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"Both shards are in her hands," Julian said. "We can't get out."
"Then stop telling me what I can't do."
I shoved him toward the tunnel mouth, but his boots dragged across the stone. The heartbeat lock around his neck screamed again. Not a beep. Not an alarm I could ignore. It was a sharp electronic shriek that punched through my skull and made my teeth hurt.
Behind us, Celeste stood at the Vale altar with both key shards glowing between her fingers.
She smiled at me like I had shown up exactly on time.
"Mara, finally," she called. "I've been waiting for you to walk Julian straight to me."
Julian caught my wrist before I could pull him another step. His palm was hot. His grip was worse.
"Listen to me," he said. "The altar is locked to both of us."
"I heard you."
"No, you didn't." He pulled me close enough that his shoulder brushed mine. His breath hit the side of my face, rough and warm. "The door won't open unless the blood key and the heartbeat key are active at the same time."
"You mean you and me."
"I mean we're trapped."
The tunnel behind Celeste shook. Boots hammered against the stone passage. More guards. Maybe ten. Maybe twenty. The sound bounced so hard I couldn't count them.
Celeste lifted one glowing shard.
"How did the heartbeat lock bind you?" she asked. "You don't have Vale blood. Unless—"
Her eyes slid to me.
"Your mother never told you why you and Julian had to reach this altar together?"
My fingers tightened around the knife hidden against my palm.
"You talk too much for someone standing in the middle of a target."
"And you threaten too much for a girl already wearing my leash."
The ring of blue light around Julian's throat flashed. His jaw clenched. He dropped to one knee.
I caught his collar before his head hit the floor.
"What did you do?"
"Nothing." Celeste laughed softly. "The altar did that. It knows who belongs to it."
"He doesn't belong to you."
"Neither do you. That's the funny part."
The guards were close now. Metal scraped stone. Someone shouted Celeste's name.
Julian grabbed my sleeve. His eyes stayed on the two shards.
"Mara. Look at me."
"I'm looking at the thing trying to kill us."
"Look at me."
I did.
His face had gone pale, but his eyes were still sharp. Still angry. Still trying to control the room even while the lock burned into his neck.
"There are two exits," he said. "The main tunnel and the altar gate."
"The altar gate is behind her."
"Exactly."
"So you have no plan. Great."
"I have a plan. I need you to trust me for ten seconds."
"I'd rather swallow broken glass."
"You can do that after we're alive."
Celeste tilted her head. "This is adorable. The dead heir and the Knox bastard finally found something to agree on."
Julian's eyes went cold.
"Keep talking," he said. "It makes it easier to find you when the lights go out."
"You still think you're the dangerous one?"
She closed her hand around the shards.
The altar exploded with blue light.
Julian jerked against me. His body went rigid, then heavy. I smelled scorched cloth and burned metal. His right shoulder darkened under his jacket. The fabric blackened in a spreading circle. His ribs took the worst of it. No blood came through. Just smoke and a horrible, cooked-skin smell that made my stomach twist.
"Julian!"
"Don't—" He sucked in a breath. "Don't touch the burn."
"Shut up."
I hooked my fist into his collar and dragged.
He was bigger than me by enough to make this stupid. His boots caught on every crack. His head dropped against my shoulder, his weight jerking my arm nearly out of its socket.
"Mara," he rasped.
"What?"
"If I slow you down—"
"I'll drag you faster."
"If I stop—"
"I said shut up."
The tunnel mouth was maybe thirty feet away. The guards rounded the bend behind us. Their rifles came up.
Celeste's voice followed them, calm and bright.
"Shoot the girl first. Julian needs her alive."
That stopped me for half a second.
Julian felt it. His fingers closed around my wrist again.
"Don't think about that now. Move."
"She said they need me alive."
"She lies when she breathes."
"You would know. You work for her."
His head lifted. Pain sharpened his face.
"I never worked for Celeste. I guarded the people she threatened. There is a difference."
"Your family built this place."
"And yours sealed it."
"You killed mine."
His grip loosened.
For one beat, we stared at each other in the blue emergency light. His breath touched my cheek. Mine caught in my throat, which was ridiculous. He was bleeding smoke onto my sleeve, and I was still noticing the heat of his hand.
