Chapter 29 · Welcome Home

The knife hits the floor before I can reach it. The crack of steel against concrete cuts through the core room like a gunshot.

I freeze with my hand half-raised.

Inside the glass, she presses one palm against the black surface. Blue light spills through her fingers and races up her arm. Then she smiles—that crooked, dangerous smile Lily used to give me right before she ruined my whole week.

"Sparrow." Her voice comes through the glass now. Not inside my head. "Took you long enough."

My arm burns. The rune has crawled past my elbow, under my collarbone, and into my ribs. Heat pulses behind my left eye with every heartbeat.

Eighty percent.

Marcus said eighty percent.

"That's not her." Marcus stands behind me, voice flat. "Ivy, step away from the core."

I don't move.

Lily tilts her head. Same angle. Same thinking face. Same dark hair and sharp jaw.

Her eyes are wrong, though. Electric blue light glows behind them.

"Marcus is scared," she says. "He should be. He's the one who put me here."

A weapon clicks behind me.

"Ivy. Move. Now."

My knees refuse to work.