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“Enough,” he yells with the flawless command of a man in charge. The house whines and goes still. His eyes dart to my chest.

My insides twist.Not my necklace.

“You don’t need to hide it,” he says, startling me with the reassuring words—only to remind me who he really is. “I already saw it when I undressed you.”

My core stirs at the thought. Damn him.

His voice deepens, churning out one word at a time. “What did it do?”

Why ask when I can’t answer?Still holding my necklace tight, I throw up my free hand, gesturing to the house, then out to the side in question.What’s going on with this place?

He dismisses my silent inquiry. “Let me feel it.”

His hand lands on my upper arm, overwhelming it with the spread of his grasp, the strength in it. I tense at his cold touch, my muscles bricking. He reaches for the hand on my chest, but I force my body into action and twist away, scolding and screaming at him with my eyes, tapering them to slits and burning through his harsh stare. He knows exactly what I want.

He balls up his fist and brings his knuckles to his lips as if he wanted to stop the words from leaving his mouth, anguish in his eyes. “I could pry your hand open.”

I dare you.

He sighs, pulling that shaky fist from his mouth and looking away. “Okay, but you’re showing me after I tell you.”

I blink in response. He gave in.

“I haven’t been up here since my father died four years ago.” He looks around the room. “It was his house.” He drudges toward the furniture, the walls now quiet and motionless, waiting. “And my grandfather’s. And his father’s. All the way back to the beginning.”

No wonder it looks as though it’s about to fall the fuck over.

He moves to the sofa, dragging his hand along the scalloped back, and if I trust my eyes, it arches into his touch. Tattered breaths fight their way in and out. He seizes two handfuls of curls.

More feelings.

“Most houses only have a little magic—or none—but this one is full of it. Any time one of my ancestors received a gift from the gods, especially a rare one, they used it to add to the house—to protect and hide it, or build onto it and give it personality. And all this stuff”—he gestures to the shelves—“is from before the Separation, when Vaile and Hollows still lived together. It’s bound to the house. Everything else was pushed out of Sonnet or destroyed.”

That’s why it reminds me of stuff from Caldera and why the swords are still here—they’ve been hidden and protected for hundreds of years.

His chin rises as though he’s trying to overcome a battle within, but pain leeches into the hardness of his face. An endearing touch of pride remains. I move toward the sofa, pulled by something too deep to acknowledge, and he schleps himself away with dragging steps to a shelf on the wall. I follow.

“And now it’s mine. Your turn,” he says.

I clutch the necklace over my heart, reluctant to let go. I’ve had it since I was a baby. His gaze settles on my hand, his eyes signaling what to do next. With a focused calm, like that quiet beat between songs, I open my hand. The necklace falls against the skin of my chest with athud,still hidden by my shirt. I look at him, way up above me. My chest swirls with regret. I can’t do this.

His demeanor shifts, a teasing smile spreading slowly across his face. “Do you need help?”

No. I suck in a breath, rip down the collar of my shirt and pull the necklace up and out, holding it by the chain. He studiesthe light purple stone, its transparency and jagged edges. Even in this windowless room, a current of air sighs over me. Just like that, I’m drawn to him, accepting blindly, opened and exposed. His eyes are wide and probing as he reaches out and takes hold of the stone—of that piece of me.

Then it’s as though all the air of the realm is sucked into this one room, so thick with…himthat I can hardly breathe. His scent, his presence, his being—they choke me.

He tightens all over, brown eyes gleaming black. They try to suck me in. They hold the whole night sky, the bottom of the sea and the darkest corners of my own mind. His jaw is clamped shut, his neck flexed and corded. I open my mouth to speak, or scream, and he puts a cold, sweaty finger over my lips and holds it there, my hot labored breath wreathing around it.

“Don’t—” he says in a raspy whisper. “Don’t let me win because you’re afraid.”

His finger falls away, and with the drop of my necklace back to my chest comes the heat, sweltering, dizzying heat. It radiates from the walls, steams up from the floor and smothers us from above. Fear rips apart my gut.

I grab Eli’s arm, pulling with my entire body. He’s stuck, staring at me, frozen in this inferno. My head wobbles and floats. The house grinds, and the wood swells and moans. Across the room to the door and we’re out. But instead, I drop into a vision.

Flames surround me inside Reggie Junior’s house. I can’t escape the fiery beds, the smoking dresser, the cold floor now so hot as I lie on it. Flames crawl closer, wood crackling. I drift away with the stench of my skin melting, dripping, falling to that awful floor.

Panting now, tears welling from the vision, I pull again on Eli. It’s all more intense after dying—the heat, the colors. My hands slip over his drenched arm.