“Chains. Silver chains. She’s kneeling, surrendering to something… someone. Heavy. Tangible. Real.”
“Stop,” Rhett snaps, fire flickering under his skin. “Just stop talking.”
But the image has already taken root. Chains. Surrender. Not the triumphant transformation Jace wants to believe in, but something else entirely.
Something that sounds disturbingly like captivity.
“Darkness,” he breathes. “But not empty darkness. Hungry darkness. And she’s…” He stops, blinking hard as the vision releases him. “She’s choosing it.”
Something cold settles in my stomach. We stand in the growing dawn light, each of us wrestling with what that might mean.
I think of the Void. Of Bree’s face when we were trapped there together, the way her expression changed when she heard somethingI couldn’t. The look in her eyes—not fear, but recognition. Like she was listening to a voice that knew her name.
She never told me what she heard in that darkness. But I remember the way she went still, the way her breathing changed—deeper, like when we were together. The way she looked like she was considering something I couldn’t see. Chains. Surrender. Choosing darkness.
Maybe Theo’s visions aren’t as symbolic as we want to believe.
“Theo.” I keep my voice level, unthreatening. “What else do you see?”
He shakes his head, pressing the heel of his hand against his forehead. “It’s fading. But there was… water? No, not water. Something that moved like water but felt cold. Dead.”
I lock eyes with Stellan. “The Void,” I say quietly.
Stellan gives the barest nod, and I know he understands.
Everyone else turns to look at me, and I realize I’ve said too much. But it’s too late to take it back now.
“You think she’s connected to the Void somehow?” Gray asks.
“I think she’s been connected to it for longer than any of us realized.” I run a hand through my hair, weighing how much to reveal. “When we were there together, she heard something. Something I couldn’t. And whatever it was, it knew her.”
“What kind of something?” Rhett demands.
“The kind that makes offers you never quite understand,” I say simply. “The kind that promises everything you’ve ever wanted in exchange for something you don’t think you’ll miss.”
The group falls into uneasy silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts. In the distance, I can still see the faint outline of Jace and Bree—or whoever she is now—disappearing into the sanctuary.
“If that’s not really her,” Wes says quietly, “then where is she?”
It’s the question none of us want to ask, because the answers that come to mind are all variations on the same theme: trapped, lost, or worse.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “But if something did take her place, then the real Bree is somewhere we can’t reach her. Somewhere we can’t help.”
“Unless we figure out what happened,” Gray says.
“Unless we figure out what happened,” I agree.
Rhett’s hands clench into fists. “So what do we do?”
“We watch,” I say. “We listen. We pay attention to every detail that doesn’t quite fit. And we hope that whoever’s wearing her face makes a mistake before it’s too late to matter.”
“And if she doesn’t make mistakes?” Wes asks.
I look back at the chamber door, still feeling that pulse of wrongness seeping through the cracks. Still tasting the electric charge in the air that speaks of power unleashed and balances shifted.
“Then we learn to live with the consequences of getting exactly what we asked for.”
Because they wanted Bree stronger. More certain. More willing to claim what she deserves.
