Torvin, usually the first to break the tension, kept his focus entirely on the path ahead. His hunched shoulders confirmed the gravity of the task. We were descending into the city’s bowels to stop a massacre.
I followed close behind, steadying myself against the damp brick wall. Behind me, the heavy tread of Goran and Dane echoed against the stone, followed by the phantom-light step of Riven.
The cold air biting at my skin only made the residual heat of last night burn hotter. Riven’s touch. The way the shadows had curled around us, binding us together. It was an absolute alignment.
A terrifying physical resonance still echoed deep in my chest, lingering long after we pulled apart. I had spent my whole life carrying a hollow ache, and for a few hours hidden from the world, something had finally slotted into place.
I didn’t know what to call it. I didn’t have a name for the way my magic had reached for his, or the way his heart had seemed to beat against my own spine.
But the intensity of it made my step falter. It was too big. Too vast to carry into a fight. If I thought about what that meant—that I might never feel that wholeness again if we failed—I would freeze.
I forced the memory down. I boxed it up and buried it deep, right next to the grief for Eamon.
Focus, I told myself. Survive first. Figure it out later.
My magic pushed against my skin, agitated by the suffocating weight of the tunnel. The Light inside me wanted to flare, to tear through the oppressive dark. It took every ounce of the control Riven had taught me to keep it leashed, to hold the light beneath the surface.
Calm, I thought. Be calm.
It felt like we’d been walking for hours when Karys suddenly threw her arm out, stopping Torvin mid-step.
“Hold,” she hissed.
She pointed to the damp mist hanging in the tunnel. It hovered in the air, vibrating in a perfect, unnatural grid.
“Harmonic Ward,” Torvin murmured, crouching to inspect the water level. “Nasty work. It skips the warning and boils the blood of anyone crossing the threshold.”
“Can you break it?” I asked.
“Break? No. Force triggers the perimeter alarm.” Torvin grinned, sharp and white in the gloom. He drew a set of curved tools from his belt—carved bone. “I have to put it to sleep.”
He moved forward, sliding the tools into the invisible grid. For a terrifying ten seconds, the air buzzed with a sound like angry wasps. Sweat beaded on Torvin’s forehead.
Then, with a sound like a dying breath, the vibration stopped. The mist drifted naturally again.
“Clear,” Torvin exhaled, wiping his brow. “But don’t touch the walls.”
We moved past him, careful to tread exactly where he walked.
A few minutes later, Karys stopped at a junction where the brickwork gave way to rusted iron.
“We’re here,” she whispered.
An industrial grate blocked the path, bolted into the stone. Beyond it, I could hear a steady thrumming—not water, but machinery.
“This is the perimeter,” Torvin said. He reached into his belt and produced one of the rune-etched discs—the Static-Dampener.
He pressed it against the iron of the grate. It magnetised with a clack. The runes on the disc flared green, then settled into a dull, pulsing grey as it matched the frequency of the ward.
“We’re synced,” Torvin whispered. “Five minutes starting… now.”
Goran hauled the grate wide, and we stepped through.
The air changed instantly. The wet, rotting cold of the sewer was replaced by dry, dusty heat.
We were standing in a massive service cavity—the boiler room of Quinn Tower. Giant pipes, wrapped in insulation, crisscrossed the ceiling like snakes. The hum of the building’s life support systems was overwhelming here, a constant, mechanical drone.
We were in.
Riven stopped beside me. He scanned the room, his eyes sharp, the silver swirls spinning slowly in the gloom.
“This is the split,” he said. His voice was low, barely audible over the machinery.
He pointed to a set of thick grey doors on the far wall.
“Service lifts. That’s our route to the lobby.”
He turned to the right, pointing to a narrow, vertical ladder bolted to the wall, disappearing into a dark shaft filled with cabling.
“That’s the spine. The maintenance riser. It goes all the way to the physical plant on the roof.”
Dane walked over to me. He looked at the ladder, then at me. He gripped his baton, his knuckles white.
“Don’t stop climbing,” he said. “No matter what you hear.”
“I won’t,” I promised. “Watch your back, Dane.”
“Always.”
He turned and joined Goran by the lift doors.
Riven lingered.
He stood in front of me, a dark shape in the industrial twilight. He held his stare, unblinking.
