“Move, Helda,” I warned. The beast inside pricked its ears, sensing a challenge.
“No.” Mrs. Crane’s deference had vanished. “You are scrubbing at that stone as if you can erase the magic.” Her knuckles were white where she gripped the tray, shielding the anchor from me. “Your father had the same manic look in his eyes before the ley-line collapse, he was convinced if he just worked harder, if he just bled a little more, he could hold the sky up with his bare hands.”
I flinched. The memory of my father the tall, broad-shouldered, invincible man right up until the moment he was ash, slammed into me. “My father died trying to save this estate. Do not speak of him.”
“I will speak of him,” she said. “I watched him pace the library until the rugs wore thin, convinced that the manor’s survival rested solely on his ability to endure pain. He was wrong. And you are doing exactly what he did.”
“I am keeping us alive!” I roared. The shadows surged up my neck, freezing the air, radiating a darkness that should have sent her running. The lantern flame flickered blue, dying down to a terrified spark.
She didn’t run. She didn’t even flinch. She stepped closer, the tray pressing against the chest of a creature that could snap her in half.
“You are killing yourself!” she said. “Do you think I don’t remember, Fenrik? Do you think I have forgotten the summer you were fifteen? When you tried to re-weave the greenhouse wards alone because you were too proud to admit they were failing?”
I froze, the shadows stalling at my jawline.
“You blew the glass out of every pane in the west wing,” she said, her eyes wet but unblinking. “I spent three hours picking shards out of your back while you sat there, shaking, refusing to cry, refusing to tell your parents because you thought you had to be strong enough to fix it yourself. You have always believed that if you suffer enough, the magic will obey you.”
The beast snarled in my head, but it sounded... smaller. The memory of her tweezers, the smell of antiseptic and her steady, gentle hands on my teenage skin, cut through the red haze of the curse. She had been there. She had always been there.
“You couldn’t fix the greenhouse then,” she said, her voice dropping to a plea. “And you cannot fix the ley-line now by starving yourself in the dark. You are not just the master of this house, Fenrik. You are its heart. And if the heart stops...”
She let the sentence hang there.
My hands, still raised to push her aside, trembled. I looked at the tray, then back at her steel-grey hair, the lines of worry etched deep around her mouth—linesI had put there.
“Put the tray down, Helda,” I rasped, the fight draining out of me, leaving only the exhaustion.
“Eat,” she said, setting the tray on a crate. “Or I will fetch the girl and tell her exactly why the master of the house looks like a corpse.”
The roast chicken broth was rich, thick with cream and rosemary, and every swallow felt like swallowing a glowing coal that burned its way down to my empty stomach. Mrs. Crane stood over me with her arms crossed, watching every mouthful with the scrutiny she reserved for dusting the chandelier crystals.
“Better,” she noted. I was relieved to see her shoulders dropping an inch.
I wiped my mouth with the linen napkin, the tremors in my hands subsiding. “I am perfectly capable of—“
Heavy boots thudded on the stone stairs, cutting off my protest. Thorven Greymount didn’t knock; he descended into the gloom with a heavy canvas bag slung over one shoulder and a grim set to his bearded jaw.
“East wing anchors are shuddering,” Thorven said without preamble, ignoring the tray of food to fix his squinting gaze on the obsidian slab behind me. “Saw the fluctuations from the courtyard. The ground is sweating, Sir.”
“I secured the primary rivet,” I said, standing up. The sudden movement made the room spin, grey spots dancing in my vision, but I forced my spine straight. “The overflow needs somewhere to go.”
“It has somewhere to go,” Thorven grunted, dropping his bag with a metallic clatter. He pulled out a heavy iron chisel and a mallet etched with runes. “Up. Through us.”
Before I could answer, the air pressure in the room plummeted. My ears popped painfully. The silence of the dungeon was shattered by a high-pitched, harmonic whine that seemed to emanate from the marrow of my bones. The ley-line beneath us was bloody convulsing. A shockwave of pure, unadulterated magical potential slammed into the walls, and the obsidian anchor I’d bled to fix began to scream.
“Get out,” I snarled, as the shadows surged up my neck. “Both of you. Now!”
Mrs. Crane stumbled back as the lantern flared, glass cracking. But Thorven didn’t move. He planted his feet, gripping the mallet white-knuckled.
“I’m here to reinforce the binding,” Thorven shouted over the rising whine.
“It’s going to blast!” I roared, shoving Mrs. Crane toward the staircase. “Thorven, get her out! If that anchor blows, this entire cellar becomes a kill box!”
I lunged for the anchor, intending to throw my own body over the fault line, to let the beast inside me drink the explosion before it could tear the foundation apart. But a heavy shoulder slammed into my chest, knocking me sideways.
Thorven had thrown himself between me and the exit, but not to leave. He slammed his shoulder against the heavy oakdoorframe, effectively blocking the only way out—and blocking me from pushing him to safety.
“I am not leaving you to ride this out alone!” he shouted, his face flushed, veins standing out on his neck.
