“Doing the best I can,” Amelia said, tires screeching again as she veered into the right lane.
I peered out the windows. Up ahead lay the familiar towers of the Spires. My mind still raced with everything I’d just learned. Spinning, spinning, spinning. The information slammed into me, peak overload, as I’d been wandering in the dark for so long, blinded and reaching out for answers.
Yet all the clues had been there. The mournful look in Cillian’s eyes last night settled deep in my chest, moments which felt like a lifetime ago.
Because he knew once I walked away, he truly would never see me again.
I was the only one who hadn’t been aware.
Acid rose in my throat, even though there was nothing left to vomit up, and my heart thumped so hard I swore it would revolt out of my chest. I balled my hands into fists, my nails biting into my palms. Fuck.
I’d told him I’d come back to him. Cillian…fuck, he needed to be alive. I couldn’t imagine a world without him, where I wasn’t safely tucked in his arms. Where we weren’t verbally sparring or spending time walking through gardens or reading together in our spare moments. Where I wasn’t in his bed every single night.
My insides ached with a deep sorrow, something as vast and consuming as staring at a starry sky and knowing it’d be the last one you’d ever see.
Our night together had been Cillian’s final one, and he’d spent it with me.
A desperate tremor rolled through me again, anguish keener than the edge of a knife. I sucked in a shallow breath, trying to restrain the scream, the sob, that grew inside me with every ensuing realization.
We couldn’t get there fast enough.
Because I was worried wewouldn’tget there fast enough.
“Almost,” Theo murmured at my side, his gaze locked front and forward on the road. The car brewed with tension, the truth out in the open at last.
And yet all of us were clearly worried, because if we didn’t make it in time…Cillian’s life was on the line.
My heart was lodged in my throat. All I wanted was to see his face. To tell him the truth that had brewed in me for a while now, waiting to be set free.
That I loved him. Truly loved him in a way I’d never before experienced with another soul.
Cillian Ashmore made me believe in fate.
That somehow, no matter what happened, our paths would’ve aligned. That we would’ve found each other, fumbling through the dark until we discovered light.
Except now that I’d found him, I couldn’t fathom losing him.
The world would be a terrible place without The Beast of the Spires.
“Any other secrets you’ve been keeping from me?” I asked, needing to distract myself somehow. Otherwise I’d break.
“We’ve all got our personal skeletons in the closet,” Amelia said. “But I’m not giving away any of those unless you get me drunk.”
“Which is impossible,” Theo warned. “I’ve seen her drink for an entire night and walk out unaffected.”
“Witch’s tolerance,” she said, a sharp edge to her words, even as she joked.
We walked on this razor’s edge together, and that alone kept me from falling apart.
Amelia made a sharp right, sending both Theo and me tilting to the side. I chewed on the inside of my cheek hard enough I tasted blood, but I kept my focus front and forward too. The Spires was so close. So fucking close. My whole body hummed with readiness, even though I was still shaky and barely functional.
It didn’t matter. I’d run the whole staircase up the Spires if I had to, if it meant getting to Cillian in time.
Amelia slowed down and slipped into a side alley. A second later, she drove us into a small garage, the darkness closing around us.
“Private entrance to the Spires,” she clarified, clearly for my sake.
“Out, now,” Theo said, but I didn’t need the prompting. Before Amelia had even shut off the engine, I pushed the car door open and hopped out. My feet hit the ground, my legs shaky, but I strode forward regardless. A dim light on the other side of the garage signaled an elevator, my guess to the main floor.
