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Because we didn’t know what would happen when she read, but with the way this place was already affecting her—with an impossible voice communicating through her—it was clear the magic was beyond her control.

She shook her head, and while it tore through me, at least it was her eyes looking back at me—her I was talking to. “It won’t be safe anywhere, but here it’s strong and controlled.”

I breathed heavily. There had to be a way.

“Move back from the incense, Cypherion,” she said softly but decisively.

The haze thickened around us, coming between us. I shook my head.

“Please,” she whispered, determined.

“You’re not alone, Vale,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’m right here.”

“I know.” But she let go of my hands.

I rose slowly, retrieving my weapons and stepping back outside of the ring of incense. As the fog swarmed around her, I muttered to the eddying lilac waves, “I’m here, Stargirl. Us against the Fates.”

And her head lifted, olive stare locking on mine for just a moment, before stars swirled in her vision once again, and her eyes fell closed.

I prowled along the edge of the dense circle. The incense reached curling tendrils to the walls and up toward the starry ceiling where Vale’s face was aimed. A mingling of woody and bitter scents layered in now, too.

She’ll be fine, I told myself.

She had not begun seizing yet. This was like the first few times I’d seen her read in Damenal. Lost to the Fates but orderly. Controlled.

This was not the stricken version she’d become in the Labyrinth.

Regardless, I gripped my weapons tighter, not even sure what good they would do. I wished I had a sword or my scythe. Something to channel the power mounting in my veins this far beneath the world.

Vale had been under the reading for agonizingly long minutes when her hands began trembling.

“By the fucking Angels,” I growled, sheathing my daggers and diving to her side.

“Vale?” I asked, panicked but gripping her face gently. “Stargirl, can you hear me?”

She didn’t respond, lips moving minutely.

Her whole body started quaking. She was too deep. Too far gone.

Panic formed a vice around my throat as footsteps echoed from the main chamber of the ninth floor, and the door creaked open. Darting to my feet and swiping a dagger from my waist, I sent it flying toward the newcomer before I could even think or see who it was.

The man ducked at the last moment, the blade barely skinning the top of his ear. The metal clattered against the stone wall. And when he stood and grinned at me, a growl rumbled in my chest.

“Great to see you again, too,” he said, straightening the cuffs of his tunic. “The capital is beautiful this time of year.”

Behind me, shock pulled Vale to the surface. Her gasp pierced the fog, soured with betrayal. “Harlen?”

His name barely left her lips before she toppled to the ground.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Vale

I was used to the Fates floating through my mind. Their voices usually mingled like drops of mist, yet were decipherable. A lighter tone where every word sounded like a laugh for one, a deep and animalistic rumble for another.

Now, though, as I fell into the chasm of magic within me, they shouted. Louder than the sound of the blade Cypherion had thrown, ripping me from that world and back into this one. Louder than Harlen’s voice shredding through my sanity and Cypherion’s defensive retorts.

The Fates were all I knew.