Chapter 30 · Boiling Ash and Silver Noose

The bolt never reached me.

Vane's hand shot out of the dark and snapped it from the air. The head was an inch from my eye. Silver. I smelled it before I saw it, sharp and sour, like a penny on my tongue.

His palm hissed around the shaft.

"Vane." My voice cracked. "Drop it."

"No." His breath came out ragged, almost a growl. "It was aimed at you."

The flesh of his hand was already blistering. He crushed the bolt anyway. The wood split and silver shavings rained over my boots.

Above us, Garrick laughed. It echoed down the well, wet and delighted.

"Oh, that's perfect. Look at you, my Alpha. Bleeding for the rogue bitch again."

I pressed my back against the stone. The cage bars stood a foot from my face, coated in dull silver paint. Past them, the ladder. Past that, one small square of gray sky and Garrick's silhouette leaning over the grate.

I'd stepped on that plate. Me. Two years of running, and I walked us straight into a trap.

"Two years I waited," Garrick called down. "Two years of watching you worship her ghost.