Page 52

T his was hopeless. I had no plan, no clear path, and nowhere to go but forward. Unlike Dorian, I didn’t know Evermore’s hidden veins, the secret paths that wrapped around its bones. I was moving blind through the Sanctum, running on instinct, and worse, I was running out of time.

I really hadn’t thought this through. The stone corridor stretched endlessly before me, a labyrinth of twisting darkness. I pressed forward, deeper into the shadows.

The passage opened into the atrium, a vast, cavernous space lined with black marble columns and gilded archways. The ceiling stretched impossibly high, painted with dark frescoes that seemed to move. A trick of the light. Probably.

I heard footsteps but I didn’t look back. I couldn’t.

I flattened myself against the stone, lungs burning, willing the shadows to swallow me whole. The air here was thick with damp and ancient magic, cloying and suffocating like the Sanctum itself was waiting for me to fail.

I saw it out of the corner of my eye. A shadow bled into the hallway, curling around the corner. A figure emerged, hooded, moving soundlessly despite the weight of armor. I covered my mouth to stifle the breathing, waiting for them to turn, waiting for the glint of steel.

Then they passed. It was just another guard, and they weren’t looking for me. Not yet.

I bolted the moment they disappeared. The walls trembled as if the Sanctum could sense my treacherous intent, whispering, begging me to stop. There was no chance I would listen. The torches dimmed as though something unseen slithered between them, feeding off the energy I carried.

Then a hand shot out from the darkness, clamping over my mouth. I thrashed, reaching out for whatever had taken me.

“Arabella.”

Dorian. He was feral-eyed in the dim light.

His uniform looked even worse, torn at the sleeves, streaked with blood, his knuckles raw and split.

Before I could speak, he crushed me against him, one hand curling around the back of my head, the other gripping my waist like he was grounding himself in the reality of my presence.

“I thought—” He exhaled, shaking. “I thought they had you, Davenant. He had you. I should never have let you go.”

“It’s okay,” I whispered. My fingers dug into his back, but my chest felt heavy. I had betrayed Dante. And Dorian… had I hurt him too? I couldn’t make sense of it, the connection I felt. I didn’t have time to make sense of it. “But I have them. The cards.”

“Of course you did, Davenant. You brilliant thing!” A grin stretched across his face, and then he pressed his lips to mine.

I leaned into it. Let myself believe it was real, just for a moment. But it wasn’t just his kiss I felt. It was the echo of another, so deep and dark, still humming beneath my skin. Dante.

“It’s not over yet,” another voice sounded. Godwin was slumped against the far wall, his robes in shreds, his face mottled with bruises, a thin rivulet of blood trailing from his temple. His breath rattled, shallow and unsteady, his hands trembling as he forced himself upright.

A wave of relief crashed through me. He was alive . “Godwin.” My throat closed around the words. “What happened?”

“I’m a High Angel.” His voice was hoarse, raw. “A threat to the order. I know too much, things they didn’t want to lose. They won’t kill me yet.”

“Mother would never,” Dorian said, voice wavering. Something cold slithered down my spine. He tensed beside me, his hand ghosting over the hilt of his blade.

Godwin’s attention turned to me. “The deck,” he rasped. His words landed heavily. “You have it?” I nodded. His shoulders sagged, as though a great weight had been lifted. “Then we have a chance.”

“Good,” I nodded. A strange prickle ran up the back of my neck.

“We have to do it now,” Godwin pressed. “We have moments to release them before they realize what’s happening.”

“Yes,” I said, voice steadier than I felt.

“So you agree?” Godwin shuffled toward me, and that was when I saw it. The flicker of movement as he shifted, his gate uneven. Just enough for me to catch a glimpse of the skin at his wrist. A sigil.

My stomach turned. I knew that mark. I remembered it now.

The hooded figure, the fractured reflections of the Hall of Mirrors.

Breath ripped from my lungs. I stepped back.

I was wrong. So, so wrong. This was not a man who had barely escaped with his life.

This was not a man on my side. Godwin had never been on my side at all.

The dagger struck before fear could. My ears rang with Dorian’s scream but it came too late. A white-hot bloom of agony exploded in my stomach, a sensation so shocking my mind could not catch up to the pain.

It took a few shaking moments to register the warmth pooling between my fingers, the slickness spreading across my uniform, the bite of metal pressing deep, deep into my ribs.

I was bleeding. Godwin’s dagger was buried between my ribs.

Godwin’s . The realization hit like a second blade, sharper than the first.

I staggered back, gasping, my vision tilting sideways. My blood. He did this to me. Godwin. I looked him in the eyes, betrayal slicing deeper than the cut. Tears prickled my eyes, the pain not at my side but everywhere.

“Blood must be spilled,” he said, like it was a prophecy, like it had never been a choice at all. “To gain what was lost.”

Dorian roared, shattering the stillness with a sound so raw, so vicious, it didn’t sound human. He lunged, but Godwin was already moving.

A burst of light seared the air as Godwin spun and unleashed a pulse of white light from his palm. Magic detonated through the room, a shockwave so fierce it sent Dorian flying. His body slammed against the wall with a sickening crack.

He had come for me. Fought for me. He was the only one who truly saw me. Me. Not the girl who needed to Fall. And now, he might not wake up at all.

The walls shook with the force of the spell, the floor cracking beneath us.

I choked on a breath, the pain tightening.

It was sharp, yet somehow dull, like I had been punched instead of pierced.

Whatever spell laced his blade was already working, or maybe the wound was so serious adrenaline had taken over.

Godwin knelt beside me, prying the deck from my pocket. My hands twitched uselessly, my limbs already numb from the spell that I presumed laced his dagger.

He was muttering, letting my blood stain the cards.

“I’m sorry that this was your role, Miss Davenant.

You’re a fracture. As long as you live, the balance teeters.

” He was calm, emotionless, like he was simply setting a chess piece into place.

A lens was cracked in one of his glasses.

He didn’t look like the man I knew anymore.

“I’m sorry that it had to end this way.”

His hand shot forward, fingers curling around the pendant at my throat. If he ripped it free, I was sure I would die.

A violent shock cracked through the air. Godwin lurched backward, a strangled sound escaping him as he staggered, his hands blackened and burned, smoke curling from his fingertips like he’d gripped a live wire. He trembled in the wake of it, breathing raggedly. He had not expected that.

Neither had I. My pulse roared in my ears. The pendant was still cool against my skin, untouched. Defensive magic. Maybe it was mine. Or my mother’s. Whatever it was, it had protected me. For now.

Godwin’s expression twisted. Fury. Then, with a calculated pivot, he turned toward the tunnel leading out of the chamber. “GUARDS!” He screamed, the sound like a thunderclap against the stone walls.

My body locked up, panic curling up my throat. Godwin stilled, a shadow at the end of the tunnel. “Take the necklace off, Arabella. It’s your blood we needed. Yours. That’s the last piece. Just die, and you’ll set them free.”

My blood. He needed my blood to unlock the Arcana Deck and free the Archangels.

The footfalls grew louder, closer, a storm racing down the tunnel. I was out of time. Cold hands dragged me upward and my head lolled forward. Dorian was unconscious. The world was slipping through my fingers like sand.

All I could think about was how much it hurt. Not the wound, but failure. I thought of Ruby, locked away somewhere. I thought of Hugo, dead. I thought of Dorian, who had just learned both of his parents were monsters.

“Enough.” The guard’s voice was smooth, final. “We are losing control. Call him.”

A second guard responded urgently. “But the High King isn’t meant to? — ”

“I said,” the first guard growled as he tightened his grip on me. “Call him. Let him finish this. ”