Page 7

AMALIA

Weightlessness should be beautiful, not a void dissolving me and spitting me back out.

My senses go dead in sequence, hearing, touch, sight, and last of all, the awful smell clinging to my hands from the demon’s quicksilver blood. Then my pulse slips away, and nothing exists except the memory of gasping for air as I’m yanked through the cold.

The landing sucks.

A floor slams into my back, and the rest of me follows. I ricochet off polished marble, shoulder first, ribs a second later. The shock resets every nerve ending. My bat slips from my grip and whirls out of reach. The rune knife carves a line through my thigh, red blood splattering everywhere, before it spins away, too.

A form leans over me, and I drive my elbow up to meet a perfect chin. Spinning in my blood, I bring my knee up to crack into a slender hip.

“Amalia, stop!” Caelan shouts, as if he thinks I don’t realize who dragged me back into this nightmare realm.

He grapples with me, pinning an arm across my chest, and sends me back to the floor.

I buck beneath his body, clawing at him. “Fuck off!”

His sweet berry scent floods my senses, heating my body as he bears down, his face inches from mine. Silver braids tickle my cheeks, the crystals in them catching the light, and purple blood beads on his lip from where he bit it in the fall.

His left hand closes around my wrist. “It’s okay, it’s me.”

I freeze, going slack with feigned relief. “Caelan?”

“That’s right.” Smiling, he lets go.

I punch the fucker, my knuckles snapping hard into his cheek, but he absorbs the force without giving ground.

And his smile doesn’t dim, the asshole. “I missed you, too, Amalia Wolf.”

What is with the fae always using my full name? As if they have a right to more of me than other people.

I try to knee him, but he’s ready this time, his muscular thigh pinning mine. I writhe underneath, trying to find leverage, and he laughs as if we’re playing some kind of game. It stokes equal parts hatred and desire.

“Let me go, or I’ll blow this whole spire up,” I hiss, wriggling my hand free.

“That’s not how your magic works.” He stretches up on one elbow, the other braced on my bicep. “We’ve been watching for a while now, and you need metal to make your explosions work.”

“Oh, you think you’re clever, peeping Toms?” I hiss, bristling at the revelation that they’ve been spying on me through their mirrors.

His head cocks to the side in confusion. “My name is not Tom. It’s Caelan. Prince Caelan Myr’Shade⁠—”

I rear up and slam my forehead into his perfect face.

More purple blood flows, and he rears back in shock, loosening his hold.

I shove him backward onto his ass, find the cuff of my glove, and rip it off. The tattoo underneath burns with a purple shimmer that matches the warm liquid dripping from his nose, the ancient rune work written in fae script.

My fail-safe.

My blood heats, the runes fusing with my magic as I scramble across the floor and slam my palm onto the mirrored surface showing the Harbor from the other side. The silver surface ripples, the portal opening as it responds to the royal fae blood embedded in my skin.

The sound of piano music and the clink of glasses drift out, neutral ground calling me back to freedom.

But before I can scramble through, Caelan tackles me from behind, and the marble rushes up to kiss my chin, snapping my teeth together as he lands on top of me.

“Just listen to me for two minutes, woman!”

I taste blood from the inside of my cheek. “Kidnappers don’t get two minutes!”