Chapter 32
Elira
The gate clanged shut behind me. I didn’t stay to watch the men carry my competitor away.
I was breathing hard, but my body was on edge. My shadows had thickened around me like armour. I could see people whispering as they stared and pointed.
My secret was out. But at the moment, I couldn’t bring myself to care.
I just wanted Finn.
The crowd roared above, but I barely heard them. They were just noise now. Distant and meaningless.
I didn’t wait for a medic. Didn’t bother to wipe the blood from my hands. I just stood there until Felix appeared in the corridor, his expression unreadable.
“You didn’t kill him,” he said, almost like it was a question.
“I didn’t need to.”
He nodded once, then turned. “Come with me.”
We moved through the underbelly of the Pit, down narrow stone halls slick with condensation and the scent of sweat and iron. My body ached with each step. But I didn’t falter.
At the end of a long corridor, we stopped at a thick, iron door. Two guards flanked it—new ones. Ones I didn’t recognize. One of them opened the viewing slit, glanced inside, then stepped aside.
Felix looked at me. “Don’t do anything stupid,”
I didn’t answer.
The door groaned open.
The cell inside was dim, lit only by a single torch in the hallway. The walls were stone, cracked and water-stained. No bed. No comforts. Just a pile of rags in the corner.
And there—curled in on himself like he was trying to disappear—was Finn.
He looked up at the sound of the door opening, blinking against the torchlight. His eyes landed on me, and for a long, aching moment, he didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
“Mouse?” he rasped.
I stepped into the cell, heart clenching at the sight of him. Thinner. Bruised. Hollow-eyed.
But still him.
“I’m here,” I whispered, my voice catching. “I came back.”
He pushed himself upright slowly, like he didn’t quite believe I was real. Like I might vanish if he moved too fast.
“You shouldn’t have come,” he said.
“Of course I should have.” I knelt beside him, close enough to feel his shallow, trembling breath. “Don’t you know by now? I’ll always come for you.”
Tears welled in his eyes. “Oh, Elle.” He reached for me, and I wrapped my arms around him as he broke. “I was so scared. I missed you so much. I’m sorry—I was stupid, but I didn’t know how else to save you.”
I pressed my face into his shoulder, fighting the burn behind my own eyes. “It’s not your job to save me, Finn. You never should’ve risked yourself.”
“I’ve been so lonely,” he whispered, the words choked and shaking. “So godsdamned lonely without you.”
“I know,” I said, holding him tighter. “But I’m here now. We’re together.”
His hands clung to me, clawlike and desperate. “You can’t be here. He’ll come back. He talks to me—about you.”
I pulled back just enough to see his face. “Who?”
His eyes darted to the shadows. When he looked at me again, they were wide, wild.
“It’s my fault,” he said. “I should never have taken you. I thought I was protecting you, but he’s found you now. He knows you’re here. And he wants you back.”
I froze. “Finn… who’s coming?”
“I’ve seen him,” he whispered. “In my dreams. In the dark. He’s always watching. Always waiting. And now that you’re here—he’ll come.”
“Finn,” I said carefully, trying to hold him in the moment. “You’re not making sense. What happened to you here?”
“They hurt me,” he spat, voice low and raw. “Every day. Sometimes with fists. Sometimes with lies. Sometimes with magic. They make me see things that aren’t real—make me doubt what is. They break you here, Elle. For fun.”
My heart was a lead weight.
“You need to leave,” he said suddenly, clutching at me. “You have to go back to the Shades. To the Keep. He can’t reach you there. At least... not yet.”
I grabbed his face in my hands, forcing him to look at me. “Who is he, Finn?”
“The monster. The one with the red eyes.”
My stomach dropped. My heart stopped. I gasped.
Before I could press him further, the door slammed open behind me.
Two guards stepped into the cell, weapons drawn—not aimed, but firm enough to make their message clear.
“Time’s up,” one of them barked.
I didn’t move. “I’m not finished.”
They didn’t blink. “Mother said that was the deal. One visit.”
I turned back to Finn. He was trembling, still clinging to my hands like if he held on tightly enough, none of this would be real.
“Don’t leave me here,” he whispered.
“I’ll be back,” I promised. “I swear it.”
One of the guards stepped forward and grabbed my arm. I yanked it free, rising to my feet with shadow already flickering across my skin.
“Don’t touch me.”
That gave them pause. But not for long.
Felix appeared in the doorway then, more composed than the rest, but his face was tight. “Come with me, Elira.”
Reluctantly, I nodded. I pressed one last touch to Finn’s shoulder before I turned and followed him out, the cell door slamming shut behind me like a tomb.
We walked in silence—back through the twisted halls of the Pit, the sounds of the arena distant now. Muffled. Like the roar of a world I no longer heard.
Finally, in the velvet-lined hallway outside Ashford’s box, I stopped.
“I held up my end,” I said, voice low and sharp. “I gave her a fight. I bled for her. The deal was—”
Felix cut me off. “The deal changed.”
I stared at him. “She said I could trade…”
“She lied.”
The words hit harder than any blow. I stood frozen, rage boiling under my skin.
“She won’t let him go,” Felix continued. “Not unless you stay. Not unless you work for her.”
My hands clenched. “She used me.”
He didn’t argue.
“She never planned to release him, did she?”
Felix met my eyes. And in that rare, quiet honesty of his, I saw it.
“No,” he said softly. “She didn’t.”