If I can reach my friends, I can shadow us away.
But I can’t find them. I can barely see over the swarm of frightened fae. I need to get to the dais—to a higher vantage point.
Suddenly, the ground begins to shake.
And the chandeliers begin to fall.
One after another, the ruby fixtures clatter to the floor, their magic tethers snapped. A new wave of screams breaks out as the massive chandeliers crush the beautiful fae beneath their weight.
I can’t watch. I have to do something.
I reach for my dagger while summoning my magic, but something hard clamps down around my wrist, and I feel my magic sputter out and die. My knees buckle, but before I collapse onto the floor and am trampled, a set of arms breaks my fall.
I don’t see who they belong to before I fade into darkness.
* Cue:Devil Like Meby Rainbow Kitten Surprise
42
Vertigo.
My dad told me that when my mom was pregnant with Sam, she was laid up for months in bed with vertigo. Everything bothered her. Light and sounds, no matter how small. Even strong smells. For the entire third trimester, she sat in bed with no light, no TV, no sound. I wasn’t allowed in her room for weeks on end, and as a little girl, I didn’t understand why she wouldn’t see me.
I wake in blackness with an intense headache, dizzy to the point of nausea.
Vertigo.
I blink into a dark, drafty space, seeing nothing. My hands are met with the resistance of a cold metal chain as I try to lift them. A knot forms in my stomach when I yank again and realize I’m chained to the floor.
My entire body feels heavy and lethargic, like I’ve been drugged. I feel around in the black, over the coarse, cold ground beneath me.
What happened?
The last thing I remember was dancing with Kylian, and then the hall erupted into screams and chaos and…
Those beasts—the Stryga—were there.
Oh my god.
Jace and Zadyn. Kai and Mar. Dover, Sorscha, Cece, the king, Igrid…My head spins. All of my friends. They could be dead.
And I’m…I have no idea where I am.
“Serena?” a voice whispers in the darkness.
“Who’s there?” I croak. My throat is raw, as if I’d swallowed sandpaper.
A tiny flickering candle appears before me, illuminating half a face. I blink.
“Kai?” My voice cracks as I choke out his name.
“Thank gods. Hang on. I’m getting you out of here,” he says in a hushed voice over the jangle of metal.
“Where—” I reach my bound hands out toward him, and they are met with metal bars.
Am I in a cell? A dungeon?
“Where are we? What happened?”
