Tobias
The chains around my wrists bit into my skin. It wouldn’t be long before my wounds reopened. They never seemed to fully heal, especially when Aviel left me unconscious and hanging from them.
My legs had fallen asleep from the awkward way they were folded beneath me, my neck and shoulders screaming at the way my chains held me upright. But there was something different. Something was missing, even if something gnawed in my brain that there was more to it.
Quinn. If she was in my dream, I didn’t want to wake.
Her voice washed over me, soothing despite the edge in it.
I was thankful it wasn’t real—that she wasn’t seeing me like this.
Maybe Aviel had finally gone too far, and I had finally lost my mind.
Maybe her voice was the last thing I would hear before I left this earth.
She sounded terrified. If she needed me…
You’ll fail as you’ve done so often, and then you’ll lose her forever.
I couldn’t breathe around the tightness in my chest. My eyelids refused to cooperate, like they had been weighed down, even as my soul strained to go to her.
She needed me.
“Tobias…”
Quinn. My anima.
Not a dream. A minute ago, we had fallen through the floor. She should still be in my arms—
My eyes flew open.
The laboratory was familiar. Silver countertops. No windows, or any way to tell where in the realm we were.
And a cage.
Except this time, I was looking at it through the bars. And Quinn was stuck in here with me.
“You’re awake.” Her voice shook, her eyes glimmering with tears. “I thought…I can’t heal you here. I couldn’t even tell if you were breathing…”
Chains held her in place. I lunged for her on instinct. My body snapped back, my shoulders screaming in pain. I hissed as my shackles cut into my wrists. Quinn flinched, her hands tightening into fists where they were fastened above her.
I reached for my magic on instinct—and slammed into a wall. The sudden loss tore through me like an old wound ripped raw.
“Tobias?”
“I’m okay.” I wasn’t, but my voice was miraculously steady as I asked, “Are you hurt?”
Fear threatened to drag me under all over again, cold and familiar. But I forced a steady breath. I refused to fall apart—not when she needed me.
With a panic I was thankful she couldn’t feel, I examined her head to toe, trying to catalogue her injuries. Thankfully, I found none. But the sight of her chained?
I was going to skin Silvius alive.
Quinn shook her head. “I’d be better without these shackles, but I’m fine otherwise.”
My brain felt fuzzy, likely from the aftereffects of the gas. There was something I felt like I was forgetting…something important. Worst of all, I couldn’t feel her. Whatever it was about this room that blocked our magic also blocked our bond.
“I’m going to kill him slowly,” I snarled.
I thought I saw a hint of red tinge those amber eyes as Quinn met my gaze, before violence narrowed them into slits.
“Good.”
She nodded at the dark, flat mirror. Not even a reflection shone back at us. “The others might be looking for us, but they won’t be able to get through. So we’re going to need to find another way out, unless we manage to reopen the gate.”
“Simple enough,” I said wryly and was rewarded with the slightest of smiles. “Do you have any give in your chains?”
Quinn shook her head. “I can’t reach the bars from here, and I’m guessing you can’t either.”
Gingerly, I lifted my hands, inspecting the iron encircling my wrists. I turned around, wrapped my hands around the chains, and tried to tear that iron bolt from the wall.
It wasn’t long before I was forced to admit defeat. I knew these manacles all too well. If four years of trying hadn’t made them yield to me, I doubted I was about to find a way now.
I pressed my forehead into the stone, forcing air into my lungs in a careful four count.
Quinn’s chains rattled behind me. “Tobias, are you okay? What do you need?”
Everything I had done in that cell, and everything I had done since, had been to keep her safe from exactly this. And despite all of it, she was stuck here with me.
“I need you to survive this.”
A short laugh. “Right back at you.”
I pulled against my chains, knowing I couldn’t reach her, but trying all the same. “I need you, Quinn. It’s selfish—”
“It’s not.”
Her chains stretched taut behind her as she leaned toward me too.
“We could have been together for months,” I said, angry at myself for that wasted time. “If I hadn’t fought this…we could’ve had more time. And now…”
I didn’t need to feel her emotions to see the determination in every line of her body.
“Don’t you dare give up on me, Maris,” she demanded. “We’ll get that time. You and me? We’ll have forever.”
No matter what, I wouldn’t let her die down here. Whatever it took.
“I’ll never give up on you, sweetheart.” I managed to smile, even as my vision swam. “It’s a date.”
I leaned against the wall, feeling queasy. A concussion from our fall, maybe, considering Quinn didn’t seem to have any lasting effects from the gas. Using the wall to brace myself, I slid down against it until I sat on the floor, my arms suspended uncomfortably above me.
Telling Quinn would only make her worry, especially when she had no magic to fix it. But those amber eyes seemed to stare right through me, as they always did.
“Tobias?”
My mouth snapped shut as a door appeared in the solid wall across from us. A shiver I couldn’t help skittered down my spine as three fae walked into the lab—though my eyes immediately fixed on the one in the center.
Silvius.