Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
KAY
When I open my eyes, I’m back in the hotel.
The light filtering through the curtains is soft and gray, the kind that comes after a storm. My body feels heavy, limbs sunk into the mattress. The sheets smell faintly of detergent and cat hair. George is curled against my knees, purring in that deep, broken-engine way that means he’s content.
For a few slow heartbeats, everything is normal. The hum of the mini fridge. The uneven whir of the ceiling fan. I can almost convince myself none of it happened—the fire, the mark, the man with ember eyes.
“Kay.”
The voice barely cuts through the quiet. I flinch, then laugh under my breath. “You scared me,” I say automatically, expecting George to answer with his usual offended chirp. But it isn’t him.
The man from the elevator stands in the doorway, half in shadow, sleeves rolled to the elbow.
He looks the same—same tired eyes, same quiet intensity—but his reflection in the mirror behind him isn’t moving.
How’d he get out? What happened to the other men?
How did I make it back here? I must have been more tired than I thought.
Wasn’t there a problem with the elevator?
“I thought you—” My throat tightens. “Are you okay?”
He doesn’t answer right away. His gaze sweeps the room, wary, like something might break through the walls at any second. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“What?” I say, half laughing, half confused. “This is my room.”
He shakes his head slowly. “No, Kay. You did not make it back.”
My pulse stutters. The air thickens, smells wrong—iron and ozone.
“That’s not funny.”
George lets out a sharp yowl. I look down, and the sheets beneath him are smoking.
Wisps curl between my fingers when I reach for him, but my hand passes through his fur like static.
The room ripples. The hum of the fridge deepens into a growl.
The curtains glow red, as if the sunrise outside caught fire. Every breath tastes metallic.
“Wake up,” the man says again, voice splitting into two. Another tone bleeds through it, lower, familiar. The leather-clad man from the Wastelands? What are Wastelands? Caziel?
“Kay. Wake up.”
The shadows lunge. The air conditioner groans, bursting into sparks, and the floor drops out from under me—
—and I’m sitting bolt upright, gasping. The world around me blazes gold and crimson. The chamber walls pulse like veins of magma. The air is hot enough to sting. For a second, I still expect to smell detergent and dust. Instead: iron, smoke, the whisper of fire. My heart hammers against my ribs.
I’m not home.
I never was.
The world steadies, but the noise doesn’t stop. It lingers in my ears, faint, mechanical, like the buzz of an elevator motor slowing to a halt. For a moment, I swear I still hear his voice over the hum, the one that pulled me back from the fire.
Next time, don’t wait.
The words vanish like smoke when I blink, but the ache they leave behind doesn’t.
I don’t know how long I lie there, staring at nothing, listening to the silence breathe around me.
There’s only so many times I can study the runes around the door—they look straight out of Tolkien or Norse mythology—or study the food in the corner—a sort of charcuterie board with absolutely nothing recognizable—or try to see what I recognize out of the open windows—they may not be barred, but they don’t like me lean out, and I see nothing beyond the haze of red glowing at me from outside.
When the knock comes, I flinch. It’s soft.
Three gentle taps. Too polite to be a warning.
Too steady to be an accident. I sit up so fast my head swoops with the effort, black dots crashing through my vision.
“Yep,” I call out.
The door swings open and there is a woman standing there.
Shorter than me by a few inches, hair and skin both an almost pearlescent ivory.
Her hair tied back in a wrap matches the soft white and gray of her linen shift.
Gray on gray on gray. She doesn’t have the impossible glow of the others I’ve seen.
No shimmering aura. No sharpness to her cheekbones like they were chiseled from divine geometry.
She looks normal. Human except Mr. Ember Heir said humans were rare.
She is not Daemari. And she looks genuinely concerned.
“Oh, good,” she says, letting out a relieved little breath. “You’re not dead.” I blink. “You were just lying there,” she adds, stepping in with a bundle of folded fabric in her arms. “Not blinking. Barely breathing. Gave me the creeps.”
“Uh yeah,” I manage. “Sorry about that. I was… thinking?”
“Sure,” she says, dropping the bundle on the foot of the bed. “Just thinking. In total silence. For forty minutes. Like a lump of cursed bread.”
Despite myself, I huff a laugh.
“I’m Sarai,” she says. “You don’t have to remember it if you’re still in shock, I can remind you next time.”
