Chapter 37 · Breaching the Hall

The elevator doors didn't open. Vane peeled them apart with his bare hands.

Iron shrieked. Cold air rolled in, and with it came blood and the thud of war drums.

Then the elder screamed again, and it cut off halfway, like someone had put a hand over her mouth.

"Stay behind me," Vane said.

"No."

He turned his head. His eyes were still gold at the rims, the fever not all the way gone. Two days ago those eyes would have shoved me against the wall for that word. Now they just held on me, hard and tired.

"Seraphina."

"You hear that drumming? That's not a funeral march, it's a count." I pulled my sleeve up and held out my wrist. "Breathe."

He didn't argue. That scared me more than the screaming.

He bent and pressed his nose to the inside of my wrist, right over the pulse. His breath was too hot. His hand came up and wrapped my forearm, and I felt the tremor in his fingers, the one he'd been hiding since the stairs.

He pulled in one long breath. His shoulders dropped half an inch.

"Better?" My voice wasn't steady. I hated that.

"Not better.