His eyes travelled over my face, memorising it. I felt the shadows inside me stir—a warm, steady pressure against my heart. It was a promise. A silent vow that resonated through my ribs.
He nodded once, brisk and final.
“Go,” he said.
He turned and walked away.
I watched him join the others. Goran hit the call button for the lift. The doors slid open with a rattle.
Riven, Dane, and Goran filed inside.
They looked like an army of three. Riven met my eyes one last time as the doors began to slide shut.
My chest tightened, adrenaline flooding my veins. I curled my hands into tight fists, driving my nails into my palms to ground the fine tremor shaking my fingers. The doors clicked shut, and I was alone with the twins.
“Right,” Torvin said, his voice devoid of its usual humour. He looked at the ladder. “Sixty floors. Let’s hope you’ve been doing your cardio.”
Karys was already prying the access panel open wider. “Head down. Mouth shut. Move.”
I took a breath of the damp, stagnant air. I reached for the iron rungs, the cold metal biting into my palms.
I fixed my eyes on the shaft above and I started to climb.
Riven
The service lift smelled of grease and the lingering, copper stench of the sewer that still clung to our clothes.
I watched the floor indicator rise. Sub-Basement to Lobby.
Beside me, Goran stood like a granite statue, his breathing slow and deep. Quiet and composed.
Dane stood near the doors, rolling his shoulders to loosen the tension. He weighed the telescoping baton in his hand, a rhythmic, unconscious motion of a man used to holding a weapon. The movement stopped the instant the lift began to slow. He went still, ready to breach.
“No hesitation,” I said, my voice low. “We aren’t here to negotiate. We are here to be the loudest thing in the building.”
“Loud,” Dane agreed, his eyes flat and hard. “I can do loud.”
The bell chimed. A cheerful, polite sound that had no business announcing what was about to happen.
The service doors slid open, revealing the atrium of Quinn Tower. It was an expanse of glass and white marble, the morning light harsh against the stone. In the centre, the kinetic sculpture turned slowly—massive silver rings slicing through the air in a silent, hypnotic cycle.
Two guards manned the front desk, their attention drifting. Near the entrance, a maintenance drone whirred, buffering the pristine floor.
We stepped out. Three men covered in muck, smelling of the Undercity, carrying steel and shadow.
One guard at the desk looked up and froze. He reached for his radio.
“Breach!” he shouted.
Dane launched forward, closing the gap before the guard could speak. He moved with disciplined precision, aiming for a clean takedown. The baton cracked against the wrist, sending the radio skittering across the tiles, followed by a sharp drive to the solar plexus that folded the man in half.
The silence shattered.
Alarms blared—a high-pitched shriek that cut through the air.
“Here they come,” Goran rumbled.
Doors along the perimeter burst open. Quinn’s private security flooded the atrium—uniformed men, human and Umbrakynn, armed with shock-batons and sidearms. They were the rank and file, the sheer mass of the first line of defence. Expendable assets.
“Shields!” I shouted.
I snapped my hand forward. Darkness erupted from my skin, solidifying into a curved barrier of heavy shadow. On my right, Goran matched the move, his magic flaring to seal our flank with a dense wall.
Dane slotted into the pocket between us, using our cover to line up his shot.
A hail of suppression fire—bullets and kinetic spells—hammered against the dark wall. The shadows absorbed the impact with dull, wet thuds.
I braced against the onslaught, widening the arc. “Clear them.”
Goran ploughed through the barrier like it was smoke. He seized the nearest guard by the tactical vest and launched him. The man crashed into the rank behind him, collapsing the line in a tangle of limbs and armour.
Dane dove low, rolling under the line of fire, popping up in the middle of a cluster of guards. He fought with a brutal, police-trained efficiency—kneecaps, elbows, throats. He didn’t have magic to protect him, but he had speed.
A guard raised a kinetic blaster, aiming at Dane’s exposed back.
I snapped my fingers. A tendril of shadow lashed out, wrapping around the guard’s ankle and yanking him off his feet before he could pull the trigger.
Dane finished his current opponent with a driving blow to the collarbone. He had avoided the head, dropping the man with precise, non-lethal force. He glanced back at me. A curt nod.
“More noise,” I shouted over the alarm. “They’re trying to contain us in the vestibule.”
I dropped the defensive shield and switched to offence.