Chapter 21 · Hollowborn - Chapter 21: Your Turn to Pay

The second I spoke my real name out loud, the air went wrong.

Not cold. Not hot. Just wrong, like the space between my ribs and the stone floor decided they didn't belong in the same world anymore. The torches on the walls guttered. Cole's face went slack, and I knew—I knew—I'd just done something I couldn't take back.

"Ivy." His voice came out flat. Not angry. Worse. "You shouldn't have said that."

"Yeah, well." I tried to stand, but my legs weren't working right. "Little late now."

The pact circle flared under us. Red light crawled up the cracks in the stone, spelling out symbols I didn't recognize but somehow understood anyway. My mother's blood. My blood. Cole's soul, already half gone, burning itself down to ash just to keep me breathing.

I could feel it now. The weight of what he'd been doing since the night he locked himself inside my dreams. Every time I slept, every time I heard Layla's voice whispering warnings I didn't listen to, he was burning. Piece by piece. Keeping the pact from closing its teeth around me.

"How much is left?" I asked.

Cole didn't answer.