“I’m Kay” I sit up straighter. “I thought names were sacred and private or something?”
She nods. “For some, yes, but I do not spark, and you have no mark so it’s harmless enough.”
I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be flattered or offended.
“Don’t worry.” She leans in like she is imparting state secrets. “I’m sure you’re fearsome, especially with your obsidian blade, but like I said, no magic so I’m not concerned.”
She glances around the room, then back at me. My gaze darts to the pillow hiding my impromptu knife. Was she spying on me? Did I assume no one was? Do I even care? Have at it, hallucination. Watch me pick my nose and disassociate.
“I thought you’d want something fresh to wear. And real food. Not whatever they sent up.” Her eyes search mine. “Unless you’d rather keep lying there, waiting for someone more terrifying to knock or you want to choke yourself on dry biscuits.”
I shake my head. “No. Thank you. Food would be...” A trap? “Appreciated?”
She smiles like she knows that’s a lie and still forgives me for it. Sarai sets the folded clothes on a low bench near the basin and starts unpacking a tray of food from the narrow cart I didn’t hear arrive.
“Nothing fancy,” she says, lifting the cover off a bowl of something warm and spiced. “But it’ll help. You’ll want to be at your best for the assessment.”
I shift forward on the bed, arms still folded around my knees. “You always this chipper when delivering meals to doomed strangers?”
“Only the pretty ones,” she says.
I snort. It surprises both of us. She glances over her shoulder and flashes a grin before turning back to the tray.
There’s bread—soft, round, dusted with something floral—and a few slices of fruit in pink and gold tones.
One of them looks suspiciously like a peach, but a peach that’s been glamorized for stage lighting.
There’s also a bowl of something dark and rich that makes my mouth water.
“You should eat,” Sarai says, gentler now. “Your blood still smells like dust and nerves. I promise it’s just food. No magic entrapment here.”
My eyes slingshot to hers. “Wow. Romantic.”
“Truthful.” She smiles.
I eye the bowl as she pours a bit of amber liquid into a glass and sets it beside me.
“What is it?” I ask.
“The stew or the drink?”
“Let’s start with the part that looks like it has bones in it.”
“It’s not bones. It’s a root. Supposed to calm you down, settle your nerves.” She pauses. “Unless your kind’s allergic to gorse root. Are you?”
I blink. “I have no idea.”
“Then we’ll find out.”
Not quite the ringing endorsement I would have liked.
She sits on the edge of the other bench, facing me with the kind of casual familiarity I didn’t realize I missed until just now.
“You’re not like them,” I say after a minute. “The others.”
Her eyebrows rise slightly. “Which others?”
“The glowing, perfect ones. The ones who look like they could set someone on fire just by sighing too hard. Like—” Caziel. I don’t say his name. Should I use Ember Heir instead? Do I not mention him?
Her smile fades just a little. “Ah. You mean the Daemari.”
“So they’re not all like that?”
“Oh no,” she says with mock solemnity. “Some of them are worse.”
I laugh again. Not hard. But real. She watches me for a beat. Her eyes narrow—not suspicious, just… focused. And then she tilts her head.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing,” she says too quickly, “You just remind me of someone.”
“Someone Daemari?”
Her mouth tightens for a heartbeat. “No. Not quite.”
She looks down and fiddles with the edge of her wrap.
“She died,” Sarai adds softly, like the words taste bitter even now. “A long time ago.”
“Oh,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
“She was brave.” A pause. “Too brave.”
Silence settles like a shawl between us.
“Do you want help washing up?” she asks after a moment, too practical to wallow.
I shake my head. “I’ve got it. But thank you.”
Sarai stands. “I’ll be just down the hall. Knock if the room decides to eat you.”
“Wait. What?”
“I’m kidding. If you need help, I’ll know, but you can also think about me really loudly.” She reaches the door. Hesitates. “For what it’s worth, bravery isn’t a bad thing, as long as you know your limits.” she says without turning around.
The room feels bigger after she leaves. Colder, too.
I stare at the door for a long second after it shuts.
Part of me wants to call her back—ask her more questions, anything really—but I don’t.
I still don’t know what questions are safe to ask here.
I eat. Slowly. One bite at a time, testing everything like it might bite back.
The bread’s a little sweet, the stew tastes like ginger and something earthy, and the drink is warm enough to sting going down.
Not bad. But not comforting either. Just different enough to not let me forget that this isn’t home.