Chapter 30 · Let It Remember

Elara slammed both palms into Kane's chest as the last second died.

The light didn't wait. It punched through the room and took the floor with it. Kane's shirt was soaked. Not red. Black, like transit oil, leaking from a split that hadn't been there a breath ago.

"Don't you dare," she said. "Don't you—"

Zero.

Sound went first. Then the walls. Nora's scream stretched and snapped. Mara's mouth shaped a word that never showed up. Silas was already gone from the ribs up, white all the way through, and the thing wearing his voice laughed like glass under a boot.

Kane's fingers locked on Elara's wrist.

"Stay," he said. Or she thought he said it. His mouth was bloody. His eyes weren't on her. They were on his own chest, like he could see what was climbing out.

Dark stuff pushed between her fingers. A shape. A stamp. The same ugly mark that lived on the black token in her pocket.

She yanked anyway. Heat bit her palm. The token was already in her hand, even though she hadn't reached for it. Thirteen scratches. She'd counted them in every loop until the counting felt like praying.

The light folded.