Page 197 of Brimstone

I needed to get out of here and fast.

The foundations of the house shuddered as I skirted around the chandelier and bolted up the stairs, taking them two at a time. The rot hadn’t succeeded in smashing the windows up here yet. The glossy black vines spiderwebbed up the walls and almost covered the glass in the windowpanes completely, though, shutting out the fading light.

At the end of the long hallway, Fisher’s bedroom door was closed. I went to open it and wrenched my hand back, cursing through my teeth. The handle was cold as ice. Colder. The metal felt as though it had been forged in the fifth circle of hell itself. A red welt marked my palm, as angry and painful as if I’d just closed my hand around a poker that had been left in a fire too long. It hurt to make a fist. It fucking hurt to keep my hand open, too.

Another fit of cursing under my breath.

“You don’t want me to go in there, do you?” The accusation was for the rot. For the house itself. Clearly, neither wanted me here. I took a moment to study the door—why wasn’t it splintering and dry like all of the other woodwork in the house?—and quickly assessed where best to show it to the sole of my boot. Decision made, I kicked the door right by the handle as hard as I could . . .

. . . and nothing happened.

The door held strong.

I tried again.

And again.

Andagain.

The wood didn’t even scuff, and I put everything I had behind my kicks. My Fae and vampire strength combined should easily have brought the damned thing off its hinges, and yet it didn’t budge. A scream built in my throat, gaining momentum, but I clamped my jaw shut and focused.

I didn’t need brute strength for this. I had something better. I’d blown a twenty-foot-wide hole in the side of Ammontraíeth’s library with my power, hadn’t I? I could take out a fuckingdoor.

Hand outstretched, I summoned my power, trying to remember what it felt like back in the library, right before I’d blasted that hole in the stonework. The prickling, the tingling, the powerful rush, and then the wave of adrenaline that had cascaded through me as the magic fired out of me.

It rose inside me. I closed my mind around the surging sensation, attempting to stem the flow a little, to control how much of it would jettison out of me . . . and it worked. Kind of. The bolt of white-blue energy that burst from my hand wasn’t quite as astronomical as it had been back at the Black Palace, but it was pretty damned close. Surprise rocked me as the magic slammed into the wall. I hadn’t even really believed my magic would work; thiswasa dream, after all.

The veryinstantthe magic came into contact with the door—and its frame and three feet of wall on either side—I knew I’d made a mistake. The tendrils of rot that covered the wood pulsed, flaring white, then doubled in size right before my eyes.

The threads of dark power expanded, working itself into knots, forming a hard shell over the door—

“Oh, come on! You’ve gotta be fuckingkiddingme!” The rot hadabsorbedmy power. Tiny white-blue orbs glowed inside its vines, traveling through the crosshatched network of threads that now barred the door. I’d made it worse, infinitely so, and it was my own fucking fault. Fisher and Ren had used their power on the infected feeders, and it had only made them morepowerful. I should have known my magic would do the same thing here.

Idiot.

Okay. So I couldn’t use my power. I couldn’t force the door open. So whatcouldI do? What was missing? There had to be some way to get inside that bedroom. This was a dream. It shouldn’t have been this hard. This was—

I stilled, chewing on my bottom lip as I stared at the cursed door.

This wasmydream.

I was here right now becauseI’dwilled it. Back in Zilvaren, I’d made a game out of changing the face of my dreams as a child. I’d willed the sky pink. I’d willed it so that the desert became an ocean. Later, when I was older, I’d willed it so that my mother wasn’t dead.

Iwouldwill this godscursed door open.

I closed my eyes and focused. I pictured the door. I imagined it free of the rot. In my mind, it opened easily, swinging open. I opened my eyes again . . .

. . . and the door wasstillclosed.

The gods and all four winds take this fucking place.I gnawed on the end of my thumbnail, thinking furiously. How was I going to do it? I could run back down to the forge and get a crowbar. No, that wouldn’t work. I’d used enough force to kick the thing down just now and it hadn’t even cracked. A crowbar wouldn’t work, and I couldn’t risk touching the rot. The door was obviously warded. Magic was keeping me out, which meant that I’d need magic to get in. A different kind of magic, then. Something . . .

I stopped chewing my thumbnail, staring down at the back of my hand.

Wow. I wasn’t thinking clearlyat all.

The quicksilver rune was sealed there in metallic blue-black. The brimstone rune was outlined, requesting to be sealed. I had work to do before I accomplishedthat.There was research to be done, and challenges to be faced. Edina had said that sealing the rune—and being able to access its magic as a result—would cost me dearly. I hadn’t even felt a glimmer of power coming from the brimstone rune yet, so that was no help. But then there was the third rune. Gods, thethirdrune, which the Hazrax had given me! It was right there. And what had he called it? A rune for undoing? For breaking? He’d said it didn’t give me magic. It gave me an ability. If I used it on the door . . .

I closed my mind and sought it out. Therewasan energy there. I’d felt it the other night, quiet but powerful, when I’d gone to Tal’s bedside and severed the spellwork he’d let Iseabail ink into his chest. I’d been afraid of it, then. I hadn’t been in control, hadn’t had a clue what was happening. But now . . .