I kept an arm around her waist anyway.
The pendant had cooled, but the silver thread attached to it twisted strangely in the air. It was no longer pointing back toward the chamber we’d entered from. It tugged toward a narrow archway that had appeared on the opposite side of the room.
I stared at it.
“That wasn’t there before,” I remarked.
Gideon let out a deep sigh. “The tower is rearranging around the break.”
“Is that good or bad?” Celeste asked.
“In my experience,” I said, keeping my grip on her firm, “magical buildings don’t usually rearrange because they’re feeling generous.”
Keegan’s gaze moved toward the archway. “It may be trying to send us deeper.”
The thought made my stomach twist.
My mother was out with my dad and Bella.
Celeste was in my arms.
Every instinct screamed to get out fast.
But somewhere overhead, the Priestess waited, and the tower still pulsed with whatever ancient thing she had woken beneath it.
Celeste must have felt the shift in me because she grabbed my sleeve.
“Mom.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.” Her eyes were wide and fierce. “She said you’d come for me. She said you’d choose me and leave everyone else to deal with what she started.”
The silver thread trembled.
“What exactly did she say?” Gideon asked.
Celeste dropped her gaze to the stone floor. “She said mothers are predictable.”
“She wouldn’t know the first thing about being a mother,” I said softly, thinking back on what she’d done to her own daughter and the families before us.
The sound of a door slamming echoed through the chamber, and Keegan moved closer to the opening.
Gideon glanced at him. “I don’t think we can leave the way we came in.”
“I assumed.” Keegan’s gaze met his.
“I need to get to the Priestess,” I told Keegan, but I could see the way his jaw twitched, he wasn’t happy.
Celeste looked at me. “You’re still going?”
“I’m getting you out first,” I promised.
Her chin lifted in a way that was painfully familiar. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Celeste.”
“No.” Her voice shook, but she didn’t look away. “I’m serious. She used me to get you here, and I’m not letting her use me to make you stay.”
