Chapter 28 · Deep in the Sunken Well

The detonator clicked.

For half a second, nothing happened. Garrick stood behind the powder barrels with his thumb still jammed down and his mouth open, like he'd expected applause.

Then Vane hit me.

Not a claw. A shoulder. He drove me off the furs and across the stone, and the whole bedchamber went white and loud behind us.

I don't remember the blast. I remember the floor jumping. I remember heat slapping the back of my neck and a beam the size of a horse crashing where my legs had been.

I remember his hand fisted in my torn collar, dragging me like a kill.

"Vane!" My voice came out cracked. My throat felt like I'd swallowed broken glass. "Vane, wait—"

He didn't wait. He didn't know the word.

He slammed his boot heel into the iron grate beside the hearth. The old well cover. The one I'd found weeks ago and never dared open. It tore loose with a shriek.

Black air breathed up at us. Cold. Wet. Rotten.

Then we were falling.

The water took me like a fist. Freezing, the kind of cold that makes your teeth ache before you even scream.