"I didn't kill your mother," he said.
"You expect me to believe that?"
"No. I expect you to keep moving."
A rifle cracked behind us.
Stone burst beside my head.
Julian shoved me sideways. His shoulder slammed into mine, and we hit the tunnel wall together. His arm came around my waist to keep me upright. For one dangerous second, his chest pressed against my back, his mouth close to my ear.
"Stay down," he breathed.
"Get off me."
"Gladly. Once you stop trying to get shot."
Another bullet sparked off the wall.
I drove my elbow back into his ribs.
He grunted. "You really don't know how to say thank you."
"You really don't know how to stop touching me."
"You were falling."
"I was ducking."
"You were falling with confidence."
I shoved away and grabbed his collar again.
"Walk."
"Bossy."
"Bleeding."
"Not bleeding. Burned."
"That is not better."
We staggered toward the exit. The blue runes under our feet flickered as we passed. The lock on Julian's throat shrieked louder.
"What happens if it hits zero?" I asked.
"The gate closes."
"And?"
"And my heart stops."
My hand froze on his collar.
He looked at me. "Keep going."
"You left that part out."
"You were already mad at me."
"You thought that was the detail I'd react to?"
"You react to everything."
"I react when men lie to me."
"Then we're both in trouble."
The countdown flashed across the lock's inner surface.
00:00:07.
Seven seconds.
The guards fired again.
Julian shoved me forward, but his knees folded. I caught him under the arm and hauled him across the threshold.
"Come on! Come on, Knox!"
"Don't use my last name like you care."
"I don't care. I need you conscious."
"That sounded almost sweet."
"Die and I'll haunt you."
"There she is."
We crossed the tunnel mouth.
The instant both of my boots hit the outer stone, every rune behind us went dark. The altar vanished into blackness. The guards' gunfire stopped like someone had cut the sound with a knife.
I dropped Julian against the wall.
He slid down, one hand clamped over his right ribs. Smoke curled around his fingers.
"Stay awake," I said.
"You keep giving me orders."
"Because you keep doing stupid things."
"Taking the bullet was tactical."
"You took it for me."
His mouth twitched. "That was also tactical."
I knelt in front of him and tore open the side seam of his jacket. The burn ran from his shoulder toward his ribs, black and angry beneath the ruined cloth. I pressed my palm over it.
Julian caught my forearm.
"I said don't touch it."
"And I ignored you. Again."
"Mara, the heat is under the skin. Pressure won't—"
"Then tell me what will."
He stared down at my hand. My fingers were spread against his chest. His heartbeat slammed against my palm, hard and uneven.
"You trust me enough to put your hand there?" he asked.
"I trust the fact that you're still alive."
"That's not the same thing."
"It'll have to be."
His thumb moved once against my wrist. A tiny motion. Barely there. I felt it anyway.
"You should leave me," he said.
"No."
"The lock migrated."
The burn around my own neck flared.
I sucked in a breath and touched the metal ring beneath my jaw. It had not been there before. It sat tight against my skin, blue lines crawling across its surface.
A countdown appeared.
48:37:19.
Julian watched my face.
"Now you understand."
"It moved from you to me."
"The altar picked a living Vale heir."
"And it picked you as the heartbeat key."
"Looks like we're a matched set."
"Don't make jokes."
"I'm not joking. That's the problem."
I pushed harder against his wound.
He hissed and grabbed the back of my neck. His fingers spread beneath my hair, hot against my skin. He pulled me close, not enough to hurt, just enough to make sure I heard him.
"You have forty-eight hours and thirty-seven minutes," he said. "If my heart stops before the gate opens, you're locked inside the Vale grounds."
"Then don't let your heart stop."
"You make that sound easy."
"You're security chief. Secure yourself."
"I got shot protecting you."
"You got shot because you're reckless."
"You were standing in front of the gun."
"I had it handled."
"You had a knife. They had rifles."
"It was still handled."
His eyes dropped to my mouth for half a second.
Then he looked away.
