Chapter 24 · The Price of a Crown

My palm hit the hidden door before Ronan could grab me.

The metal was warm.

Not room-warm. Skin-warm. Like somebody had been standing on the other side with their hand pressed against mine.

"Quinn, no." Ronan's voice cracked hard on the last word.

The door opened anyway.

It didn't swing out. It folded into the stone with a low grinding sound, old gears chewing through dust. Cold air poured over my face. It smelled like pennies, wet concrete, and the nasty burnt-sugar stink of magic after it had hurt somebody.

Behind it sat a narrow room with one chair bolted to the floor.

A dead woman was sitting in it.

For one stupid second, my brain said Mom.

Then the light from the blood gate snapped across her face, and I saw the truth. Not my mother. Just a body gone gray and dry, hair hacked short, throat marked with a ring of old silver burns.

Her wrists were chained to the chair.

A small tape recorder rested in her lap.

"Quinn." Ronan stumbled toward me. "Get back. Right now."

I looked over my shoulder.

He was on one knee near the wall, blood dripping from both hands.