Chapter 27 · The Lie Under Seven Nights

The last lamp in the vault went dead with a hard little pop.

For half a second, Nessa saw nothing.

Then the open door breathed red.

Not light. Not exactly. Blood ran through the carvings cut into the stone, thin bright lines waking one after another. They crawled over the floor, up the walls, across the dead faces of old Rook ancestors carved into the ceiling.

Jace stood in the middle of it all with his head bent at an ugly angle.

“Nessa,” he said.

Her own voice came out of his mouth.

Cael grabbed Jace by both shoulders. “Jace. Hey. Look at me.”

Jace’s eyes rolled toward him, all black around the pupils. “Cael.”

That voice was hers too. Soft. Familiar. Wrong enough to make her stomach lock up.

Dorian shoved himself off the wall behind her. Blood soaked the side of his shirt where Sable’s blade had gone in. His face had gone gray under the red shine, but his hand still found the knife at his hip.

“Don’t touch him,” he said.

Cael looked over his shoulder, wild-eyed. “That’s my brother.”

“I know what he is to you.”

“Then stop talking like he’s a damn bomb.