That tiny pause hit harder than the gunfire. I hated that I noticed. Hated that my fingers stayed against him when I could have pulled back.
Julian's hand slid from my neck to my shoulder.
"You need to listen now," he said. "Celeste can't leave the altar while the shards are active."
"She can send guards."
"She can do worse."
"You keep saying that without explaining anything."
"Because I don't know everything."
"For once, try honesty."
His jaw flexed.
"Fine. The altar isn't a vault door. It's a cage."
"For what?"
A low vibration rolled through the stone beneath us.
Julian's gaze snapped to the statue at the far end of the chamber.
It was an old figure carved in pale stone. A woman with a crown of flames, both hands raised over a kneeling child. The saint Celeste had built her entire public image around.
The statue's face had always looked gentle.
Now a crack ran from its forehead to its throat.
"What is that?" I asked.
Julian pushed himself up with one hand.
"Get behind me."
"You're hurt."
"Mara."
The way he said my name made me stop.
Not soft. Not kind. A command with a pulse under it.
I moved behind his shoulder anyway.
"You like giving orders," I muttered.
"You like pretending you don't follow them."
"Keep dreaming."
The crack in the statue widened.
Stone split with a deep snap.
Dust poured across the floor. The saint's painted face peeled away in chunks, revealing something darker underneath. The crown broke first. Then the hands. The kneeling child shattered and dropped into ash.
Julian reached for the pistol at his hip.
I caught his wrist.
"You have one magazine left."
"Then I won't waste it."
"On what?"
"Anything that gets close."
"That statue is already close to breaking."
"Exactly."
The statue opened down the middle.
A figure stepped through the split stone.
Celeste.
Not the woman who had smiled at the altar. Not the polished saint with white robes and a jeweled crown.
Ash clung to her skin in thick gray plates. Her face stretched into something sharp and wrong, with dark ridges running from her cheekbones to her temples. Her eyes burned gold. Her smile showed too many teeth.
Julian raised his pistol.
Celeste looked at him and laughed.
"Put that down, Julian. You know what happens when you fire at me."
"I know what happens when I miss."
"You won't miss. Your father trained you better than that."
Julian's finger tightened on the trigger.
I stepped in front of the barrel.
"Don't."
His stare cut to me. "Move."
"You said you wouldn't waste it."
"She's not human anymore."
"Neither are you, according to the lock."
Celeste's gold eyes narrowed.
"Still protecting him? How touching."
"I'm protecting the only person who knows how to open the gate."
"No." Celeste took one step forward. Ash cracked beneath her boot. "You're protecting the man who knows what your mother did."
My pulse hit the lock around my neck.
"What did she do?"
Julian moved between us, blocking Celeste's view of me.
"Don't listen to her."
"You just told me to be honest."
"I told you to stay alive."
Celeste lifted one clawed hand. The burned skin around Julian's wound lit blue beneath my palm.
He dropped to one knee.
I caught his face between both hands.
"Julian. Stay with me. Look at me."
His pupils shook. "Don't let her take the lock."
"How?"
"The bullet."
He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a single round. It was black metal, marked with a thin silver line.
He pushed it into my hand and closed my fingers around it.
His skin was hot. His thumb pressed into my knuckles.
"Load it," he said.
"You want me to shoot her?"
"I want you to kill Celeste."
"You said you couldn't miss."
"I won't be the one firing."
The pistol handle hit my palm.
Celeste stopped smiling.
"Julian," she warned.
He looked up at her through the pain.
"You wanted the Vale heir brought to you. You got her."
"And you brought her willingly."
"No." His gaze moved to me. "She dragged me."
"You're welcome," I said.
His mouth almost curved.
Then the statue behind Celeste cracked again.
A second face pushed through the stone above her shoulder.
Celeste spread her arms. Ash rolled off her body in a choking wave. Her jaw opened wider than it should have, and a voice came out that was not quite hers.
"Shoot me, Mara," she said. "Go on. Pull the trigger. But before you do, ask Julian why your mother's last message stopped when it said his name—"
I raised the pistol.
Julian grabbed my hand, his fingers locking over mine.
Celeste lunged, and the statue split completely as something enormous moved behind her—