The question landed heavier than it should have. He wasn’t asking for my designation; he was asking if I could hold what he’d given me, knowing most couldn’t. Confidence surged, hot and certain. I smirked, hands sliding into my pockets. “I’m the Architect.”
Rowan snorted, and his movement of stone came to a sudden halt. “Something’s keeping my magic from penetrating further.” He sounded relieved. “Something I can’t feel.”
My gaze snapped to Rowan’s hands, still pressed against the stone. It only took me a moment for his relief to click into place.
“You were willing to destroy the Alun.” I turned to Xan, who clenched his fist.
“To save Quinn and everything I’ve built. Yes.”
My heart raced. My Prophet would have thrown every one of my brothers between danger and the power contained in this room. Now, Xan did the opposite.
With renewed faith, I turned to the seemingly innocent wall perplexing Rowan. Dust and globs of rose-scented acidic oil filled the air.
The shield was down, yet we were still locked out.
When Quinn admitted she was from the past, my reading had taken me to a world I never cared about—one full of technology, manipulating nature, and seemingly hell-bent on preserving the past while destroying the future. I suddenly knew what stopped Rowan’s magic. “It’s tech. People of the past put synthetic supports into the stone to ensure the Alun stayed safe.”
Rowan grunted. “Right, they just injected ‘stay safe juice’ into the stone.”
I raised an eyebrow. I doubted it was called that, but the big ox wasn’t that far off.
“There shouldn’t be anything from this side,” Xan explained. “The room was dug into the foundations of the rock bed. Until I excavated these tunnels for my train, it wasn’t accessible from underneath.”
Rowan ran his hand along the smooth rock he could no longer move. “Erick must have put barriers up.”
I’d just told them exactly what it was, and they ignored me. My lips pressed into a thin line. My family had worshipped everyword I spoke, no matter how wrong I was. Rowan’s disregard stung. And I wanted to prove him wrong more than I wanted to breathe. Now I understood Quinn’s pull toward my negativity. Rowan’s dismissal was honest, and it made me desperate to show him.
I was painfully aware of how mean I had been to Quinn when we first met, but instead of judging me by my harsh words, she responded to my actions.
I didn’t say anything. Instead, I stood. Rowan was right. The original builders never considered anyone breaching the walls from the bottom up, but technology had.
Holes peppered the rock—perfect, deliberate. Not magic. Not natural. BT hands had done this, forcing the stone to obey with synthetics that choked magic dead.
“My enforcers are securing the building,” Xan said. “We can go back up and help Ezra’s men try to force the hatch, but that will take time. We need to move now.”
Quinn’s belly button ring flashed in my mind—BT metal, like the Alun. She wasn’t just tied to me; she was tied to this room. The Alun would answer her, same as it did me.
“No.” I couldn’t reach around Rowan to put my hand on the wall, so I put it on his arm. “We can travel through the ‘stay safe juice.’”
“What?” both Rowan and Xan asked.
The ground rocked, and a glob of acid oil dropped onto my shirt, making it sizzle. I didn’t have time to explain. “There’s no magic.” A crazy grin split my face. “It’s anti-magic even. Quinn’s from BT, and we’re connected to her.”
Xan’s jaw dropped, and Rowan started laughing. “Kid, I don’t know much about tethers, but they are about control, not sharing.”
“Maybe for you,” I said, voice low. “For me, for her, it’s a bridge. Xan gave me a memory strong enough to take me exactly where I want to be.”
I locked eyes with him. Quinn appeared in my mind, pinned under him, breathless, the Alun’s colors twisting beneath her.
Her image sharpened in my mind. Not for pleasure. For precision. Every detail—sweat, breath, the shift of her weight—aligned perfectly with her unique power, fitting the lock between me and the Alun.
Thousands of tiny pricks covered my skin. Xan’s jaw dropped, and suddenly it wasn’t his face but something entirely different filling my gaze.
Bright coral mage light replaced the tunnel’s dim metallic air, and the stink of sweat hit me like a wall. I was in a push-up position on the Alun floor. Emil’s chalky runes added another layer to the patterns. The domed room had been a tight fit for three people, and now I made four. Emil still bent over his runes on my left, and Ashkar had crammed himself into one of the low sides on my right. Erick must be behind me.
My heart thundered. Nobody moved. I lunged, bowling into Emil and slamming him against the wall. His head hit with a dull crack. I came up on my knees. With my right hand, I swung while my left started drawing.
Ashkar surged toward me. I changed my punch to a block to protect my face, but not my stomach. His knee drove up into my gut. White stars burst behind my eyes.
