Chapter 23 · The Name in the Ring

The ring burned through my fist before I made it three steps away from the sealed subway door.

I dropped to one knee on the filthy platform, swearing so hard Micah flinched beside me.

“Jesus, Nora.” He grabbed my shoulder. “Let it go.”

“I can’t.”

That was the problem. I couldn’t open my hand.

Elias’s ring sat in my palm like a live coal. Black metal. Old gold around the edge. That ugly Morrow crest pressed into it, sharp enough to cut. The second I tried to peel my fingers back, heat climbed up my wrist and locked my hand tighter.

Behind us, the subway gate stood shut.

Not gone. Not destroyed. Shut.

The steel service door had slammed back into its frame when I pulled Micah through. Now it looked almost normal again, if normal meant a rusted door in an abandoned station with blood drying across the tiles and a strip of black frost crawling under the threshold.

The city lights were back on overhead. Fluorescents buzzed.