Page 3 of Spirit Storm

He stops.

"You built a spell that gets smarter when it encounters resistance?"

"Yes."

"And then you locked five empowered people in a room with it?"

His jaw moves. "When you say it like that⁠—"

"Is there a way to say it that makes it a good idea?"

Wylder, to his credit, keeps his expression entirely neutral despite his fingers being curled into white-knuckled fists at his sides.

Asher does not possess the same self-restraint. "Mate, have you never watched an AI movie? I, Robot? Atlas? The Matrix? Terminator? Any of this sounding familiar?"

"It wasn't supposed to—" Mitch catches himself and seems to reconsider. "I genuinely thought the safety parameters would hold."

Rowan crouches down beside the shattered orb pieces and picks one up between two fingers.

"Are these runes supposed to be your safety parameters?”

Mitch nods. “Yeah.”

Wylder scowls as Rowan shows him the shard. “These runes aren't safety parameters. They’re decorative etching. Who the fuck taught you runes?"

Mitch’s face goes a very odd shade of gray. “I, uh… looked it up. Okay, I’ll double-check the rune work again. Sorry about that.”

Really? That’s all he has to say about nearly pancaking us? Oops, my bad on the safety protocols.

We stay another twenty minutes while Wylder goes over the runes with him. Mitch, to his credit, follows Wylder’s instructions without complaint. Although, Wylder also made it clear that he either does as he’s told or we’d dismantle the room completely.

“Lesson learned," he says at the door with the earnest devastation of someone who genuinely means it.

"No more sentient rooms," I confirm.

"No more sentient rooms," he agrees.

The evening air hits cold and clean when we step outside. The five of us make it approximately twelve steps down the pavement before Asher breaks.

He busts up laughing and shakes his head. "Demons, witches, hell-bound blood curses, and we nearly bought it by being crushed by a sentient ceiling.”

I roll my eyes. “Go team.”

The restaurant Wylder chose sits on a quiet corner of Wrenhaven's main street, the kind of place with cloth napkins and candles burning low in little glass holders and a menu that requires actual consideration.

Not pretentious—just good.

The kind of good that takes its time.

I'm wearing a dress. A real one, blue-black and fitted to my curves, and to show off my thighs. My vibrant blue hair is pinned up in a way that took three attempts and Violet's intervention.

It was worth it, though. When I came down the stairs, Wylder looked at me and briefly forgot how to speak. I am absolutely filing away the memory of that look for personal use later.

Now he sits across from me with his sleeves rolled to the elbows, a glass of red wine half-finished beside his plate, and the particular ease on his face that only appears when no one is currently trying to destroy anything.

I'm obsessed with it.

"Okay." I point my fork at him. "We are not allowed to be interrupted tonight. I'm manifesting it."