Chapter 20 · The Fire That Wouldn't Die

The eye in the black pool opened wider.

Its surface was not wet. It was a mirror of liquid night, and beneath that night something vast shifted, dragging the edges of the world with it. Stone groaned. The dragon gate trembled in its frame. Blue-white fractures raced across the iron arch while the third seal burned through Cael Rook's chest.

"Lio," the buried thing breathed.

Her name rolled through the chamber like thunder trapped underground.

Mara flinched behind her. One hand pressed against the blood soaking through her coat, while the other kept a stolen council pistol aimed at the gate. "Tell me that thing doesn't know you."

Lio couldn't answer.

She was still seeing the tower.

Not the way the city had remembered it—the flames swallowing the upper floors, the evacuation routes collapsing, the investigators screaming that Lio Wren had misread the gate sequence. She saw the truth now. The First Chair standing behind the control dais. One gloved hand resting on the ignition lever. The deliberate twist of the runes.