“I didn’t lie to Quinn, you pompous ass.”
My heart soared hearing the fire in his voice between the sound of grating stone and hissing acid rain.
Xan laughed. “Welcome back. Get us into the Alun. Now.”
A stone wobbled in my magical grip, teetering the very foundation of The Great Hall. I grunted and forced a glob of molten rock to hold it before stepping a few more feet forward.A thought halted my magic: if the Alun was in front of me, then I was going to bust through a wall to get into it forcefully.
If I kept going, I’d break something I wasn’t supposed to. Shit.
“Um, what is the plan here?” I asked.
Before Xan could answer, an explosion rocked the tunnel system. Part of the ceiling collapsed, but not from my work. Xan’s light snuffed out, and the two threw themselves against my back. I didn’t stop drilling forward.
“The shield’s down,” Xan said, voice too calm for the quake above us. Something roared overhead, shaking the walls. I didn’t ask. I drove another keystone into place, snapping another foot of tunnel into existence.
Chapter 6
Quinn
Thebrightlightsbuzzedunder the soft sound… I wrenched my hand away from my head and stared at the door I knew Alex was moments away from walking through.
Nothing in the room responded to me unless I woke up with it already touching my skin. No footsteps. No help. Only Ezra’s voice in my head… and Alex, if either of them were even real.
Right on cue, Alex shuffled in, each step the awkward scrape of a man pretending to look harmless. I hated how my pulse jumped, like I’d been waiting for him.
‘You’re in control,’Ezra said.
I forced myself to breathe. If that were true, I could leave this stupid loop.
“A penny for your thoughts?” Alex asked.
I didn’t remember how I had answered his plea to keep him company. Although our conversations had a distinct beginning, their endings faded into nothing. I just woke up once more.
Instead of sitting in his chair, he sat behind me on the bed and wrapped his arms around my shoulders as if he could pull me close. But our bodies weren’t in the same location, and his arms hovered like a ghost. Even knowing he couldn’t touch me, my muscles locked—like he’d draped a sheet of ice across my shoulders.
He smiled as if he hadn’t noticed.
“My keepers brought me a new puzzle today.” He rested his chin on my head. “I don’t like this one as much. I’ve already solved it, but they want me to do it again. It reminded me of you.”
I blinked. This was the closest we’d come to acknowledging my situation. “It reminded you of me, how?”
Alex released me and returned to his chair. “Sorry, I asked you a question and then just started talking.” He ran a hand through his hair before pretending to hold out a penny for me.
I looked at his pinched fingers. If I didn’t take it, would the loop snap back again? Or was this my only crack in the pattern?
His hard blue eyes flickered—just for a second—with something almost like hurt. His pitch-black hair wasn’t as neat or black as the first time I woke up. Wild strands of inky blue surrounded his face. Although he was clean-shaven, the ghost of a shaggy beard was superimposed on his chin. He leaned forward, hopeful. I reached out and took his pretend penny.
His smile twitched, like he’d won something.
“I was thinking about your last puzzle.” I pretended to toss the coin into the air. “The one with the six locks.”
Alex’s posture sagged. “You weren’t thinking about my puzzle. You were thinking about Ezra. You were questioning your reality again.”
I pulled into myself. “If you can read my mind, then why ask at all?”
Alex pursed his lips as if unsure himself. “I don’t want to just read your mind… I want to know you.”
“Isn’t reading my mind knowing me better than I know myself?” I asked.
