Chapter 21 · Hands in the Fire

The thing wearing my mother’s face smiled at me from inside the smoke.

Not a warm smile. Not even close.

It had her mouth, maybe. Her dark hair. The small scar over one eyebrow I remembered from old pictures. But its eyes were flat and gray, like somebody had painted them on after she died.

Behind me, Evan made a wet choking sound.

“Nia,” he rasped. “Don’t listen to it.”

The vault door slammed shut hard enough to shake dust from the ceiling.

I spun and hit it with both hands.

“Julian!”

Nothing.

Then Sera’s voice came through the metal, muffled but sharp. “Back away from the door!”

“Open it!” I yelled.

“I can’t.”

“You’re the Court’s tracker. You have explosives. Do Court shit.”

A beat.

Then Julian coughed on the other side.

It wasn’t a normal cough. It sounded wrong. Deep. Like he was dragging broken glass up his throat.

My hand went flat against the cold steel again.

“Julian?”

No answer.

The black veins had been in his neck before the door closed. I’d seen them crawling under his skin, ugly and fast.