Then something warm touches my shoulder, and I flinch away from it. But when I spin around, I realise it’s Aster, trying to get my attention.
Trying to talk to me.
My heart is pounding, and I’m sucking in great, gasping breaths that are making my vision go dark and blurry at the edges.
Aster. Alive.
I jump to my feet, throwing my arms around him. He hugs me back just as tight, burying his face in my hair.
“You’re all right. We’re all right. It’s just another glamour.”He presses kisses across my forehead, my cheeks, before landing on my chin.
I squeeze my eyes shut, not wanting to look up and see more corpses. “How are we going to find our way out of here?”
“I can try to break the magic again. There’s a lot going on, though, so it might be harder.”
“Please,” I beg, keeping my face pressed up against his chest. “If you think you can.”
He squeezes my hand tight, blowing out a breath that ruffles my hair. “All right then, let’s try this. Repeat after me.”
I follow his instructions faithfully through a bone-dry throat. But nothing happens. Aster glances around, frowning and we try again.
Still nothing.
He lets out a frustrated huff before gripping one hand tightly to mine and spelling out the same unfamiliar words over and over.
I don’t know if I’m saying them quite right, but I do my best. It’s the strangest sensation after I’ve repeated the same word nine times. Heat flows through my hand, right the way from the tips of my fingers, through my wrist and up to my elbow where it starts to burn. There, it sears my flesh, like a red-hot poker being stabbed right through my arm.
A piercing pain goes through my chest, and I suck in a shallow breath as I pull away from Aster.
“What’s happening?”
My ears are ringing, and I can’t seem to catch my breath as I drop to my bruised knees. The pain in my arm feels like it’s spreading rather than getting better. It’s now an all-encompassing ache that’s spreading right the way over the top of my body.
There’s apop,and ears stop ringing.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please, Reva, just look at me and tell me you’re all right.” The voice is low and hoarse, but definitely male.
And definitely not a voice I recognise.
Someone is patting my arms again. “Please, sunshine, tell me you’re okay.”
My head feels impossibly heavy as I lift it, blinking my eyes open even though I don’t remember closing them.
“What’s happening?” I ask again.
“I broke it. I broke the glamour, but it seems like I broke all the magic in the room. I brokeeverything.”The last word comes out choked, and my gut twists as I stare up into Aster’s face.
“You can speak?”
“I broke the gag,” he says. “And the glamour.”
The room has shifted around us again. All the dead bodies have thankfully disappeared, and two doorways have reappeared, one at either end. I blink, feeling weirdly disorientated, despite not having moved anywhere. My insides are aching like someone just plucked my heart out of my chest.
Aster’s holding the magic-revealing spectacles in his shaking hand with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
I don’t know how I notice, but my eyes zero in on the spot on his forearm just beyond the crease of his elbow.
The spot where our mate mark used to be etched into his skin.
