I run. I run off the stage, into the wings. "Fire alarm!" I scream at the stage manager. "Pull it!"
He pulls it. The sprinklers go off. Water rains down on the Opera House. Chaos. Panic. A stampede.
I blend into the crowd of fleeing musicians. I am wet again. I am running again. But I am smiling.
"Get to the roof,"Alaric commands, his voice weak but triumphant."The extraction team is inbound."
"Extraction team? Who?"
"I called in a favor,"he says."From the only people who hate the Syndicate more than I do."
I run up the back stairs. I burst onto the roof. It is raining. A black helicopter is hovering. Not a medical one. A tactical one. Unmarked.
A side door opens. A hand reaches out. I grab it. I am pulled inside.
I look at the pilot. It’s not Alaric. It’s a woman. Dr. Sterling? No. It’s the nurse. The one with the dead eyes from the asylum. The one who ignored me.
"Strap in," she says coolly. "The Director sends his regards."
I look out the window as we bank away. The Opera House is chaos. Police cars are surrounding it. Thorne is finished. But Alaric...
"Where are we going?" I ask. "Back to the Tower?"
The nurse looks at me. "The Tower is compromised," she says. "They breached the penthouse five minutes ago."
My heart stops. "Alaric is there."
"He was," she says. She points to the skyline. The Obsidian Tower. The top floor. Explosion. A massive fireball erupts from the penthouse windows, blowing glass out into the night.
"NO!" I scream, clawing at the window. "ALARIC!"
"He triggered the failsafe," the nurse says, her voice devoid of emotion. "He burned it down."
I stare at the fire in the sky. He promised.Come back to me.He lied.
I slump back in the seat. The velvet dress is ruined. The diamonds are heavy. I am the Queen of nothing. The King is dead. And the war has only just begun.
CHAPTER 24
THE WIDOW IN BLACK
POV: Elodie Fray
Location:The Extraction Helicopter -> The Iron Terminal (Undisclosed Bunker)
Track:Exit Music (For A Film)– Radiohead (Ramin Djawadi / Westworld Cover)
Sensory:The phantom throb of a needle track, the smell of burning ozone, the crushing weight of a silent earpiece.
Mood:Catatonic Grief & Cold Fury.
The fire in the sky does not fade. It burns into my retinas, a permanent scar of orange and black against the velvet night.
I am pressed against the cold glass of the helicopter window, my hand clawing at the pane as if I could reach through the polycarbonate, reach across the miles of city air, and pull him out of the inferno. But I can't. The Obsidian Tower is a torch. The penthouse—the white couch, the blood-stained floor, the man who called me his soul—is gone. Vaporized.
"Turn back," I whisper. My voice is a wreck, a jagged thing that hurts my throat. "Turn back! We have to check!"
The nurse—Nyx, Alaric called her in his files—doesn't look at me. Her hands are steady on the controls, her profile illuminated by the green glow of the instrument panel. She wears a headset, her face a mask of professional detachment. "Negative," she says, her voice flat. "The blast yield was sufficient to destabilize the structural integrity of the upper ten floors. There is no landing zone. There is no survival."
