Chapter 34
Reva
We pass through the hallway of cells quickly, not wanting to linger on the ominous stains inside the laboratory, or the misery that still lingers over this place. Once we reach the doorway at the end, Aster directs me forward.
“It looks like he isn’t too far away,” he says, and my stomach flips over itself.
We step through the next door, into chaos.
Despite our still being inside, well below ground level, a gust of wind hits me in the face. Thousands of pieces of paper flit about the room in a frenzy, caught up by the impossible wind.
I squint my eyes and can just make out that we’re inside some kind of office, laid out with desks and bookcases lining the brown walls. Hundreds of books are sitting open with their pages torn out.
And the noise, the noise. It’s like all the torn books have voices, and they’re all screaming.
If I didn’t already know there was a curse on this place, this would confirm it.
But where’s Kit?
“Should we keep going?” I ask Aster, who nods his head, pulling me close against his side and venturing forward.
The pages batter us from every angle, slapping my arms, my torso and legs.
They slice every patch of bare skin they can find until my hands are bleeding, dripping onto the floor.
Aster keeps my head tucked against his chest, so I avoid the worst of it as we run as quickly as we can until we reach the doorway at the other side of the room.
Thankfully, this door opens easily, and we step into blessed silence.
Aster pulls back, peering down at me and checking every inch of me for injury, even though his face is bleeding a lot.
There’s a nasty slice right beside his eye that could have been a lot worse if it had been only millimetres to the right.
Aster grips my hand as I grab a handkerchief from my pocket and dab at his poor, bleeding face.
“I’m all right. They’re just scratches.”
“I hate this place,” I spit the words, lifting my head to see what fresh nightmare we’ve stepped into.
But this room is... empty.
The walls are dark brown, and the floor seems to be some kind of dark tile, but there’s nothing in here. No furniture. No hint of anyone having been here in years.
It takes me a moment to see the other thing that’s missing.
“There’s no door.”
Twisting around, I look for the door we just came through. Heading back to the screaming book room would be better than getting stuck in here; the room of poor interior design choices.
But that door has disappeared too.
I turn back to Aster, more frustrated than afraid. “Is it another glamour, do you think? If I feel around the walls, do you think I’ll be able to find the—” I cut off, eyes locked on something on the floor just over Aster’s shoulder.
There is something else in this room, after all.
No. Not something. Someone.
“Kit?”
I scramble toward the body on the ground that surely wasn’t there a moment ago. Dropping to my knees hard enough to send a jarring jolt of pain through me, I reach out to touch him. His eyes are closed, his hair a tangled mess covering his forehead. But it’s most definitely him.
“Kit?”
I touch his pale cheek and find it ice cold. His hands and arms are too. My heart rises into my throat as I flap around, desperately feeling for the pulse in his neck, his wrist, anywhere.
“No, no, no, no.” I’d have felt it, wouldn’t I? I would know if something had happened to him.
I spin on my knees, searching for Aster. “It’s a glamour, right? Tell me it’s a glamour.”
But Aster isn’t beside me. He’s across the room.
Lying on the ground.
Cold dread fills my veins and I choke on nothing. Crawling over to him on my hands and knees, I shake him, but he’s floppy and unresponsive. Turning my head, I find another body.
Torin. His blond hair has come loose from its usual knot and is spilling all over his forehead. Beside him, lies Jack and... Captain Finch.
I squeeze my eyes shut. What the fuck is going on here? None of this makes sense. Taking a deep breath and ignoring the bile rising in my throat and the tightness in my chest, I focus on the bonds with Kit and Aster.
They’re faint, but still present.
I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t feel like that if they were both dead.
I stare down at Torin’s face and run my hands over his arms. They feel real enough.
Then something warm touches my shoulder, and I flinch away from it. But when I spin around, I realise it’s Aster, trying to get my attention.
Trying to talk to me.
My heart is pounding, and I’m sucking in great, gasping breaths that are making my vision go dark and blurry at the edges.
Aster. Alive.
I jump to my feet, throwing my arms around him. He hugs me back just as tight, burying his face in my hair.
“You’re all right. We’re all right. It’s just another glamour.” He presses kisses across my forehead, my cheeks, before landing on my chin.
I squeeze my eyes shut, not wanting to look up and see more corpses. “How are we going to find our way out of here?”
“I can try to break the magic again. There’s a lot going on, though, so it might be harder.”
“Please,” I beg, keeping my face pressed up against his chest. “If you think you can.”
He squeezes my hand tight, blowing out a breath that ruffles my hair. “All right then, let’s try this. Repeat after me.”
I follow his instructions faithfully through a bone-dry throat. But nothing happens. Aster glances around, frowning and we try again.
Still nothing.
He lets out a frustrated huff before gripping one hand tightly to mine and spelling out the same unfamiliar words over and over.
I don’t know if I’m saying them quite right, but I do my best. It’s the strangest sensation after I’ve repeated the same word nine times.
Heat flows through my hand, right the way from the tips of my fingers, through my wrist and up to my elbow where it starts to burn.
There, it sears my flesh, like a red-hot poker being stabbed right through my arm.
A piercing pain goes through my chest, and I suck in a shallow breath as I pull away from Aster.
“What’s happening?”
My ears are ringing, and I can’t seem to catch my breath as I drop to my bruised knees. The pain in my arm feels like it’s spreading rather than getting better. It’s now an all-encompassing ache that’s spreading right the way over the top of my body.
There’s a pop, and ears stop ringing.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please, Reva, just look at me and tell me you’re all right.” The voice is low and hoarse, but definitely male.
And definitely not a voice I recognise.
Someone is patting my arms again. “Please, sunshine, tell me you’re okay.”
My head feels impossibly heavy as I lift it, blinking my eyes open even though I don’t remember closing them.
“What’s happening?” I ask again.
“I broke it. I broke the glamour, but it seems like I broke all the magic in the room. I broke everything.” The last word comes out choked, and my gut twists as I stare up into Aster’s face.
“You can speak?”
“I broke the gag,” he says. “And the glamour.”
The room has shifted around us again. All the dead bodies have thankfully disappeared, and two doorways have reappeared, one at either end. I blink, feeling weirdly disorientated, despite not having moved anywhere. My insides are aching like someone just plucked my heart out of my chest.
Aster’s holding the magic-revealing spectacles in his shaking hand with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
I don’t know how I notice, but my eyes zero in on the spot on his forearm just beyond the crease of his elbow.
The spot where our mate mark used to be etched into his skin.
Now bare.
My voice catches in my throat as I stare down at it. “Did you break our mate bond too?”