Chapter 32 · No Way Home

The Gate wasn't a place. It was a throat, and Kai was sliding down it.

He hit stone. Actual stone, cold enough to burn through his jacket. The air tasted like copper and old smoke, and when he dragged himself up, his hands came away sticky. Not blood. Worse. The stuff that leaked out of ruptured runework, the kind that made Mossan swear and refuse to touch without gloves.

Luca was gone. The rune-flip, the drag, the freefall—none of it mattered now, because Kai wasn't alone.

His father stood twenty feet away, in the center of a circle that pulsed with light Kai felt more than saw. The man looked exactly like the photo Kai's mom used to keep in the drawer, the one she'd finally thrown out after the landlord came for the third time. Same hard jaw. Same scar through the left eyebrow. Same way of standing like he was ready to either run or fight, and hadn't decided which.

Except his dad wasn't standing. Not really. His feet didn't quite touch the ground, and the light came up through him, not around him.