August’s heart pounded so hard it hurt, radiating a sharp, jarring pain through his chest. But he obeyed. As soon as he was upright, Benjamin grabbed his shoulder, spun him around, and shoved him forward.
Where were they going?
The wood groaned loudly as August stepped cautiously onto the first step, and he pleaded silently for Felix to hear it. To wake up.
Lottie appeared in front of him, walking backward up the stairs. “Open the veil, Auggie! Run!”
Fear twisted in his stomach. She sounded terrified. This was bad.
August focused, letting the prickling build in his fingertips. Hecouldescape. His magic was there.
“I didn’t have a choice,” Benjamin said as they reached the top. “I had to tell them. They’d kill us all for hiding you.”
Tell who? The Watch? Ashcroft?
Benjamin stopped, his hand still gripping August’s shoulder. “They’ll be here soon. Sit tight.”
Here? They were cominghere?
Did Benjamin know that they were after Felix and Marlow, too? If they came here, it wouldn’t just be August they dragged away.
He should run—slip through the veil and leave the others to deal with the consequences.
He tore open the veil in one sharp movement, but instead of escaping through it, he dug his fingers into Benjamin’s wrist and dragged him with into the Hollow Dark.
When he let go, Benjamin did, too. The man turned to flee, but the impact of his body against the solid doorway sent him staggering back a step. He tried again, first with his fists, then his entire body, throwing his weight against the opening.
But Benjamin couldn’t leave unless Augustlethim leave.
He was the one in control here. This washisrealm.
The man spun around, panicked and shouting, and when the words fell silently from his mouth, swallowed by the oppressive silence, it only made him spiral more.
Gideon had called August dangerous. Maybe Benjamin should’ve listened.
The man’s expression hardened to anger, and he lurched forward, driving his dagger up beneath August’s ribs.
August gasped, wide eyes dropping to the hilt jutting out from his abdomen. Panic seized him all at once, and he stood frozen, waiting.
For pain. For blood. For death.
Nothing happened.
He gripped the hilt and held his breath as he tore the blade free. It left a gaping hole in his shirt. But there was no blood. No pain. The skin around the gash blackened like rotting fruit, then, somewhere between one breath and the next, the wound was gone, the rot vanishing with it.
August wrinkled his nose. Was that what was running through his veins? Was he decaying from the inside out?
It didn’t matter. He was alive.
He fixed the man with a furious glare. Benjamin had tried to hand him over, then attempted to kill him when his plan failed. He betrayed Felix.
Anger burned with an intensity that cut through the numbness of this place, melting away the frigid cold. The anchored mist forms thrummed around him. He narrowed his focus to one of them, giving it shape, then he threw out his arms and thrust it forward in a silent command.
The anchored lurched past him and knocked Benjamin off his feet. He writhed against it, his wide eyes confused and pleading. Then, his head twisted sharply, and though the crack of his neck made no sound here, August could almost feel it.
He blinked, coming back to himself with a dizzying gasp. The anchored was gone now. Even the mist forms of the others were suddenly absent, the air around him empty and still.
How had he done that? The movement felt practiced, like something he’d done countless times before, his muscles remembering the sequence without conscious thought.
