Chapter 29 Cece
Cece
Ijolt upright in bed, gasping like I’ve just clawed my way out of deep water.
My skin’s buzzing. No, vibrating. As if it’s still caught between places, like part of me didn’t come back when the rest of me did.
The bedroom is dark, but not still. Every shadow pulses faintly at the edges.
The walls breathe. The ceiling listens. I don’t know how I know that, but I do.
My heart’s racing, but I’m not panicked.
I’m aware.
It’s like something ancient just brushed my mind and then vanished, leaving fingerprints behind. There was a voice. No, voices. Voices whispering from the other side of something vast and cold. I couldn’t understand the words, but the feeling? That I’ll never forget it.
They felt like . . . home. Not this place. Not the city. Not even the version of the world I knew before Luc pulled me out of the path of that train and into his strange, crumbling world of warping and war zones.
Somewhere else.
I look down at my hands. The bones beneath my skin glow faintly, like they’re still lit with power. Something inside me is awake. Something that wasn’t mine before tonight.
I swing my legs off the bed and stand, but I don’t wobble. My balance is perfect. I can hear everything. Sirens four blocks over. Static buzzing from the neighbor’s dead outlet. Luc’s voice.
Wait. Luc.
His name echoes like a second heartbeat. I press a palm over my chest. He was there. At the edge. Pulling me back. That wasn’t a dream. That was real. I saw what was waiting for me. And I nearly stepped into it.
I make my way over to the building where he is and find him still on the rooftop. The same one I felt the breach tear through. Luc doesn’t flinch when I step up behind him, though I know he hears me and sees me in the corner of his vision. He’s always watching.
I say nothing at first. Neither does he.
The power still clings to everything. The metal. The concrete. His skin. I can feel it pulsing under the soles of my feet, like a rhythm that’s ancient and intimate. Something that’s always been there, waiting for me to notice. Even the air carries faint waves of its afterglow.
“You used me,” I say, my voice even.
Luc turns slowly. His expression’s unreadable, but his eyes flinch. “I used your energy signature,” he says carefully. “That’s not the same thing.”
“Yes, it is,” I say. “You knew something was coming tonight, and you baited it with me without letting me in on that part. I thought we were partners in this!”
He hesitates but doesn’t deny it. “You were in danger either way,” he says. “This way, we had a chance to control the variables without the complications of knowing exactly when the strike would occur.”
My jaw clenches. “And what if I hadn’t come back? What if they pulled me all the way through?”
“I wouldn’t have let that happen.”
“It nearly did! And you weren’t there,” I snap, my voice splintering as my fingers curl into fists at my sides.
“Not like me. You don’t know what it felt like, what they sounded like.
” Something presses in my chest again, remembering the feeling of it all.
“They didn’t pull,” I say, taking a shaky step.
“They called. Like they knew me. Like I belonged there, with them. What the hell was that?” I spit the words out, my breath shaky.
Luc moves closer, his voice gentler now, though it doesn’t bend. “You don’t,” he says. “You belong here.”
I shake my head and wrap my arms around myself, unsure if I’m protecting my heart or just trying to hold back the chill in the night air.
“You brought me back here, Luc. From a subway track I was supposed to die on. From the warping to Pomerium, I was never meant to survive. And now I’m waking up in the middle of the night glowing, hearing things before they happen, knowing things I shouldn’t know.
This is not normal. I’m not normal. But I’m not one of you either.
You have no idea how isolating that feels. ”
He looks pained, like he wants to say something, but he stops himself.
“So what am I?” I demand.
Luc exhales, then steps closer, close enough that I feel the energy stirring beneath his skin. His hand hovers near mine, but not touching. “You’re something new,” he says. “And I think that terrifies them.”
“The Surgers?”
He nods. “I told you. They ruled as guardians of realm passage before my kind. They shaped reality through order. By doctrine and enforcement. They were purged of their privilege for defying the gods and trying to seize more power than allowed. Some were exterminated as punishment, but they weren’t all destroyed. ”
“And now they’re watching me.”
“They think you’re the key to rebuilding what they lost,” Luc says. “Or worse, something they simply want to control.”
I look past him to the city lights, pulsing like a thousand tiny stars.
“They’re not going to stop, are they?” I whisper.
“No,” he says. “They’re going to come harder. Sharper. Next time, it won’t be a call.”
My skin tingles, my awareness pushing far past its limits. I can feel the fault in the skyline, the place where the breach nearly broke through. I can feel them.
And it feels like they’re regrouping.