Chapter 25 · Dad's Blade

The gate swallows light.

Kai doesn't know how else to describe it. One second he's standing in the wreckage of the holding cell, breathing hard, hands still shaking from punching through that tank. The next, the air goes cold and every shadow in the room bends toward the tear in the wall like it's hungry.

And Dad steps through.

Not the copy. Not the thing in the tank.

Dad.

Same height. Same walk. Same scar along his jaw from the kitchen accident when Kai was ten. He's wearing clothes Kai doesn't recognize—some kind of long coat with runes stitched into the seams—but his face is the one Kai remembers. Older, maybe. Tired in a way that didn't used to be there.

And he's got a blade at Vera's throat.

Kai's lungs stop.

Vera's on her knees. Her good arm's twisted behind her back. Blood's running down her temple from where she hit the floor when the gate opened. She's not moving. Not fighting. Just staring at Kai with this look that says don't.

Don't what, he doesn't know.

Don't move. Don't try. Don't make it worse.

"Kai."

His dad's voice. Quiet. Steady.