“Maybe we need to take it to the Eternal Tomb—like the other?” Her eyes met mine, urgent.
I shook my head. “We don’t have time. We need to go.”
Her head tilted, lips parting to argue—but her eyes did all the speaking, sharp with that silent challenge.
“We may not get another chance,” her voice pressed into my thoughts. “We didn’t come this far just to stop here—”
“We’ve come farther than anyone in twenty-one years,” I cut in, my mental voice clipped and final. “We take both tomes back to the Hollow. We report, then decide what’s next.”
Scarlet nodded and slipped the tome into her pack as Rhodes carefully replaced the loose stone. Hoods went up; shadows swallowed our faces. Davis peeked through the crack in the door, then signaled with a sharp nod—the coast was clear.
We filed out of Hogboom’s office. I paused last, locking it behind me with another rune. The quiet click sounded too loud.
Without wasting another second, we slipped back into the passage. Rhodes took the lead briefly, explaining in a low voice where the abandoned terrace was. Davis nodded and took point, navigating the tunnels with practiced ease. We emerged into a narrow hallway. As we neared the closest exit for our escape, the corridor opened into a four-way intersection.
We had almost completed the mission unseen when a voice split the air.
“Stop!” a guard bellowed down the hall.
Without hesitation, we surged forward, scattering like shadows across the moonlit corridor. We ducked around turrets, darted past old armor stands and forgotten relics, lungs burning as we tore through the neglected wing.
At the terrace, I spun and slammed the heavy door, thrusting my hand toward the frame. I channeled energy into the earth; hardened vines snaked up and over, twisting into a barricade.
“Go—now!” Nash barked, pointing to the ledge.
The new girls climbed first, scaling the enchanted vine ladder. Davis next, then Nash. That left Scarlet, Rhodes, and me.
Behind us, the door exploded.
The barricade shattered in a blast of splinters and dust. A guard stormed through the wreckage, wide-shouldered and furious, chest heaving. His dark blue eyes locked onto Scarlet—and something shifted.
He froze. So did she.
Scarlet stared back, jaw tight, every muscle coiled like a bowstring. The air between them crackled—sharp and silent, an argument without words, a history unspoken but undeniable.
Then I felt it—her emotions bleeding into themarekem.
A surge hit me like a wave: shock, anger, guilt. And beneath it, something softer she was trying—and failing—to bury. Her mental gates were up, but not holding. The guard wasn’t just a stranger. He meant something to her. Or he had.
“Scarlet,” I warned under my breath, but she didn’t move.
The guard took a single step forward, and her conflicted feelings snapped into something undeniable.
Pure. Hatred.
Chapter 29
Him.
I stared into those unforgiving ocean-blue eyes that had drowned me more times than I could count. Eyes that pushed me into bottomless depths every time I clawed my way to the surface.
You’re a pathetic excuse for life. I washed my hands of you the day I walked out that door, and I haven’t thought about you since.
The memory hit like a blade to my chest. My breath turned ragged, fire clawing through my lungs. Sparks leapt from my fingertips. Around me, the world slowed.
Rhodes stood beside me. Fallon positioned herself between me and the man I once called my father.
The man who abandoned me. An innocent child.
