Chapter 34 · Where the Blood Ends

The stairs are pulling us down.

I can feel it in my bones—literally, because whatever Mara put in me is responding to the black stone beneath us. Drake's hand is still warm in mine, his pulse barely there, and the steps are crumbling under our feet, reforming lower, dragging us into that hole where a thousand voices are screaming and laughing at the same time.

"Move," I tell him. My voice comes out shredded. "Drake, you have to move."

He's looking at me. His eyes are open, focused, but his body won't answer. The sanctified silver in his blood is locking him down, and I can feel the pull of Mara's bone fragments inside him, responding to her call from below.

Mara's already ten steps down, her back to us, her reconstructed hand flexing in the dim red light rising from the abyss. She's humming something that sounds like a lullaby, and it makes my skin crawl.

"You're wasting time, Ella," she says without turning. "Bring him. Or let the stairs do it for you."

I look at Drake. At his jaw clenched tight, at the way his fingers twitch like he's trying to fight the paralysis.